Russian Textbooks Research Articles

Использование префиксов и суффиксов в качестве стратегий обучения русской лексике

In the contents of Russian textbooks, prefixes are emphasized in sections regarding verbs of motion and verb aspects through prefixation; therefore, learners tend to overlook the importance of suffixes. In this regard, learners do not employ suffixes due to the lack of descriptions in the textbooks. Hence, this study examined the use of Russian derivational prefixes and suffixes as vocabulary learning strategies. For this purpose, the author administered a questionnaire to students majoring in Russian language as their first foreign language at the author’s university regarding the use of derivational prefixes and suffixes when learning Russian vocabulary. In comparison with the primary literature (Schmitt 1997), the data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed using mixed methods research approach. The findings showed that most learners used prefixes to discover the meanings of unknown words and consolidate them in their memory; however, they did not use suffixes for these purposes and did not consider them to be effective as vocabulary learning strategies. The results highlight the following two points: (1) in contrast to English learners, Russian learners do employ vocabulary learning strategies with prefixes and suffixes. (2) However, they have greater knowledge of prefixes than that of suffixes. For the first time, this study revealed the details about the use of Russian affixes as learning strategies. Since previous research has indicated that knowledge of suffixes is significant for increasing Russian vocabulary, Russian textbooks should add descriptions of suffixes as word-formation units.

Examination of the mentally ills in the Samara province in the 1860-ies

The article examines the dynamics of perception of the mentally ill by the Russian society and the state authorities with the help of comparative-historical method and analysis of sources. The chronological framework of the work covers the period from the first attempts to help the insane with the help of spiritual healing in monasteries to the large-scale reforms of the 1860-ies and the revolution in the organization of public medicine. The author is most interested in the changes caused by the formation of psychiatry as a separate branch of medical science, including the emergence of expert psychiatrists and the introduction of psychiatric trials procedures by the middle of the XIX century. For a detailed study of such innovations in psychiatric practice, the procedure of examination of the mentally ill, carried out in the Samara province in the 1860-ies, was chosen. The source base for the research is archival materials from the funds of the Central State Archive of the Samara Region, as well as scientific and published written sources. These include the first Russian textbooks and manuals on psychiatry. There is a growing interest in the study of the phenomenon of «madness» in modern historiography. However, there was practically no large-scale systematic research on the history of the origin of psychiatry in the Samara province in the middle of the XIX century. The findings obtained in the course of the study give an idea of the changing perception of the insane by society and the authorities. There is a transfer of the main role in the trials of the mentally ill and, accordingly, the right to make a conclusion about their condition from representatives of the administrative authorities to psychiatrists. An attitude towards insanity is being formed and consolidated not as a social danger, but as a disease requiring specialized medical care. Thus, madness is transformed from a social phenomenon into a medical one.

How language teachers can go beyond speech etiquette: Adapting L2 Russian coursebooks to improve pragmatic competence

Within the field of RKI – russkij kak inostrannyj ‘Russian as a Foreign Language/L2 Russian’, so far little attention has been paid to teaching pragmatic competence, as the issues of language in context are traditionally covered by the subject rečevoj ėtiket ‘speech etiquette’, leaving pragmatics an underexplored field.The present study aims to analyze whether and to what extent current L2 Russian textbooks introduce topics related to pragmatics and, if so, how the existing material can be adapted to improve explicit instruction of pragmatic competence.The analysis was conducted on two handbooks of Russian rečevoj ėtiket ‘speech etiquette’ for L2 learners and a series of four textbooks designed for L1 Italian learners. Data analysis confirms the global tendency for textbooks to provide scarce to null meta-pragmatic explanations. The coursebooks were then searched for elements related to the speech act of request, and the materials were adapted to fit explicit pragmatic instruction. The material adaptations proposed in the current study are based on previous research on Russian pragmatics and L2 pragmatics and aim to overcome the ethno-nationalistic perspective of speech etiquette toward a more transnational Russophone context. Implications for teacher education are presented.

Analiza comparată a curriculumului și a manualelor de fizică pentru clasa a VII-a din România, Rusia și Republica Moldova din punctul de vedere al susținerii conceptului de competențe de învățare pe tot parcursul vieții

In this paper, the lifelong learning competencies supported by physics textbooks for the 7th grade from Romania, Russia, and the Republic of Moldova were studied. Additionally, it was investigated whether there is any discrepancy between the competency units declared in the curriculum and the content and structure of the textbooks. A comparative analysis was conducted on Unit 2 “Mechanical Phenomena. Interactionsˮ from the Romanian textbook, Chapter 2 “Interaction of Bodiesˮ from the Russian textbook, and Chapter 2 “Interactionsˮ from the Moldovan textbook. It was found that the Romanian textbook emphasizes the development of technological skills and critical and analytical thinking through the conduct and analysis of experiment results within each lesson, as well as problem-solving skills by examining complex real-world situations. However, the Romanian curriculum lacks specific competency units for the learning unit. The Russian textbook is distinguished by a clear, structured, and concise presentation of the material, and the Russian curriculum includes a short list of cognitive objectives that fully reflect the constructivist nature of learning. It was established that the Moldovan textbook supports autonomous learning, problem-solving, and technological skills, corresponding in such a way to the curriculum.

J.A. HEIM‘S TEXTBOOK “ RUSSISCHE SPRACHLEHRE FüR DEUTSCHE”: METATEXTUAL PRINCIPLES OF DESCRIPTION

The article is devoted to the period of the origin of Russian textbook studies in foreign languages, a significant contribution to the formation of which was made by Professor of Imperial Moscow University Ivan Andreevich Нeim (1759–1821), an encyclopedic scholar, teacher, and public figure. The article provides a brief description of the professional scientific and pedagogical biography of I.A. Нeim, who was at different periods of his academic activity not only a professor, but also the first Dean of the Faculty of Philology and the Rector of the University. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the structural and substantive characteristics of the first edition of the textbook by I.A. Heim “Russian Grammar for Germans” in 1789 (German: “Russische Sprachlehre für Deutsche”). Variant features of the metalanguage of the book in the field of translation of terms, as well as units at the graphical, orthographic, morphological and lexical levels are revealed. The content of the book, on the one hand, includes a theoretical description of the structure of the Russian language (in German), on the other hand, it is practical in nature, which is manifested in the absence of a large number of definitions, the presence of sections on teaching phonetics, a mini-dictionary and bilingual dialogues on everyday topics. The analysis of the textbook provides us with insights into the formation of textbook studies at the end of the 18th century and enables us to discuss the creation and development of prototypes of a modern tutorial book and phrase book of foreign languages.

THE DYNAMICS OF SCIENTIFIC DESCRIPTION OF INDIVIDUALLY COINED AUTHOR’S NEOLOGISMS: FROM ‘VIOLATING’ THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM TO REALIZING ITS POTENTIAL

The description of author’s neologisms (occasional words) by linguistics demonstrates the dynamics of their scientific understanding: initially perceived as ‘violators’ of language standards, they eventually acquire the status of speech units that reveal the potential of the linguistic word-formation subsystem. In this regard, the canonical markers of occasionalisms need to be reconsidered. The most complicated marker of the author’s neologism is non-normativity: the very fact of its occurrence or inconsistency (structural or semantic) with the language word-formation standards could be considered non-normative. The question of the normativity/non-normativity of an occasional word in academia could be considered within the framework of diachronic and synchronic approaches. The study of the non-normativity markers of author’s neologism is most productive if carried out on the basis of a single semantic family realized in the text: within this approach occasional expressions that seem individually non-normative often form a coherent system that fits perfectly into linguistic word-formation standards. Within the academic perception discourse author’s neologism as a realized potential of the word-formation system should be distinguished from actual neologism - the result of word formation. In fact, the criteria for distinguishing neologisms from occasional words are not always clear, the boundaries are unsteady: there are many cases when an occasionalism starts to reproduce itself and enters the language vocabulary which might indirectly indicate that native speakers perceive it as a standard lexical unit. The change in the status of an occasional word in linguistics as well as general attention to the functioning of language noted in modern linguistics led to the fact that the author’s neology began to be studied at school: educational information about it is included in contemporary school Russian textbooks and workbooks.

STUDYING STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE INTEREST IN TEXT FROM A LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

This work will focus on text-based interest, which may be found in this article using a linguistics method. The principles of linguistics of emotions, which integrate the findings of language and psychology studies, provide the groundwork for this strategy. The paper delves into the linguistic methods of text-based interest analysis and how they relate to interest's function in interactive instructional discourse. One definition of active, emotion-evoking discourse is the communicative scenario in which an informative text piques the reader's curiosity. The speaker's goal in adopting interest-evoking rhetorical tactics—that is, strategies for generating texts to evoke the audience's attention—is to "evoke the recipient's interest" in this particular discourse. Applying techniques from communicative-functional linguistics, we may analyze these systems. First, we can pinpoint specific tactics with the use of these methods. The essay uses two such systems—text dialogization and contextualization—in Russian textbooks as an example. Second, to implement these tactics, the communicative-functional approaches show the most important ways of using language and producing finished content. We think these methods are what people mean when discussing the concretization of text content, developing text emotiveness, and forming text dialogicity.

Американские учебники русского языка и языковая политика США: к вопросу о мотивации к изучению

<p>The article is devoted to the study of the US language policy in the field of teaching foreign languages, including Russian, and the relationship between language policy and the national security strategy of the country. At the same time, due to the lack of federal regulation in the field of teaching foreign languages, the creation and use of textbooks of the Russian language as a foreign language is not regulated and is given to the educational and regional organizations on the state level. Based on the study of textbooks of Russian as a foreign language compiled by American authors from the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> to the beginning of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, which is conducted according to several parameters — the content of the preface, methodological and motivational component, textual and lexical material, as well as the target audience — the author of the article concludes that textbooks do not reflect the real picture of cultural and social life in Russia, do not motivate learners, do not keep up with the changes taking place in Russian society, and thus create a false stereotypical image of our country among American students. The author sees the solution to this situation in the creation of digital textbooks of Russian as a foreign language.</p>

Proverbs and sayings in modern Chinese textbooks for studying Russian as a foreign language as tools of creating the image of Russia

In Russian as a foreign language textbooks, proverbs and sayings dedicated to Russian culture are often encountered. These fixed expressions enrich the foreign students’ associations with Russia and its people as well as comprehensively draw a truthful and vivid image of Russian culture, and enhance the students’ interest in studying the Russian language. In the present research, proverbs and sayings are considered not only as a culturological phenomenon but also as a means of shaping an image of Russia in Russian as a foreign language textbooks. The object of the study is the Russian proverbs and sayings in modern Chinese textbooks of Russian as a foreign language. The article examines the role of the Russian proverbs and sayings as the tools for creating the image of Russia in modern Chinese textbooks of Russian as a foreign language. The material of the paper consists of proverbs and sayings in the textbooks "Russian Language in Universities" published in China from 2008 to 2014. Using continuous sampling method, we have identified more than 250 Russian proverbs and sayings. The methodology of the work combines elements of comparative and content analysis of the source data. The scientific originality of the study involves identification of the structure of Russia’s image represented by the proverbs and sayings under consideration. The article identifies and analyzes the following components of the image of Russia created by proverbs: natural, historical images, images of spiritual culture and everyday life. Proverbs and sayings are a phenomenon of human existence, fragments and treasures of popular wisdom. They reflect the natural image, character, mentality, worldview of the people who created them, their traditions, customs, and history, etc. Considering both linguistic and extralinguistic factors, the author concludes that in modern Chinese textbooks of Russian as a foreign language, Russian proverbs and sayings have become effective and constructive means of stimulating rich associations about Russia among students, and they shape a typical natural image, a rich image of spiritual culture, multifaceted everyday life, and a comprehensive historical image of Russia.

Lexical diversity as a predictor of complexity in textbooks on the Russian language

The parametric model of the text as a research problem is of paramount importance in modern linguistics and education, since it opens up new approaches to understanding the processes of comprehending texts of various types. In the current study, 17 Russian language textbooks for elementary school were employed to identify correlations between lexical diversity indices and other complexity predictors. The total volume of the corpus compiled for the study is 439,938 words. The two-stage research algorithm included the evaluation of the reference values of text features at the basic level (word length, sentence length, the number of unique, non-repeating words and the number of word forms), evaluation and subsequent contrasting of complexity predictors, i.e. lexical diversity and readability indices. All calculations were performed with the automatic text analyzer RuLingva. The study revealed a positive dynamic of readability and no evidence of lexical diversity increase across grades. An average level of vocabulary diversity and overlaps of every 4th word in the text are fixed. No indication of correlation between text readability and lexical diversity is found. The obtained results can be useful to researchers, textbook authors, and teachers selecting textbooks. The prospects are seen in implementing functional and epidigmatic stratification of the vocabulary of the Russian textbooks under study.

Россия в учебниках русского языка для американцев: лексический аспект

<p>The article is devoted to the study of the lexis of textbooks of Russian as a foreign language, created by American authors for American students. This lexis is potentially able to participate in creating the image of Russia. Using the methods of continuous sampling, contextual and quantitative analysis, the author of the article examines the vocabulary (lexis) used by the authors of the textbooks to describe the leisure of Russians, their food and meal times to analyze its potential participation in shaping the image of our country in American students. The article shows how at the level of a textbook of Russian as a foreign language a stereotypical image of our country is created in the United States, the image built on stable clichéd ideas about Russia: after analyzing the vocabulary of 50 Russian language textbooks created in the United States from the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century to the present, the most frequent lexemes were identified, such as «vodka», «beer», «tea», «shchi», «borscht», «caviar», «samovar», «drink vodka».</p>

Digital Economy: a Foreign Textbook in the Russian Educational Environment. Review of the Book by H. Overby and I. Odestad “Digital Economy”

The article discusses the possibilities of using the textbook written by HaraldOverby and Jan A. Audestad ‘Digital Economy’ in the context of educational and methodological support of relevant disciplines taught in Russian universities. Some Russian textbooks on digital economy is briefly overviewed. The advantages of the reviewed textbook are revealed, consisting in its conciseness, structuring, a high level of schematization of the material, and in terms of content – in supporting an optimal balance in the interpretation of the two basic components of the central concept: ‘digital (one)’ and ‘economy’. It is discussed that the definitions of key concepts are not sufficiently elaborated, as well as that when presenting the material, the digital economy is not embedded in the broader context of the development of the economy and society as a whole. There is also a lack of linking the author's narrative with the issues of self-determination of young people in the digital economy. The conclusion is made about the possible place and role of this textbook in the educational process.

WAYS TO PERSONALISE EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS WHILE TEACHING RUSSIAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE ONLINE

The paper analyses the ways educational materials, including those presented in e-textbooks, can be personalised for online classes of Russian as a foreign language. Considering e-learning as an educational process based on application of interactive informational technologies of storing and processing teaching materials, the authors outline an algorithm of teaching on the basis of existing textbooks of Russian as a foreign language in the format relevant for effective digital teaching. The authors share their experience of synchronous e-teaching and highlight the necessity of modifying educational materials of a concrete textbook that emerges due to the personalised approach to teaching foreign languages, especially Russian as a foreign language online. Synchronous e-teaching means regular distant interaction between a teacher and a group of learners / individual learners in the form of communication via personal computers. In this environment printed means of teaching, textbooks, which have proved their efficiency during traditional offline classes, and primarily tasks for independent study of those learning Russian as a foreign language can be modified or designed through relevant web technologies and tools of e-learning...

ОТРАЖЕНИЕ ВЕЛИКОЙ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ ВОЙНЫ В РОССИЙСКИХ УЧЕБНИКАХ ИСТОРИИ В ФОКУСЕ ИСТОРИОГРАФИИ

This article discusses the current state of the study of history textbooks, presents a historiographic review of materials on the coverage of the Great Patriotic War in the history textbooks of Russia in 1992–2020. In the modern world, textbooks, teaching aids and school programs are the key instruments of the state politics of memory. The Great Patriotic War has become one of the central objects of the historical memory of Russian society and one of the pillars of Russian identity, and therefore is actively used in all of the above tools of education and politics of memory. Two main areas of study of textbooks are singled out - as educational and as ideological texts. The ideological views of researchers and their own attitude to the Great Patriotic War and World War II, memory and politics of memory about them are revealed, which can be attributed to “patriotic”, “liberal” and corresponding to Western academic discourse. The assessment by scientists of textbooks of different years is considered, it is established that Russian textbooks received mixed, mostly positive assessments. Evaluation of textbooks depends on the ideological views of the scientist. The obvious insufficiency of studying the new line of domestic textbooks (after 2016) is noted, as well as the methodological limitations of the approaches to the analysis of educational texts existing in the literature. Such a study should combine the methods of narrative analysis and discourse analysis, pay attention to the methods of constructing historical myths and direct falsifications.

To the History of Scientific Concepts of the XIX Century Domestic Psychiatry: P.A. Butkovskiy’s Textbook

Background: the elaboration of problems of clinical psychiatry in Russia had already begun in the end of the XVIII — beginning of the XIX centuries by professors of internal medicine and of other branches of medical academic institutions, and from the thirties years of XIX century gradually moved to the hands of the doctors who were specialized in psychiatry (V.F. Sabler, A.I. Gerzog, I.F. Rjul, I.P. Malinovskiy and others).The aim was to analyze the history of the formation of scientific concepts in Russian psychiatry in comparison with the relevant German and French psychiatric concepts at that time.Method: narrative review.Conclusion: the author of the first domestic textbook of psychiatry “Diseases of the soul” (1834) was Professor of department of surgery and mental diseases of Kharkov’s University P.A. Butkovskiy. Creating his textbook P.A. Butkovskiy grounded on the textbook of one of the founders of german “school of psychics” J.Ch. Heinroth (1818) and took as a basis of classification of mental diseases Heinroth’s systematics. The forms of mental diseases according to P.A. Butkovskiy and J.Ch. Heinroth were distinguished by two principal signs: predomination of affection of the one among three areas of psyche: imagination, intellect and volition, and due to the changes in its functions: amplification or weakening. Wherein P.A. Butkovskiy connected with the affection of the brain only the group of “paranoiс” diseases (general paranoia, ecnoia, paraphrosyne, moria) and acquired stupidity (anoia) that were explained by exaggeration or weakening of the brain functioning respectively. P.A. Butkovskiy also introduced in Russian psychiatry the notion of “dynamics” and “psychosomatic” that were borrowed from J.Ch. Heinroth, and the concept of “general feeling” (coenesthesis) of J. Reil. The forms of mental disorders distinguished by J.Ch. Heinroth represented the next progressive step in the differentiation of syndrome pictures of mental diseases (but not in psychiatric nosology as the author considered), and the fact that P.A. Butkovskiy, the author of the first Russian Textbook on Psychiatry, created the similar systematics on the same principles, contributed to the building of mutual understanding between national psychiatric schools that were in the process of being formed.

Filipp Fortunatov: An Underestimated Talent

This article marks the 175 anniversary of the famous Russian linguist Filipp Fortunatov and looks at his major findings. It is pointed out that in certain respects the scholar has contributed a lot to the linguistic science of his time. While working in the sphere of comparative linguistics, F. Fortunatov was actively involved in the studies of the Baltic-Slavic languages. In his contemplation of the sociological aspect of language, he forestalled the appearance of psycholinguistics. Concurrently, the scholar based his judgments on the then popular neogrammarian movement and the German psychological school. While analyzing the phonic aspect of the word, F. Fortunatov also used the provisions that would nowadays be deemed psycholinguistic. His contribution to the development of the theory of syntax and pedagogical ideas is undeniable, too. F. Fortunatov obviously deserves credit for having founded the Moscow linguistic school that fostered a constellation of talented scholars. Moreover, F. Fortunatov’s morphological classification of world languages is recognized as a most accurate one by modern typology. This classification was elaborated long before the linguists of the 20th century came to similar findings. The above mentioned achievements by F. Fortunatov seem to be misappreciated by Russian linguists let alone the Western ones. Russian textbooks of typology favor the morphological classification put forward by W. von Humboldt, although, as it is argued in the article, F. Fortunatov’s classification presents typological diversity of world languages more profoundly and precisely. If W. von Humboldt distinguished four language types, F. Fortunatov did five. His classification, except for minor terminological differences, overlaps with the five world language types singled out by scholars in the 20th century, in particular by V. Skalička. All this goes to say that the breakthrough in world language typology made by F. Fortunatov has really been misappreciated by modern linguistics and pedagogy.

Methodology and Technique for Assessing the Terminology Consistency in Translations: Based on Latvian and Russian Economic Texts

Relevance of the issue: the topicality of the issue of terminology consistency in translations of economic texts is currently emphasized by the Latvian State Language Center and determined by the fact that many economic terms emerged in Latvian and Russian relatively recently, during the transition from a planned economy to a market economy. It remains disputable how to define and assess the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts. The corpus of the study comprises Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics of three generations (1990s, 2000s and 2010s), and in addition to them - bilingual and multilingual dictionaries of economic terms published in Latvia and Russia since 1990. The paper proves that that terminology consistency in translations of economic (and not only) texts can be assessed and compared (between text corpora and time periods) using scientific methodology and a special technique. The method of research are linguistic discourse analysis, which includes both quantitative and qualitative methods. General results, which also form the scientific novelty of this study include: (1) the put forward conceptual understanding of the terminology consistency as the structural component of the overall quality of terminology translation as well as the definition of the terminology consistency in translations; (2) the elaborated original methodology and technique for assessing the terminology consistency in translations not in the categories of ‘good-bad’, but in the conditionally ambivalent categories ‘consistent-inconsistent’ (for the incidental identification of processes occurring in the studied economic discourse); (3) the explained essence of discourse in translation studies, which is the target text within the background processes of the social reality that determine the creation (synthesis) and perception (analysis) of the translation.

Типология учебников русского языка на основе ReaderBench: уровневый и тематический подходы

Типология учебников русского языка на основе ReaderBench: уровневый и тематический подходы

Task Stratification and Differentiation Strategies for Partially Sighted and Dyslexic Learners in Textbooks of Russian as a Foreign Language: An Italian Case Study of Non-Inclusive Learning/Teaching

This paper aims to analyze six of the most popular textbooks for Russian as a foreign language (RFL) for adolescent and adult learners used in Italy, namely Reportazh, Russkiy klass, Molodets, Davayte, Poyekhali, and Ura, to see whether and how task stratification and differentiation strategies are put in place for partially sighted (PS) and dyslexic (D) learners. Through a comparative content analysis, it is shown that there is a total lack of educational design aimed at the inclusion of PS and D learners in the Italian context. This may be due to the greater presence in such textbooks of traditional RFL views, which generally do not prioritize inclusion, as well as to carelessness toward the contributions of Italian-based glottodidactics, which, in contrast, is very attentive to inclusion issues, even for languages other than Russian. Finally, some suggestions are given, accompanied by practical examples, for enhancing the inclusivity of these textbooks.

The first russian textbook on Quebec culture

The article is devoted to the textbook by Ekaterina Isaeva “The Culture of Québec”. It analyses the content of the textbook and pointed out its advantages. It shows the prospects of using this textbook in universities of the Russian Federation for the courses on social sciences and humanities.