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Proverbial Language And Its Role In Acquiring A Second Language And Culture, Natalya Vanyushkina Jan 2007

Proverbial Language And Its Role In Acquiring A Second Language And Culture, Natalya Vanyushkina

Russian Language Journal

Researchers in the domain of Russian as a foreign and a second language have paid relatively little attention to proverbs as units of linguistic and cultural expression. Due to this neglect and the overall scarcity of statistical data on current Russian proverbial language, many Russian textbooks and dictionaries offer at best some outdated proverbs that have fallen into disuse in contemporary Russia and at worst, disregard proverbial language altogether. However, this expressive language deserves much more serious consideration from both researchers and teachers of Russian. Russian native speakers take it for granted that their interlocutors share the assumptions behind proverbs, …


Self-Reported Russian And Belarusian Language Utilization In Key Economic, Political, And Social Domains In Belarus, N. Anthony Brown Jan 2007

Self-Reported Russian And Belarusian Language Utilization In Key Economic, Political, And Social Domains In Belarus, N. Anthony Brown

Russian Language Journal

The elicitation of language usage in the present study was carried out by means of a survey. Language utilization was surveyed in the home, in school, at work, and in government institutions to ascertain whether a functional hierarchy of domains in Belarusian and/or Russian obtains in Belarus. In addition, the study examines whether domain-specific language utilization varies according to participants’ sex. Respondents were asked to evaluate choice of language as “useful” or “necessary” for each domain. Findings reflect self-reports from 559 students born in Belarus and attending eight different institutions of higher education, cumulatively. Data were collected in three cities, …


Lexical Complexity Of Learner Discourse: Interpersonal And Presentational Mode Descriptions In Russian, Julia Mikhailova Jan 2007

Lexical Complexity Of Learner Discourse: Interpersonal And Presentational Mode Descriptions In Russian, Julia Mikhailova

Russian Language Journal

In this case study I will analyze the lexical complexity of oral descriptions produced by learners of Russian in two different but related kinds of oral proficiency interviews, the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and the Simulated Oral Proficiency Interview (SOPI). The OPI is a face-to-face or telephone interview of a speaker of a foreign language conducted by a tester certified by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). In the OPI, description is elicited by the examiner in the context of live interaction. The description is thus in interpersonal mode, as defined by the National Standards for …


Language Learning Behaviors Outside Of The Study Abroad Classroom: An Analysis Of Actr Program Participants At The Semester, Academic Year And Flagship Levels, Sharon L. Bain Jan 2007

Language Learning Behaviors Outside Of The Study Abroad Classroom: An Analysis Of Actr Program Participants At The Semester, Academic Year And Flagship Levels, Sharon L. Bain

Russian Language Journal

Recent research in the field of second language acquisition is reconsidering the relationship between learning context and language gain, and is reevaluating study abroad programs compared to home-based immersion programs (Collentine and Freed 2004; Freed et al 2004, Segalowitz et al 2004). These researchers and others (Pellegrino 2005, Rivers 1998, Davidson et al 1995) point out that learners in study abroad programs often do not achieve expected language gains across major thresholds as measured by ACTFL oral proficiency standards, and a large proportion of students make no measurable gain, even after four months of study abroad in Russia (Davidson 2007, …


Время Русского Языка, Марина Ремнева, Георгий Москвин Jan 2007

Время Русского Языка, Марина Ремнева, Георгий Москвин

Russian Language Journal

2007 год, объявленный президентом РФ В.В.Путиным годом русского языка, стал значимой вехой в новейшей истории. В этом плане 2007 год перестает быть обычным календарным временем, обозначая уже не меру дней – от января до января, – он становится названием геокультурной эпохи.


О Создании Фонда «Русский Мир», Вячеслав Никонов Jan 2007

О Создании Фонда «Русский Мир», Вячеслав Никонов

Russian Language Journal

The present article is based on a paper originally delivered by Dr. Vyacheslav A. Nikonov at an International Forum on the study and teaching of Russian in North America held 17-19 October 2007, at ACTR and the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D. C. The Forum was funded by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science. Dr. Nikonov is Director of the Russkiy Mir Foundation, established in June 2007 by a decree of President Putin for the purpose of "promoting the Russian language, as Russia's national heritage and a significant aspect of Russian and world culture, and supporting Russian language teaching …


Report On The Xi International Congress Of Maprial Varna Free University, Bulgaria September 2007, Robert Channon, Mary Nicholas, William Rivers Jan 2007

Report On The Xi International Congress Of Maprial Varna Free University, Bulgaria September 2007, Robert Channon, Mary Nicholas, William Rivers

Russian Language Journal

This overview of the papers at the MAPRIAL XI Congress in Varna focuses on presentations in linguistic analysis. Other overviews concentrate on the presentations in other areas. There were a great many highly compelling papers dealing with linguistic analysis, including presentations by some linguists whose names will be very familiar to those who follow this discipline. The papers’ topics ran the gamut from the history and development of Russian to those focusing on the analysis of contemporary Russian, as well as those looking ahead to how Russian may be changing, including current developments in colloquial language and slang. A particular …


Implementing Task-Based Teaching From The Ground Up: Considerations For Lesson Planning And Classroom Practice, William Comer Jan 2007

Implementing Task-Based Teaching From The Ground Up: Considerations For Lesson Planning And Classroom Practice, William Comer

Russian Language Journal

In the past twenty years, Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) has become a widely discussed approach to teaching foreign and second languages, and a significant body of literature has grown up around it. The approach has even been implemented on a large scale in some areas; for example, since 1990, instruction in Dutch as a second language in the Flemish areas of Belgium has been organized solely around the principles of TBLT (Van den Branden 2006, 13).


Full Issue Jan 2007

Full Issue

Russian Language Journal

No abstract provided.


Introduction To Volume 57 Jan 2007

Introduction To Volume 57

Russian Language Journal

Volume 57 of Russian Language Journal presents a distinguished set of U.S. and international research studies and reports reflecting the three major directions of RLJ: two significant contributions in the area of the description of contemporary standard Russian; two new works in the area of Russian language policy (one a corpus study, the other a status report); four new empirical studies on the acquisition of Russian as a foreign language by adult English-speaking learners; and two valuable studies ― one American, one Russian ― on recent changes affecting Russian in the foreign language classroom environment.


From Meaning To Form: An Alternative Model Of Functional Syntax, Arto Mustajoki Jan 2007

From Meaning To Form: An Alternative Model Of Functional Syntax, Arto Mustajoki

Russian Language Journal

The purpose of this article is to introduce a model for a meaning-based functional syntax. A full description of the model may be found in our recent monograph (Mustajoki 2006b). Work on the model has been carried out in the Department of Slavonic and Baltic Languages and Literature at the University of Helsinki over the last fifteen years. Given that the above-mentioned book and various shorter publications (Mustajoki 1997, 1999, 2003a, 2003b, 2004) have appeared in Russian, it seems appropriate to give a short overview of the model in English. The only presentation of the model in English thus far …


Эмоционально-Оценочный Аспект Русской Лексики И Фразеологии (Опыт Прагмалингвистического Словаря), Андрей Зайнульдинов Jan 2007

Эмоционально-Оценочный Аспект Русской Лексики И Фразеологии (Опыт Прагмалингвистического Словаря), Андрей Зайнульдинов

Russian Language Journal

В рамках огромного многообразия словарей различного типа, представленных в современной лексикографической практике, автором предложен тип словаря, посвященный выражению эмоциональной оценки как разновидности прагматической языковой информации, «Словарь эмоционально-оценочной русской лексики и фразеологии» (ЭМОС). Словарь ориентирован, в первую очередь, на иностранных учащихся, для которых прагматический аспект языкового значения особенно сложен.


Now I Know My Aбв’S: A Comparison Of Inductive And Deductive Methods Of Teaching On The Acquisition Of The Cyrillic Alphabet, Jennifer Bown, Thomas Bown, Courtenay Christiansen, Shalise Dudley, Shea Gibbons, Janine Green Jan 2007

Now I Know My Aбв’S: A Comparison Of Inductive And Deductive Methods Of Teaching On The Acquisition Of The Cyrillic Alphabet, Jennifer Bown, Thomas Bown, Courtenay Christiansen, Shalise Dudley, Shea Gibbons, Janine Green

Russian Language Journal

The study was designed to compare the effects of inductive verse deductive teaching methods on acquisition of the Russian alphabet. Inductive instruction refers to methods in which learners are first exposed to examples and then asked to extrapolate a rule from the example, whereas deductive instruction refers to methods in which learners are presented with a rule from the start. Eighty participants were randomly divided into two instructional groups, one receiving deductive instruction and the other receiving inductive instruction. Participants were given a pretest on Russian words and given instruction on the Cyrillic alphabet based on an inductive or a …


Русский Язык И Русская Речь: Парадоксы Современности, Татьяна Балыхина Jan 2007

Русский Язык И Русская Речь: Парадоксы Современности, Татьяна Балыхина

Russian Language Journal

Активные тенденции в современном русском языке. Язык и время - одна из проблем, волнующих исследователей. Язык живет во времени, а время отражается в языке, точнее оказывает влияние на язык. Возросшие темпы языковых изменений объясняются прежде всего меняющимся составом и обликом русского общества, сменой социальных, политических, экономических, а также психологических установок.