Using Folk Signs In Teaching Russian As A Foreign Language

Abstract

The paper provides a rationale for using texts of Russian folk signs in teaching Russian as a foreign language. Folk signs contain important linguistic and cultural data, which often leads to a more profound insight into the Russian culture and Russian traditional mentality. From these positions, it is possible to more deeply understand the essence of the phenomenon consisting in the coincidence of events in objective reality - this phenomenon is called "synchronicity". The purpose of this paper is to show that folk signs in Russian traditional culture may constitute a valuable source of linguistic and cultural information for the purposes of teaching Russian as a foreign language. Folk signs in Russian traditional culture appear as binomial semiotic models in which a directly perceived event, insignificant in nature, means an event of a different kind. It fulfills itself in the future, it is more important for a person and it is considered from the point of view of assessment (“for the better” or “for the worse”). Thus, folk signs give a person information about the future. Particular issues that are considered in connection with the noted problem of folk signs are as follows: their logical structure, symbolism, cultural semantics, vocabulary, and linguistic features. An in-depth study of folk signs has interdisciplinary significance. It allows us to penetrate the essence of the phenomenon called “synchronicity” and is currently of interest to quantum physics and philosophy.