Kazan Federal University Abstract
This article covers linguo-didactic aspect of the theory of concept.
Learning the language within the context of the culture of its speakers, taking into account the features of the formation of ethnic self-awareness and the national linguistic world image furthers the development of the linguo-conceptual tendency in the theory and practice of teaching of a foreign language. The concept, integrating the totality of universal and national and specific meanings, is the initial unit of the formation of foreign language knowledge in classes in Russian as a foreign language. Taking into account the specifics of the concept of native speakers and the orientation toward explaining the facts of the language via the analysis of the concepts will be facilitative of the integration of students into a foreign- language national and cultural system on a mental and linguistic level.
As a result of the research it was found that the use of the concept as a linguistic unit in teaching of Russian as a non-native language ensures the development of linguistic, communicative and linguocultural competencies of foreign students, and also determines the formation of a secondary linguistic personality of inophone being capable of dialogue of cultures and effective cross-cultural communication.
The methods of research are: descriptive-analytical method, methods of lexicographical, contextual, conceptual analyses.
Keywords: concept, the Russian language as a foreign language Introduction
In recent decades, the predominant position in teaching of the Russian language as a foreign language has been taken by the linguoculturological approach, focused on the study of language within the context of culture of its speakers [Brinton 1989; Zanger 1993; Lado 1996; Palekha + et al, 2015]. Learning a foreign language as part of this approach is seen as a process of intercultural communication, which encourages the students to become familiar with the basic elements of a foreign language. Attention to language as a reflection of sociocultural reality generates the need to study the language conceptualization and categorization of the world for linguistic purposes [Safin + et al, 2016; Mukhamadiarova + et al, 2016; Varlamova + et al, 2016].
Accounting for the interaction of language and culture in the mental modeling of a person around the world advances the rapid development of the linguo-conceptual direction in the theory and practice of teaching a foreign language. Within the framework of this area, as the basic didactic unit is the concept most vividly representing foreign language image of the world and ensuring the adequacy of intercultural interaction with the representatives of another linguocultural society.
Thus, the timeliness of this work is conditioned by the relevance of learning the content of key cultural concepts in terms of the linguistic and cultural approach to teaching Russian as a foreign language.
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods ISSN: 2251-6204
Vol. 7, Issue 12, December 2017
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Materials And Methods
The following methods were used in the course of the study: descriptive-analytical method, method of lexicographical, contextual, conceptual analyses.
Results
The study of the Russian conceptual sphere in practice of teaching RLF is carried out via students’ familiarization with key national concepts that reflect the most significant fragments of the Russian language image of the world. In the process of learning foreign culture concepts, foreign students not only master their content, study up the traditions and cultural characteristics of the Russian people, but also learn to operate with the acquired knowledge in intercultural communication in a dialogue of cultures. Such work is aimed at forming among the students the ability to intercultural communication on the basis of the principles of mutual respect, tolerance to cultural differences and overcoming cultural barriers.
Work on the mental units of Russian culture in a foreign audience should be based on the consideration of the linguistic characteristics of students. The study of national concepts in the classes of the RLF is topical, first of all, at the advanced stage of education, since it requires the students to get linguistic, cultural and communicative competencies formed.
Communicative and relevant concepts that reflect the most important spiritual and material values of Russian speakers and serve as the basis for realization of cross-cultural communication between representatives of different linguocultural communities are chosen for learning in foreign language audience. Preference is given to the concepts that are characterized by pronounced linguistic explication: those that have a voluminous nominative field consisting of units of different levels and different parts of speech, and rich associative content.
As the objects for learning in the classes on the RLF, the students can be offered to consider the concepts such as “melancholy”, “fate”, “will” being fundamental for Russian linguistics and other constant concepts recognized by the leading researchers of national conceptual spheres. Despite its universal nature, these concepts have pronounced national connotations that are associated with the historical development of Russian ethno-cultural self-awareness and self-identification of the Russian people. For example, the national and cultural manifestations of the concept “melancholy” (“the need for what one yearns”, “humility before fate”, “irrational fear”, etc.) are determined by the Russian influence on the limitless expanses of his homeland, the inclination of the Russian to reflect on the meaning of life, death and God. Thus, the fundamental national concepts are based in many respects on spiritual attitudes and axiological foundations, correlate with the leading values of culture and provide the key to understanding the linguistic mentality and the specifics of the speakers’ linguistic world image.
When studying Russian national concepts in a foreign audience, it is necessary to pay attention to their “paired nature”: the concept can have a double incarnation, act as an opposition, a conceptual link, polarizing a single semantic space («правда» – «истина»/“truth” – “verity”, «свобода» – «воля» / “freedom” – “will”, «долг» – «обязанность» / “duty” – “obligation”, etc.). The components of such pairs are conceptually discrete units of the Russian language, which often correlate with mental and indiscrete units of other languages (The Russian «воля», «свобода», the English “freedom”, the German “Freiheit”). The peculiar verbal “expansion” in the speech presentation of a particular subject or abstract sphere can be regarded as a symptom of the linguistic specification of the national language conceptualization of the world. For example, the first element of the conceptual link «свобода» – «воля» / “freedom” – “will”
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corresponds to its Western European counterparts in meaning, while the second element represents a unique Russian concept: “Will and freedom are a particular case of the opposition “one’s own” – “another’s”, where воля / will is a concept originally of Russian consciousness, and свобода / freedom is of European”, “will for the Russians is an intrapersonal constant, a state of mind that takes hold of a person as a colossal force in strength leading to spontaneous unconscious actions” [Petrovykh 2002, 214]. Thus, the inseparable conceptual relation of the components of such conceptual pairs and, at the same time, their semantic differentiation reflect the features of the Russian mentality.
The nature of the perception of reality by representatives of different cultural communities will be widely demonstrated by the study of lacunar concepts. To such ones, the scholars refer the concepts that do not have equivalents in another linguistic culture. However, not all cases of interlanguage lexical lacunarity may indicate the absence of a certain concept in a particular culture. This fact is reflected not only by motivated lacunas determined by the absence of objective, anthroponymic, toponymic, historical and cultural realities peculiar to another culture. Since the national mentality is formed by concrete factors of the material environment of the existence of an ethnos, the non-equivalent units that constitute the core of such basic ethno-cultural spheres as national gastronomy («щи» / “shchi”, «винегрет» / “vinaigrette”), clothing and footwear («кокошник» / “kokoshnik”, «валенки» / “valenki” ), coloring ((«матрешка» / “matryoshka”, «самовар» / “samovar”), etc. can be referred to the lacunary concepts. In addition, the class of lacunary will include the conceptual symbols and concepts-myths (folklore and literary characters, non-denotational realities) Baba Yaga, Oblomov, domovoy, etc., peculiar to Russian culture. Thus, the study of the concepts that are fundamentally absent in other languages, will contribute to the disclosure of the specifics of the life of the Russian people, their cultural life, the uniqueness of their worldview and traditions.
The presentation of national concepts in the teaching of the Russian language of inophones can be carried out in different ways. The representation of concepts can be based on both the description of the features of their paradigmatic and syntagmatic real in the modern Russian language, and the identification of their textual content in the work of literature. The first method consists in lexicographical description of the main explicators of the concept, as well as in the contextual analysis of functions and relations between them. This method involves the consideration of paradigmatic and syntagmatic features of the linguistic explication of the concept, reflected in its word-building capabilities, synonymous and antonymic relationships, typical free and sustainable compatibility. Representation of the concept is carried out on the material of paroemias, reflecting the features of traditional Russian consciousness. This approach to the presentation of national concepts in a foreign audience is, in our opinion, the most effective, because it is based on linguistic material and allows to reconstruct this or that fragment of the naive picture of the world. The second method is aimed at studying the representation of concept in a literary work by the method of linguistic and literary interpretation. As a result of textual analysis, the fragments of the author’s individual view of the world are reconstructed, the conceptual signs that constitute the associative-background and value content of concept are revealed. The familiarization with Russian national concepts is carried out on the basis of authentic texts containing linguocultural information.
It is important to note that the analysis of Russian national concepts must be carried out in comparative and contrastive terms with the corresponding concepts of the students’ native culture: such work will help to identify the content of concepts and establish a commonality and difference in their language realization and semantic content. The discrepancy between concepts in different languages can
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be manifested both in ways of objectifying concepts, and in a set of means of their verbalization, in the semantic reflection of different stereotyped ideological and behavioral models, as well as in different systemic links of concepts in the mental lexicon of a concrete language, etc.
As an example, we will present the model of the presentation of the concept «совесть» / “conscience” in the classes on the Russian language as a foreign language with the of the philological faculty (an advanced course of study).
The presentation of the concept «совесть» / “conscience” is advisable to begin with an analysis of lexicographical interpretations of the nominee lexeme concept. During studies, the student is offered to familiarize with the data of the explanatory dictionary of the modern Russian language, which most fully reflect the conceptual layer of the concept in a synchronous section: “Conscience is a sense and consciousness of moral responsibility for one’s behavior and actions before oneself, the surrounding people, society; moral principles” [Yevgenieva 1984, 175]. It is concluded on the basis of the above definition, that conscience in the Russian language image of the world is recognized as a feeling that compels a person to assess in terms of morals his own actions and actions, subjecting them to a generally accepted morality.
The next step in describing the concept will be the study of the definitions that formed the structure of the concept at different historical stages. The dictionary by V.I. Dahl, which is now of historical and linguistic significance, characterizes the lexeme “conscience” as “moral consciousness, moral instinct in man; the inner consciousness of good and evil; a heartstring, in which the approval or condemnation of every action is echoed; the ability to recognize the quality of a deed, a feeling that leads to the truth and the good; an involuntary love for the truth and the good; an innate truth, developed in various degrees” [Dahl 1991, 256-257]. When examining this dictionary entry, the students’ attention should be focused on revealing those semantic components in the meaning of the word “conscience”, which were not fixed by modern lexicographic sources. The definition given by V. I. Dahl notes a direct relation between conscience and soul (conscience is understood as the inmost recess (“cache”) of one’s heart), an inseparable unity is established between the concepts of “conscience”, “truth”, “good”, emphasizes the “innate” character of conscience, its intuitive spiritual principle. When studying the data of the etymological dictionaries of the Russian language (revealing the connection between the old Slavonic «cъвhcть» and the Greek syneidos “shared knowledge, consciousness”), it is necessary to introduce linguocultural information that makes it possible to reveal the features of the understanding of conscience by the Russian linguistic community. In this connection, it is important to note that if in the Western sense conscience is determined through the rationality of consciousness, then in Russian mentality, conscience is related primarily to spirituality, to the feelings of a person, being realized as a sense of personal responsibility for one’s thoughts, words and deeds.
The extension of the students’ views of the concept “conscience” will be facilitated by the reference to the data from aspect dictionaries.
During the studies, the students are offered to select as many synonymous and antonymic units representing the concept of “conscience” in the modern Russian language as possible («стыд», «ответственность», «совестность» – «бессовестность» / “shame”, “responsibility”, “conscientiousness” – “consciencelessness”). The selected units are correlated with the data of lexicographic sources, work is being done to distinguish between the concepts «совесть» / “conscience” and «стыд» / “shame” in Russian linguistic culture. The students are offered to discuss the mentioned notions, to draw the conclusions about their semantic differences. Students are encouraged to speculate about these concepts,
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to draw conclusions about their semantic differences. After that, the learners are offered to familiarize themselves with the scientific information containing the linguocultural information on the subject of the discussion and correlate it to the opinions expressed by them: “Conscience is a moral regulator of the whole inner life of a person, and the vector of its action is inside a person: it is always ashamed of oneself <.> Shame is oriented outward: it is always ashamed of others” [Radbil 2010, 244].
Appeal to the data of word-building dictionaries will allow the students to reveal the broad word-forming links of the lexeme «совесть» / “conscience” in modern Russian: совестливый, совестливость, совестный, совестно, бессовестный, бессовестно, совестить / conscionable, conscientiousness conscientious, conscientiously, conscienceless, shamelessly, to put to shame, etc. The students’ attention may be focused on the possibility of forming a Russian predicate «совестно» / “be ashamed”, which, according to A. A. Zaliznyak, allows us to present “the participation of conscience in the decision-making process and in evaluating one’s own actions as the state of the acting subject” [Zaliznyak 2005, 252].
The analysis of the selectional capabilities of the word «совесть» / “conscience” according to the dictionaries of the compatibility of the words of the Russian language will allow the learners to determine additional semantic features of the lexeme being examined and to establish the most important features of this concept. When considering the substantive, attributive and verbal compatibility of the lexeme «совесть» / “conscience”, it is necessary to distinguish the metaphorical models that reveal the features of the understanding of conscience by the Russian consciousness: “conscience is a moral norm” (жить по совести / live in good conscience), “conscience is a human counteragent” (совесть не позволяет / to be enjoined by conscience from doing) “conscience is a judge” (суд совести / the bar of conscience), “conscience is “an organ” (иметь совесть/ lit. to have a conscience), etc. [Arutyunova 2000, 75].
The next stage in the analysis of the concept is the study of the paroemias that constitute its interpretation field. The students are asked to match specific proverbs and sayings to their corresponding judgments, reflecting the understanding of the concept of «совесть»/ “conscience” by the Russian people.
Paroemias: С совестью не разминуться; Счастлив тот, у кого совесть спокойна / Happy is one who has clear conscience; Злая совесть стоит палача / An evil conscience is an executioner/ To have guilty conscience; Добрая совесть – глас Божий / Good conscience is the voice of God /A clear conscience laughs at false accusations; Говори по делу, живи по совести / Talk business, live in good conscience and so on.
A number of setting judgments: 1. A clear conscience is the guarantee of tranquility; 2. Conscience is the judge; 3. Conscience has a divine origin; 4. Conscience is an internal law that must be followed; 5. Conscience is omnipresent, etc.
Conclusion
In the course of such study, extra-linguistic information about the content of the concept “conscience” and its axiological interpretation in Russian culture is revealed. The contexts of Russian paroemiae fix that conscience is treated as a basic moral concept, which is highly valued by the Russian people. Conscience in the Russian consciousness is likened to the internal regulator of morality, correlated with the Christian faith.
Summary
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods ISSN: 2251-6204
Vol. 7, Issue 12, December 2017
Page 105
Thus, the concept, which includes in its structure both the actual language incarnation and the “extralinguistic, cultural environment” inextricably linked with it, is actual and relevant in the process of formation of linguoculturological competence by a methodical unit. The use of the concept system in the classes on the Russian language as a foreign language provides a method based on a linguistic and cultural approach, and its support - the possibilities of intercultural communication. The teaching of Russian as a foreign language on the basis of linguocultural concepts has a special significance, since it ensures the integration of the students into a foreign-language national and cultural system at the mental and linguistic levels.
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods ISSN: 2251-6204
Vol. 7, Issue 12, December 2017
Page 106
Acknowledgement
The work is performed according to the Russian Government Program of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University.
References
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