Russian Language Studies

 The authors state the decline in the number of Russian speakers in the world in the post-Soviet period and show the significant potential of international organisations involving Russia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (the SCO) in particular, in strengthening the position of the Russian language and culture abroad. The study emphasises that multilateral diplomatic institutions give Russia opportunity to shape a humanitarian agenda for sustainable cooperation and cultural integration. This demonstrates the relevance of the research aimed at revealing the potential of the SCO for promoting the Russian language and culture in the world. The authors use methods of observation, experience generalisation, forecasting scenarios for strengthening the position of the Russian language in the world, as well as methods of quantitative, systematic, chronological, and factual analysis. The research material includes normative acts, data from authoritative analytical agencies, and information resources of official organisations promoting the Russian language and culture abroad. The study summarises the regulatory framework for promoting the Russian language abroad and proposes that Russia’s language policy should include conceptual foundations for promoting the Russian language and culture through multilateral diplomatic institutions, primarily the SCO and BRICS+. It describes scientific, scientific-methodological, educational, and cultural activities in the SCO countries and identifies gaps in promoting the Russian language and culture abroad to be filled in the nearest future. The authors formulate recommendations for improving the existing system for developing and promoting the Russian language in the SCO countries and identify the potential for institutionalising the Russian language and spreading it around the world through international organisations.

This study investigates a key assumption in generative linguistics about the dual nature of the grammatical case and its two distinct operations, syntactic or abstract case matching and morphological case ascription. The relevance of this study lies in its provision of experimental evidence demonstrating that these two operations can be analysed as distinct procedures, yielding differentiated outcomes when examined from the perspective of acquisition. The Spanish and Russian languages use Differential Object Marking (DOM) for animate direct objects, in most cases, in similar syntactic positions. However, Russian has more complex morphological conditions for using case patterns, particularly in DOM. The aim of this study is twofold: (i) to examine possible asymmetries between syntactic and morphological case operations in Spanish speakers with partial knowledge of Russian cases, and (ii) to determine whether the intricate syntax-morphology interface of Russian DOM presents specific challenges to L2 learners compared to other case positions. The authors conducted an experiment to assess the accuracy of case acquisition among young adult Spanish learners of Russian as a second language (L2) who live in Spain compared to adult native Russian speakers living in Russia. The materials of the study comprised a balanced selection of Russian DOM constructions (target stimuli) in contrast with sentences with alternative syntactic contexts and filler items to ensure variability. The research has shown that Spanish-speaking L2 learners experience significant difficulties while acquiring Russian case, especially with regard to the DOM. Consequently, L2 acquisition is vulnerable in contexts where the syntactic — morphological interface is not the same in the two languages. Future research will examine the difficulties in acquiring Russian DOM among speakers of languages without DOM (e.g., German or English) and assess whether DOM in a learner’s first language (L1) undergoes a congruency effect in L2 acquisition.

The relevance of the topic is substantiated by the current trends in studying a poetic text as a specific speech-thinking formation focused on the aestheticization of the images of the reflected world and possessing pronounced communicative and pragmatic components. The aim of the study is to determine the features of the formation of the supertext layer in O.E. Mandelstam’s poem “Alexander Gertsevich Lived...”. The authors use methods of contextual and interpretative text analysis and the method of intertextual analysis as linguistic tools. The study views a poetic text as a cognitive-synergetic phenomenon that emerges from the interaction of discursive and interdiscursive factors. It is determined that the transformation of the linguistic sign semantics in the poetic masterpiece is directly related to the thickening of meanings as a result of interaction of different figurative means and stylistic figures in a limited textual space. It is concluded that the supertextual layer of Mandelstastam’s poem is formed by various idiostylistic manifestations, such as the syntactic organization of the poetic text, which manifests the rich rhythm-melody, verse musicality and the phonosemantic dynamics. We emphasize that the supertext allows to express the poet’s inner creative state, to convey the dynamics of struggle with himself, to show the polemical search for philosophical guidelines for self-assessment of his spiritual state and its meaning for the creative process. The prospect of research is the development of the theory of supertext in poetic discourse.

The relevance of the study is due to the interest of modern linguistics in the ethnospecificity of the verbal expression of universal life situations in the proverbial funds of different nations and to the insufficient study of proverbial modeling. The aim of this study is to identify the features of the proverbial representation of the situation of wine drinking through anthroponyms, zoonyms, and religionyms in Russian paremias. The material for the study was paremias containing Bacchic vocabulary from the collection “Proverbs of the Russian People” by V.I. Dal collected with continuous sampling method. The object of the study is proverbs and sayings about drunkenness which include anthroponyms, zoonyms, and religionyms. To analyze and interpret the obtained data, the authors used general scientific methods (analysis and synthesis, empirical observation, description, and generalization), linguistic methods (lexical-semantic, conceptual, contextual, and linguistic-cultural analysis), and techniques of modeling and interpreting figurative meaning of proverbs. The novelty lies in determining the specific functions of anthroponyms, zoonyms, and religionyms in modeling the proverbial situation of wine drinking. The analysis revealed that anthroponyms, zoonyms, and religionyms are used to objectify the subject and object, action and state, and the chronotope of the referential situation of wine drinking. Proper names in proverbs about drunkenness reflect the people’s perceptions of the subject, object, and the time of the referential situation. Zoonyms characterize the subject, their qualities, actions, and state and correlate with chronotope. Religionyms represent all the situation components. The externalization of the reference situation of wine drinking through anthroponymic, zoonymic, and religious vocabulary in Russian paremias places both the situation itself and its individual components in a coordinate system with a spiritual vertical and a human horizontal. The prospects for research are seen in studying ethnic specificity of proverbial modeling of other referential situations, including comparative perspective.

Internship readiness is critical for language majors preparing to enter the hospitality industry, yet little research has explored how service-learning supports this development in non-English language programs. In Vietnam, the rising demand for Russian-speaking hospitality professionals underscores the need for effective, discipline-specific pedagogical models. This study investigates how a service-learning project embedded in a Russian for Specific Purposes (RSP) module enhances students’ internship readiness through applied language use, reflective learning, and professional skill acquisition. A qualitative single-case study was conducted involving ten third-year Russian majors at a Vietnamese university. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, reflective journals, and bilingual materials produced during a semester-long community-based service-learning project. Thematic analysis was guided by Kolb’s experiential learning theory and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) career readiness framework. The findings indicate that service-learning facilitates internship readiness by enhancing context-specific Russian language use, increasing students’ reflective awareness of communicative challenges, and fostering transferable skills such as teamwork, initiative, and intercultural competence. Students also reported increased self-confidence and a clearer understanding of their future professional roles. The study provides empirical evidence for the pedagogical value of integrating service-learning into RSP instruction. It demonstrates that experiential, community-engaged learning can effectively support both linguistic development and career preparedness. These insights offer a transferable model for vocational language education and contribute to broader discussions on employability-oriented curriculum design in non-English language programs.

The “new era” in China, the reform of humanitarian education and the “Russian Language +” concept implementation substantiate the need to modernize the course Reading Russian newspapers within the system of foreign language education. The aim of the study is to define new objectives for the course, to determine ways of updating Chinese textbooks for teaching newspaper reading, and to develop an original model of newspaper text analysis focused on teaching multidisciplinary specialists, fostering personality development in the spirit of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and cultivating media literacy. The materials include Chinese textbooks on newspaper reading (2002-2023) and studies by Russian and Chinese scholars; the methods applied were comprehensive theoretical analysis and comparative research. The findings reveal that the existing textbooks fail to meet the new objectives; they do not reflect China’s current ideological agenda, do not build knowledge of Russia’s media landscape, do not teach students to interpret a text as a reflection of a newspaper’s concept, do not develop skills of critical media analysis, and do not foster intercultural competence. The author identifies directions for their modernization, including the renewal of newspaper text corpora, the strengthening of students’ analytical and project-based activities, and the use of digital tools. A practice-oriented model of working with newspaper texts is proposed, which integrates media-linguistic, cultural, and ideological components. The prospect of the researchis the creation of a new textbook capable of realizing the educational and ideological potential of the discipline in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative .

The study studies the issues of lexicography and linguodidactics in the works of Izmail I. Sreznevsky. The research work is relevant due to the timeless value of studying the history of linguistics. Revised and reinterpreted Sreznevsky’s contribution to Russian and world linguistics gives a more detailed and comprehensive outlook on the previous state of the language science in correlation with its contemporary position. The aim of the study is to analyse Sreznevsky’s views on lexicography and linguodidactics and to compare them with the ideas of other scientists in the late 19th - early 20th century. The research is based on a complex system of methods including general scientific methods of cognition, description, comparative-contrastive analysis and the continuous sampling to choose the quotations from Sreznevsky’s works. The study analyzes his thoughts on the requirements to a dictionary and on existing Russian and foreign dictionaries. The study touches upon I.I. Sreznevsky’s views on the advantages and disadvantages of Russian and foreign pedagogical experience, the process of language acquisition, the role of the textbook in teaching, and the necessity of individual and communicative approaches in teaching. Additionally, it describes the methods of teaching the native language that are acceptable from I.I. Sreznevsky’s perspective for education in Russia. Furthermore, the study includes statements of other Russian and foreign linguists of the 19th century on similar issues, highlights the similarities and differences in their views, asserts thevalue of the analyzed scientific ideas and the methodological apparatus developed byI.I. Sreznevsky for the further development of lexicography and linguodidactics. Consequently, the authors show the directions of progressive development of language-focused subjects and the continuity of the philological knowledge.