КАЛБŲ KONTAKTAI LIETUVOS TSR

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXIII (1983)

REVIEWS

Russian as a Means of Interethnic Communication / Ed. in chief F. P. Filippin. — Moscow: Nauka, 1977. — 301 pp.; Russian in the National Republics of the Soviet Union / Ed. in chief V. V. Ivanov. — Moscow: Nauka, 1980. — 260 pp.

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the functioning and study of the Russian language in the national republics of the USSR. This is clearly evidenced by the All-Union scientific-theoretical conference “Russian—the Language of Friendship and Cooperation among the Peoples of the USSR” (Tashkent, 1979), organized by the USSR Academy of Sciences, the USSR Ministry of Education, and the Institute of the Russian Language of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Research on the Russian language has also become noticeably more active. Thus, in the 1970s alone, 10 All-Union conferences were held in our country, and more than 20 collaborative collections and monographs devoted to the study of Russian as a means of interethnic communication were published. Issues concerning the Russian language are being addressed at higher-education institutions and research institutes.

To improve research on the functioning of the Russian language, a department for the study of Russian as a means of interethnic communication in the national republics of the USSR was established at the Institute of the Russian Language of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The department coordinates the work of academic institutes on this issue, organizes All-Union scientific meetings and conferences, trains specialist scholars for national higher-education institutions, and participates in the preparation of textbooks for national schools and higher-education institutions.

The works Russian as a Means of Interethnic Communication (1977) and Russian in the National Republics of the Soviet Union (1980), prepared by the aforementioned department jointly with the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Research Institute for Teaching Russian in the National School of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (with the participation of linguistic institutes of the academies of sciences and higher-education institutions of the Union republics), aroused great interest in the scholarly community. These works address many linguistic, pedagogical, sociological, and other issues concerning Russian; they point to the need to define the social functions of Russian and the national languages and to study the social spheres in which they function. They also note the immense changes in the functioning of Russian: in all the republics, the spheres of its use and application have expanded.

The general secondary school plays a significant role in the spread of Russian in the Union republics and is one of the

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most important channels for the spread of Russian. Despite the great achievements of the Soviet school, the authors of the articles (D. S. Manturshina, F. P. Filin, A. V. Filippov, B. Kh. Khasanov, N. M. Shansky, and others) note that the overall state of Russian-language study in national schools still does not meet the needs of modern life, since a considerable proportion of school graduates (especially those from rural areas) have a poor command of Russian. The authors attribute insufficient knowledge of Russian to the absence or shortage of high-quality textbooks and teaching aids, as well as technical teaching equipment, a lack of qualified personnel, and the low standard of teaching. Indeed, it is still not uncommon for teachers of language and literature themselves to have insufficient knowledge of Russian. Soviet studies of Russian therefore face the task of improving the teaching of Russian in national schools and higher-education institutions and improving the training of highly qualified personnel. It is proposed that consideration be given to whether student admissions to Russian language and literature departments are being conducted appropriately. A section of the monograph Russian in the National Republics of the Soviet Union (articles by V. V. Chediya, N. M. Shansky, and A. V. Filippov) is devoted to the training of teachers of Russian.

A. A. Metsa asserts that special requirements are placed on teachers of Russian in national schools: they must be broadly educated in linguistics, know the specific features of both languages (their native language and Russian), be active-type bilinguals, and possess bilingual awareness—that is, know all the areas of similarity and difference between the systems of these languages; when analyzing any speech instance, they must quickly and clearly grasp these similarities and differences and understand the causes, nature, extent, and degree of negative effects of interference (N. M. Shansky, A. V. Filippov. Current Problems in Training Teachers of Russian Language and Literature for National Schools. — In: Russian in the National Republics of the Soviet Union. Moscow, 1977, p. 122).

The authors propose introducing new courses or improving existing ones in university curricula. Special attention should be paid to contrastive grammars of Russian and the national languages. At the aforementioned Tashkent conference, K. Musteikis observed that “improving the teaching of Russian in national schools also requires a profound and comprehensive description of Russian from the perspective of different languages. Such a description should contribute to a fuller and deeper analysis of the structural features of Russian, the identification of its specific characteristics, and, at the same time, the determination of the difficulties involved in learning it” (K. V. Musteikis. A Forward-Looking Orientation. — In: Russian—the Language of Friendship and Cooperation among the Peoples of the USSR. Moscow, 1981, p. 219). “Furthermore, it is necessary to develop high-quality curricula and syllabi (taking into account the specific characteristics of each national language and living conditions in the republics and regions) for Russian-language instruction at higher-education institutions” (F. P. Filin. Current Problems in Training Teachers of Russian Language and Literature for National Schools. — In: Russian in the National Republics of the Soviet Union. Moscow, 1977, p. 12).

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Since bilingualism and multilingualism are becoming widespread phenomena in the USSR, the monographs devote particular attention to bilingualism. The authors note that today all the peoples of the USSR are encompassed by bilingualism and that major changes have occurred in the social characteristics of bilingualism. An analysis is provided of the nature of bilingualism in the USSR.

Bilingualism is by no means a homogeneous phenomenon and therefore merits in-depth research from a variety of perspectives, which is being conducted successfully in many national republics. A “broad sense” of bilingualism is typical of the national republics of the Soviet Union: it presupposes a relative command of a second language and the ability to use it to a greater or lesser extent in certain spheres of communication (Desheriev, Yu. D., Protchenko, I. F. Basic aspects of bilingualism and multilingualism. – In: Abstracts of the scientific conference devoted to the problem of bilingualism and multilingualism, Moscow, 1969, pp. 6–7). Full bilingualism (as L. K. Graudina and M. B. Semenova assert), which presupposes an equally fluent command of two languages, even to the point of being able to think in either language without translating from one to the other, is rare—it is found only among a small part of the population. The authors therefore rightly note that bilingualism is distributed very unevenly among different population groups and that its spread depends to some extent on the ethnic environment. As many authors of monographs point out, language processes depend on social parameters: command of Russian varies across social and age groups. The general contours of bilingualism among the various peoples of the USSR differ, as do those among urban and rural residents, in a person’s native and non-native ethnic environment, and among people of different sexes.

V. Yu. Mikhalchenko (The functioning of the Russian language in the Lithuanian SSR and its interaction with the Lithuanian language. – In: Russian as a means of interethnic communication. Moscow, 1977, p. 190) notes that “with the spread of Russian–national bilingualism, the widespread functioning of Russian as a means of interethnic communication, and the processes of interaction between Russian and national languages, issues of speech culture have become highly relevant at the present stage.” In the opinion of other authors as well, greater attention should be paid to the culture of Russian speech. Everyone should be concerned with improving the culture of Russian speech among the non-Russian population, so that people learn the language rather than a mixture of Russian words “glued together” according to the rules of national languages. Speech culture should apparently be considered not only in relation to the Russian population, but also to the numerous non-Russian nations and nationalities for whom Russian serves as a means of interethnic communication (Isaev, M. I. A panorama of the linguistic life of the peoples of the USSR. – In: Russian as a means of interethnic communication. Moscow, 1977, p. 26).

Despite the widespread use of Russian, Russian speech in each national environment, especially in conditions of a national linguistic setting, has its own specific features in pronunciation, vocabulary,

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semantics, and syntax. This is why national and regional varieties of Russian, particularly of its spoken form, have often been discussed in recent years. However, as F. P. Filin asserts (op. cit., p. 55), “...there should be no ‘national varieties’ of the Russian language... It should not be forgotten that the system of norms of the Russian literary language is integral and unified, and binding on everyone who uses Russian.” We are apparently dealing not with national varieties, but with violations of the norms of Russian speech and the Russian literary language. So-called non-Russian and regional deviations from the literary norm should be eliminated by improving the teaching of Russian.

The works that drew our attention describe and classify deviations from the standard at the phonological, morphological, and syntactic levels of Russian under conditions of bilingualism. Discussing (various types of) interference and other factors affecting the Russian speech of representatives of different nationalities, and identifying the causes of this interference through an analysis of the objective difficulties encountered by members of other nationalities when learning Russian, the authors reach a consensus that Russian should be correct and uniform throughout the entire area in which it is used.

We have touched on only some of the issues that seemed to us most important and relevant. The books also address other problems concerning not only the culture of Russian speech, bilingualism, the teaching of Russian in the national republics, or the training of national teaching personnel. Drawing on extensive factual material, we learn about the interaction of Russian and national languages at different levels (phonetic, morphological, and lexical), and about the underlying processes taking place in Russian under the influence of national languages. Numerous instances of language interference are analyzed. Many authors are interested in the conditions that promote the spread of Russian in the national republics and provide extensive statistical, sociological, and historical evidence to demonstrate the changing dynamics of the functioning of Russian in various social spheres. The chapters analyzing the syntax of literary works written in Russian by national writers are of particular interest. They reveal processes of mutual influence between the vocabularies of the national languages and Russian, examine the interaction of languages in the field of anthroponymy, and address other issues.

Special sections present an annotated bibliography on the study and teaching of Russian in the national republics, on improving the quality of Russian-language textbooks for national schools, and on the functioning of Russian in the national republics of the USSR.

Regina VYANSAYTE.