Polylinguality and Transcultural Practices

This survey is to summarize some aspect of the IX International Scientific and Practical Conference “Bi-, poly-, translingualism and language education” (30.11. - 02.12.2023, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia named after Patrice Lumumba, Moscow) that deals the name of Gennady P. Melnikov - an outstanding scientist, philosopher, systemologist, and linguist. The review indicates the specifics of the conference, presents some essence of systemology, and describes the content of some reports.

The study presents the results of a comparative study of the characteristics of the perception of verbal manifestations of a threat as an unlawful act in the aspects of its explication in the bilingual worldview of Belarusians. Additionally, the features of everyday and scientific (linguo-legal) understanding of speech statements containing signs of threat were subjected to comparative analysis. The study reflects issues related to the understanding of the category “picture of the world” from the perspective of the theory of bilingualism and modern legal linguistics, the phenomenon of threat as a criminal offense committed verbally. The practical part of the work was implemented in the form of an experimental survey, in which two groups of 70 people of natural bilinguals took part, who completed a task in Belarusian or Russian: select one or more statements from the proposed list, which, in their opinion, can be legally interpreted as a threat. The results of the experimental study showed the presence of discrepancies in the verbalization of the threat depending on the language code used: in the group that worked with Belarusian-language material, the absolute number of respondents who chose the statement “I will adjudicate and exterminate my justice - execution!” in one or another combination of answers was 41 people (58.6 %). Among respondents who completed the task in Russian, this figure is 31.7 % (26 people), which is lower, even taking into account the possible error. An analysis of all the respondents’ answers allowed us to conclude that in the everyday picture of the world of Belarusians, the explication of a threat often does not require an indication of the addresser, as well as an identifiable type of potential harm.

This study provides a general analysis of the ethnolinguistic situation in Kamchatka Krai in the context of language legislation, demographic and statistical data. The analysis of the official statistics (the 2020 All-Russian Population Census) shows that its data does not fully correspond to the real language situation in the region. Identifying the real language situation in Kamchatka Krai requires regular field research, sociolinguistic surveys of the population in the region and questionnaires. The author of this study notes that the dialectal fragmentation of native languages together with the terminological confusion in the names of languages and nationalities make it difficult to quantify both the number of indigenous peoples and number of native speakers. The study also provides a brief overview of regional and federal laws aimed at supporting and preserving the native languages of indigenous peoples, as well as statistical data on teaching and learning the native languages in Kamchatka Krai.

The study describes the principles of designing a morpheme-grammar dictionary of Russian verbs within the framework of systemic linguistics. As a working hypothesis for the creation of the dictionary the concept of G.P. Mel’nikov was chosen according to which the Russian verb, in addition to the binary category of aspect, also has a gradual “quantitative” category, which he proposed to name the category of action degree (CAD). The formal indicators of the grammatical meaning of the CAD are the suffixes -ну-, -Ø-, -e-, -и-, -ыва- . G.P. Mel’nikov believed that taking into account the CAD and highlighting a single stem in the verb paradigm after restoring the actual morphemic composition of each verb form would explain many irregularities in verb inflection and derivation. The analysis of the functioning of the CAD in modern Russian has shown that it has a great applied significance. Suffixes of CAD turned out to be a convenient criterion for dividing Russian verbs into morphological classes, which in turn have made it possible to present Russian verbs in an orderly manner in a lexicographic description. The article reveals the principles of morphemic analysis for identification of root and suffix allomorphs, provides a brief overview of morphological classes of verbs, and explains the structure of the dictionary entry which is a matrix. Matrix notation allows us to compactly represent all suffix and prefix forms of the verb in a systematic way, makes it possible to graphically show grammatical and morphological information as well as etymological and word-formation relationships within the verb system. Morphemic matrices have a high explanatory potential because they offer rich material for studying the mechanisms of word formation and observing the peculiarities of morpheme combinations. Morphemic matrices significantly expand the potential vocabulary, contribute to the development of a feeling for language, and facilitate the acquisition of morpheme-semantic intuition.

Thematic justification is explained by the necessity to analyze errors in the Russian speech of a bilingual personality of natural foreign - Russian bilingual Komi - Permyak based on specific character of the processes of his speech. Phenomenon of “error” is interpreted on the basis of psycholinguistic approach as a result of failure in mechanism of speech of a bilingual and linguo-methodological approaches as a fact of normalization disorder and the exploration of tooling for improving the Russian speech of a bilingual personality. The author relies on studies in which the linguistic and didactic vectors of error research tend to interpret the processes of speech-cognitive activity and are explained psycholinguistically and linguistically. The choice of a psycholinguistic approach to the study of errors makes it possible to identify their nature, to interpret them not only as facts of violation of speech normativity, but also as manifestations of processes of violations/failures/interference in the speech-mental activity of the speaker and writer. Purpose of the study is to analyze errors in the Russian speech of a bilingual speaker - a future teacher of the Russian language (Komi-Permyak) in the process of perception and generation of the Russian speech. Object of the study is the speech activity of a bilingual speaker in Russian, the subject is errors in his speech in the conditions of preparation for the profession of a Russian language teacher. Materials of the study were experimental data: errors in the written and oral Russian speech of bilingual Komi - Permyak students during linguo-methodological subjects and in their written works. The study methods are direct viewing of the Russian speech of a bilingual Komi - Permyak student, analysis of his written works and oral statements, error interpretation through psycholinguistic and linguo-methodological approaches. The study results confirm the hypothesis: the nature of errors in Russian oral and written speech of a foreign - Russian bilingual is psycholinguistic, appearing on the all levels of a bilingual personality in interlingual interactions of the systems of the native and Russian languages, which determines the functioning of the speech mechanisms in Russian. In order to improve the Russian speech of a foreign - Russian bilingual it is necessary to develop an effective linguo-methodological tooling for teaching.

The study is devoted to the pre-university stage of teaching foreign humanities students the Russian language. At the same time, special attention is paid to the cultural and educational environment, which remains insufficiently studied. The undertaken analysis of the classical, non-classical and post-non-classical stages (V.S. Stepin) in the development of science and education made it possible to reveal its synergetic, cognitive and linguodidactic potential. Consideration of the cultural and educational environment as the most important resource that activates the formation of a bilingual and multilingual linguistic personality led to the development of main directions in the organization of classes in the language of the specialty. The article reveals possible ways of practical implementation of the developed concept of cultural and educational environment in the process of preparing foreign students to study at humanities faculties of Russian universities.

The study analyzes the prose of Ch.T. Aitmatov, created in Russian, starting with the stories “Farewell, Gyulsary!”, “The White Steamer”, “The Piebald Dog Running by the Edge of the Sea” and ending with his “epic” novel, reveals the artistic evolution of the writer: from bilingualism to transculture. The ethno-ontological analysis of the stories and novels “And the Day Lasts Longer than a Century”, “The Scaffold”, “Cassandra’s Brand”, “When the Mountains Fall (Eternal Bride)” made it possible to identify the dynamics of the author’s creative development, to characterize this process as the “expanding artistic Universe” of the author: from ethnic picture of the world to the creation of a mythopoetic model of existence in stories, the transition to the genre of the novel as a “universal concept of Being and man” and the beginning of a new creative stage, marked by the cosmism of the writer’s thinking and an appeal to fantasy, interest in different national cultures, the increasing tragedy of the worldview, “synthetism” genre form, new coordinates in constructing a world model (East - West, Earth - Space, archaic time - modernity), the formation of a transcultural polylogue space (inclusion of Biblical and world literary intertext).

The study presents one of the analytical fragments of the Armenian text of Russian poetry. The corpus of “Armenian” texts includes the poem “The Builder of Paradise, the painter Drevin” by Boris Slutsky, which is outwardly unrelated to Armenia. The purpose of the article is to analyze the semantics of the poem’s context, in particular, its indirect connection with Armenia. The author solves a number of problems: characterizing the artistic work of Alexander Drevin and the role of Armenia in it, including writing an essay about the tragic biography of the artist; designation of Armenia’s place on the scale of values in the poetry of Boris Slutsky; characteristics of the Soviet image of paradise and its embodiment in art and literature. Using historical, cultural and biographical methods, the study reveals the Armenian subtext in the “non-Armenian” poem “The Builder of Paradise, the painter Drevin” based on the poems of Boris Slutsky and the archival file on charges of counter-revolutionary activities against Alexander Drevin (GA RF).

This study is dedicated to the anniversary of the renowned Kazakhstani scholar, Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor Sholpan Kuzarovna Zharkynbekova. The research activities of Professor S.K. Zharkynbekova are associated with the theoretical and applied aspects of such directions of modern linguistics as comparative linguistics, sociolinguistics, intercultural communication, linguoculturology, and cognitive linguistics. The personality of Sholpan Kuzarovna as a scholar and educator is examined through the prism of various aspects of her scientific and pedagogical activity at two leading universities in Kazakhstan: Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University. The review of the works of Professor S.K. Zharkynbekova allows us to speak of her significant contribution to the development of Kazakhstani linguistics and linguistics in general. The role of the scholar in creating research school and training researchers is shown, as well as her innovative pedagogical activity related to the development of textbooks and teaching aids, including digital educational resources for philological specialties, which are actively used in the educational process of the country’s universities. The results of the scientific research of Professor S.K. Zharkynbekova demonstrate the breadth and depth of the conducted research, its effectiveness and significance are recognized by the philological community of the country and abroad.

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