Panel discussion “Culture of Russian speech in the 21st century. Russian language of the beginning of the XXI century
The culture of Russian speech in the XXI century
Panel discussion
Lyudmila VERBITSKY
President of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature, President of the Russian Academy of Education, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russkiy Mir Foundation
Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba wrote: in order to see how the language has changed, at least half a century must pass. And we are seeing that such changes occur much faster. And this is connected with the processes that take place not only in the Russian language, but also in other languages. These exolinguistic circumstances, situations external to the language, also very often influence the changes that we observe.
What is the culture of speech today, what is happening with our language? Can we accept these changes or should we resist them? After all, internal language factors are stronger than external ones. A similar problem, which may affect the development of the language system, also occupied our predecessors, and we remember that the points of view on this were completely different.
I would like our discussion to be started by Sergey Oktyabrevich Malevinskiy, professor at the Kuban State University.
Sergei MALEVINSKY
Professor of the Department of General and Slavic-Russian Linguistics, Kuban State University
In the Krasnodar Territory, until recently, the functions of the Minister of Culture were performed by my classmate, who, together with me, graduated from the philological faculty of the Kuban University. She was a Komsomol activist, then went through the administrative part and grew up to the Minister of Culture of the Kuban. In the last years of her management of culture, she began to introduce into the consciousness of the masses that the official language of the entire Kuban and the regional administration should not be the Russian literary language, but the Kuban balachka. Imagine an official business language based on the Kuban dialect? Well, she was retired on time, and this idea with a balachka rested in Bose.
This is such a historical curiosity that my speech should not be completely sad.
And in the main part, I would like to speak not as a scientist, professor, theorist, but as a teacher-practitioner. As a person who has been teaching a course of practical stylistics and culture of speech for many, many years at various faculties of the Kuban State University. Being a historian of language by education, he approached this new business with full responsibility to the culture of speech. He began to study materials, dictionaries. I bring orthoepic dictionaries, all kinds of grammar reference books to classes with students. It often happens that a student looks for a word in the dictionary: how it is pronounced, where the stress is placed, how some of its forms are formed. And then he looks up at me and asks: “Is that what they say? Where did they get all this from? Yes, we have never heard of this!”.
At first I thought that all this comes from lack of education, from lack of culture, and then I began to understand: in spelling dictionaries and various kinds of reference books, there are such interpretations, such formulations, such recommendations that are godlessly outdated. That is, some dictionaries recommend that our students speak the way our fathers and grandfathers spoke. But the language does not stand still. The language is developing. The norms of the Russian literary language are developing, the normative speech representations of native speakers of the Russian language are changing. Unfortunately, in dictionaries, reference books, this is not always reflected.
And then the question arises: what guides the compilers of dictionaries, reference books, codifiers of the norms of the Russian literary language? Apparently, with your instinct? Although back in 1948, Elena Sergeevna Iskrina in one of her books formulated the principle of determining the normativity of language units. She said quite clearly: "the normativity of a speech unit is determined by the degree of its use in speech, provided that the source is sufficiently authoritative." Frequency of use provided that the sources are sufficiently authoritative. Iskrina herself wrote that such authoritative sources in terms of studying literary norms are the works of classical writers and politicians.
But in parallel with this, a different approach was formulated within the framework of the Prague Linguistic Circle. Praguers wrote: yes, of course, the works of classical writers should be a source of study of the norms of the literary language - that's why they are classics. But what is a classic? This is what is in the past. And now? And the people of Prague said that along with the works of the classics, the speech and the normative-speech consciousness of the modern intelligentsia, modern educated strata of society: teachers, engineers, doctors, lawyers should be the same equal source for the study of literary norms. In general, all educated people.
And here's what's interesting: in Soviet times, wonderful books were published, such as "The Russian language according to a mass survey" edited by Leonid Petrovich Krysin. The work "Grammatical Correctness of Russian Speech (Experience of a Frequency-Stylistic Dictionary of Variants)" was published. The most serious works in which the normative speech representations and speech practice of the intelligentsia were studied.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything like this lately.
Lyudmila VERBITSKY
The mass circulation of the “Comprehensive Normative Dictionary of the Russian Language as the State Language of the Russian Federation” is coming out soon, which is both explanatory and grammatical. It is based on the National Corpus of the Russian Language and frequency dictionaries. And your concern, of course, is understandable, because students have nothing to give into their hands today.
I would like to give the floor to Lyubov Pavlovna Klobukova. She is a professor at Moscow State University and played a huge role in what I think is a very important event. Fifteen years ago, the Russian Society of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature was created, and Lyubov Pavlovna, who is very sensitive to the Russian language, participated in its formation. She has a lot of interesting ideas.
Lyubov KLOBUKOVA
Head of the Department of the Russian Language for Foreign Students of the Humanities Faculties of Moscow State University
I would like to touch upon the very dangerous process of discodification of the Russian language today.
To understand what is behind this term - "discodification", let's remember what codification is. Here are the words of Viktor Viktorovich Panov, who determined that codification is “the conscious concern of the whole society for the language.” He wrote: “The linguist, journalist, public figure, announcer, teacher, university teacher act as codifiers - those who preserve the dignity of the literary language.” It's amazing what words a person found! "Care"! Like a father talking about his child.
These words are as relevant today as ever. The fact is that in critical periods of the development of society, the results of codification are often called into question due to the destructive language practice of discodifiers.
Who is it? First, let's define that discodification is a destructive activity to destroy the existing norms of the literary language. I want to emphasize - conscious destruction. There are many people who deliberately destroy the norms of the literary language, and I even combined them into several groups.
First of all, they are highly qualified specialists. You understand what the problem is: these are not some illiterate people who do not know how to speak. These are specialists in advertising goods of transnational companies. They deliberately, purposefully violate the norms of Russian speech in the advertising texts they create in order to achieve the necessary commercial effect.
The second group of ideological discodifiers is formed by intellectuals, connoisseurs of foreign languages, who organize their speech practice according to the principle "in any convenient case, instead of a Russian word, I use a foreign one."
The discodifier always knows what he's doing. He always consciously strives to outrageous at the lexical level. In recent decades, there has been an unprecedented flow of borrowings from foreign languages, primarily from English. Here is the favorable background and the necessary condition for lexical discodification. I'm talking about borrowings that are introduced into Russian texts without translation, as if disguising themselves as ordinary words that supposedly should be well known to all Russian speakers. That is, we are talking about words such as "fake", "facebook", "like" and so on. These words are literally overflowing with texts from ordinary magazines that are sold in any kiosk. They are focused on Russian youth, on the so-called creative class, on educated people. But here is a question that is very important from the point of view of our discussion: which of these words can you safely do without?
The fact is that the appearance of some words in the modern Russian lexicon is due to the state of our lexical system. Pushkin wrote about such a state: “But “knickers”, “tailcoat”, “vest” - all these words are not in Russian. That is, the denotation has appeared, which means that words should appear. And if you look at the list of words I have listed from this point of view, it is quite obvious that words like “fake” will be superfluous. I consider the inclusion of this word in Russian speech a pure manifestation of the lexical discodification of our language, because for this neologism there are corresponding commonly used Russian words “fake”, “fake”. The use of such words in Russian speech practice simply implements the practice I mentioned of unmotivated, I want to emphasize, replacing Russian words with borrowings.
The goal is very clear. The speaker cuts off from his communicative circle "marginals" who do not know foreign languages; using words like "fake", he sends a signal to his addressee, in this case - who knows English. He seems to pronounce the famous Kipling performative: "you and I are of the same blood." But such a stratification of society cannot be the goal of the literary language! On the contrary, we know that literary language is a powerful means of uniting a nation.
And now a few words about morphonomic discodification. It's even scarier. I want to draw your attention to the tendency of conscious, purposeful non-inclination of words that could and should, according to the norms of Russian grammar, be inclined.
We all remember the bright, aggressive advertising campaign - it is still ongoing - of the German electronics retail chain. "Fantastic prices", "Fantastic Markt", "The ice has broken - fantastic brands are swimming into their hands." That is, what is the grammatical assessment of this “fantastic situation”?
I am very upset by the unceremoniousness of introducing a foreign adjective into the Russian speech area in the presence of a Russian equivalent. We have the corresponding words: "fantastic", "fantastic". But here the morphological level of the language is already affected, and it is very sensitive. This is the backbone of the language, the collective system. We get a new adjective - analytical, which is not mastered by our language system.
And our task is to somehow monitor this. See: “I celebrate the New Year with friends and Coca-Cola”. Promotion from Nivea. “Acceptable prices in Ikea. And today, what is interesting, among the people, among normal people, this all continues to decline, but something completely different happens with marketing goals.
These examples are a clear and deliberate departure from grammatical norms, and that is why we must fight these attempts at discodification. Of course, the language must change, but for the normal development of the language it is necessary that these changes do not contradict the very nature of the language. The opinion of philologists should be taken into account when deciding on the language component of advertising texts that are distributed on the territory of Russia. By the way, it is very easy to change this without violating the interests of the company.
Lyudmila VERBITSKY
The great philosopher Vladimir Solovyov said that every person must necessarily master three styles of speech: high, in order to address only God, medium, in order to communicate with the interlocutor, and low, which, probably, everyone should know, but use only in internal monologue or a dialogue with yourself, so that no one hears.
Here is Valery Mikhailovich Mokienko, to whom I want to give the floor, just the dictionaries have prepared the very vocabulary that no one should hear, but it is used. How often, including television channels, we hear beeps that mask these words. And what is the situation in Russia if the President of the Russian Federation pays attention to this?
So, Valery Mikhailovich Mokienko, a specialist in a number of languages, and for a number of years he taught the Ukrainian language in Germany.
Valery MOKIENKO
Professor, Department of Slavic Philology, Faculty of Philology, St. Petersburg State University
What is the tragedy of the Russian professor? While he is engaged in morphology, no one talks about him and no one asks him about anything. But as soon as a Russian professor wants to explain to students the mysteries of Russian warfare, right there, overnight, one can become famous. While working in Berlin, I suddenly felt some completely natural interest in this vocabulary. One day a very nice German student Susanna came up to me and said:
- Valery Mikhailovich, I was in Moscow and my friends said words that I cannot find in the dictionary. And they asked me to read. I made a list, and every word that I read caused Homeric laughter.
When I saw these words written in calligraphic handwriting, my last hair stood on end. Suzanne's Russian friends planted such a Russian pig for her.
After that, I was asked to read a special course on this topic, then they asked me to make a dictionary. But I never dared to publish this dictionary in Russia. But after one TV show, I decided. On this program, the journalists wanted me to say some of these words. After that they asked me in Kaliningrad to publish a dictionary. I did not dare to publish it under my own name, but published it under the name of Professor McKiego, and I only wrote the preface. And I forgot. But then there was a need for this dictionary, and Tatyana Gennadievna Nikitina, a professor at Pskov University, and I nevertheless went on the lead of the publishers and called our dictionary “a dictionary of foul language”.
The dictionary went almost unnoticed, but then the State Duma issued a corresponding decree, and now we shudder when we encounter this problem. Despite official bans, there is no effect. When we watch TV shows, there is always beeping, which every Russian deciphers, but foreigners do not understand. It seems to me that this is hypocrisy. All European countries have dictionaries. For example, in German. All swear words are presented, but this does not force any of the Germans to swear at every step. It is a naive notion that a ban will lead to an exemption from scolding. Will not work. Our goal is to explain what it is. I told my granddaughter that the word "damn" has a different connotation than she thinks. She is already 23 years old, and I have never heard this word from her again. Explanation is much more effective than prohibitions.
I remember that more than twenty years ago, Alexander Dmitrievich Shmelev even predicted that the Russian language would become analytical, because words like “kakadu” appear all the time. I'm not talking about coffee, because we'll immediately start quoting the State Duma. “Fantastic”, “das auto” and we do not decline in Russian quite justifiably. This is just the result of the codification of the norm, because inflexibility in the Russian language, “coat”, “kino”, “kimono” and so on, has already been codified. However, in all Slavic languages such words are declined. In Ukrainian you can say “I buv u kine”, in Czech “bylsja u kine” is quite normal. But because the aristocrats in the Russian Academy spoke French, they could not afford to incline the French “coat”. And now this trend of prohibition gives us such an effect that we don’t incline even “fantastic”. This means that this is just the result of codification, as it seems to me, and not vice versa.
For some reason, purists attack Anglicisms, but at the same time, no one fights against the same Anglicisms, Germanisms, Gallicisms that come to us in the form of cripples. President Lincoln once said a phrase when he was elected, despite American law, once again to the presidency: "horses are not changed in midstream." One doesn't change horses in the stream. This phrase is known throughout America, but it has been copied by all European languages. And now, when the coach of Zenit has changed, it was written in big letters in our newspaper: “They changed the horse at the crossing.” And not a single Russian objects to such borrowings, although they are more detrimental to the purity of any language, because they change the syntax.
Therefore, before you fight with borrowings, jargon, and - I'm not afraid of this word - matisms, you need to think, wait, look at the speakers. And then to recommend such a set of all this, which will be intelligent, dynamic and directed towards the future of the Russian language.
I think that the Russian language in its entire system, if it is used in all registers stylistically justified, will remain a real living language.
Lyudmila VERBITSKY
We are well aware of the power of the word. We know that one can kill with a word, one can save and lead regiments with a word. I would like to give the floor to Dan Davidson, Vice President of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature, President of the American Councils for International Education. Dan ran an excellent program at St. Petersburg University for nine years. Its goal was a perfect Russian language, fluency for those Americans who have already done this and are studying with us. And suddenly we found out that this year the American government said: it will not finance this program. Otherwise, Russian speech will sound on the territory of the United States of America!
During these years of cooperation with us, Dan has done a lot to strengthen ties between our countries. There are wonderful Russian language textbooks prepared by Dan and his staff. Therefore, it seems to me that we will survive this temporary stage. I hope that Obama will then say: “I give money. Learn Russian language".
Dan Eugene DAVIDSON
Vice President of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature, President of the American Councils for International Education
It would be necessary to translate our conversation a little bit towards products and the study of Russian as a foreign language. I would like to quote from an electronic diary, which, by the way, is kept by every student of the flagship program. They are obliged to reflect, to think about their own language, which they produce. Here is what, for example, one student wrote in an electronic diary. “Now I am very interested in expressing opinions in Russian in different registers, and in this regard, I began to follow the programs on Youtube.” This is such a dubious source, but there, however, all the registers. “The thing is, I know all the words, but I don’t feel in what situations this particular word is suitable.” Here is just an explanatory dictionary, a new generation of dictionaries, of course, will help.
The culture of speech is not translated, as well as speech behavior. There are obvious examples that I just came across today. English speakers feel the need to say hello very often. We know it. And this repeated repeated expression “hi, how are you” at each meeting, for example, with a Russian-speaking person, will definitely cause an answer like “we already greeted you”.
The current situation, unfortunately, is much more complicated than what we are talking about today. Thanks to the mobility of people, global technology and mobile networks, globalization has led to a radical change in the conditions of our learning, learning foreign languages and, ultimately, the use of foreign languages. This also led to the destabilization of those norms, standards, conditions that teachers used to rely on and that served as a guide for students when entering a big life outside the school walls. These changes call for a more reflective and historically grounded pedagogy.
Given the volume of interpersonal communication that is now taking place on the Internet, where, by the way, our students, our youth spend all their time, global technologies require us to reconsider the very concept of cultural authenticity. In the conditions of the Internet, not only the idea of speech genres, pragmatics, communicative norms and texts has changed. There is a new type of display text. Ease of perception won over grammar, literacy and accuracy. This is called a code change. The spoken code goes into other traffic and code, in English called code machines. That is, there is a deliberate mixing of different codes and formats.
Pedagogy, on the other hand, is used to teaching norms, and we now propose not to be limited only by the normative system, but also to use some kind of adaptive practice with its cultural and technological components, so that the norm is obvious, so that the ability to at least perceive what we live in remains. We need to be sensitive to heightened semantic complexity and the issues and relationships behind it.
Lyudmila VERBITSKY
Of course, of course, we understand that we have the Russian literary language and spontaneous speech. Spontaneous speech obeys completely different laws, but not a single phenomenon of spontaneous speech arises independently of language. Tallinn is a very special city for the residents of Leningrad-Petersburg. In the past, as Petersburgers go to Finland now, Leningraders often visited Tallinn. I am very pleased with the situation that is developing there. Even seven or ten years ago it was difficult to speak Russian with both young people and hotel workers. The last time, relatively recently, I asked how we would communicate, in English or in Russian. All the hotel employees told me: “Of course, in Russian!”
Inga MANGUS
Director of the Tallinn Pushkin Institute, Chairman of the Estonian Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature
Russian speech abroad is in a somewhat different position than in its native country. In foreign territories, she is absolutely defenseless. If any advertising text in a foreign language is provided with a Russian translation with monstrous errors, then no one is responsible for this. And in this situation of impunity, the Russian language is subjected to mockery in foreign territories. Literally beaten, practically lynched. And the worst thing is that two sides take part in this execution. In other situations, sometimes opposing, and in this case, showing a sort of enviable solidarity. These are foreigners - out of ignorance, and Russians - often out of indifference.
As for Estonia, all this takes place against the backdrop of the most careful attitude towards their native language. The Estonian language, which is spoken by a tiny people, fights so hard for its purity and eradicates borrowings so much that other people's words do not stick. The case with "computer" was cited. There is no "computer" in Estonian. Even such words do not stick, like "business", "businessman". And the whole country is sincerely concerned about the health of the language. She worries about the future of her national expression tool. The Estonian President announces word-creation competitions. For example, in the last competition, the word that will replace the current “infrastructure” won. Moreover, six hundred people took part in the last competition. I figured in proportion to the population of Estonia and the population of Russia. About 100,000 Russian citizens would take part in the Russian word-creation competition announced by the President of Russia.
And sometimes it turns out that it is easier to keep a small language than a large language. The Russian language, it seems to me, is eroding faster due to the huge number of users and plus their territorial disunity. In a small nation, such as the Estonians, everyone has a sense of conscious responsibility for their language. If not me, then who? The Russian, it seems to me, thinks: "They will manage without me."
It is curious that the Russian diaspora abroad often acts as such a small nation, which is very often also proud of its language, and it worries about its purity. Small example. In the autumn, rhetoric courses were organized at the Tallinn Pushkin Institute, and a teacher was invited from St. Petersburg. What was his surprise when, explaining the motives for coming to the courses, the students said that they did not come for the ability to influence other people with their speech, but for a tool to improve and preserve the culture of their speech. They came to look for opportunities to resist the inevitable influence of the state language. “Stunned!” said a teacher from St. Petersburg. “I am a lecturer and teacher with thirty years of experience, but in Russia my listeners have never had such high motivation, devoid of pragmatic goals.” And as a result, the course of rhetoric, at the request of the listeners, gradually began to develop into a course on the culture of speech.
The Russian diaspora abroad lives, in my opinion, so to speak, in a situation of linguistic provinciality, far from the linguistic metropolis. And, characteristically, sometimes it only benefits the language. But another thing is that this imposes a great responsibility on native speakers and on professionals - native speakers of the language norm.
Lyudmila VERBITSKY
We have two Russian language councils: under the government and under the president. A very important project that is being developed today was considered at the government council. How can we find a university that, using new technologies, would enable many people living abroad in our country to improve their skills and learn the language?
Such a university is now the Pushkin Institute of the Russian Language.
Margarita RUSETSKAYA
And about. Rector of the State Institute of the Russian Language named after A. S. Pushkin
We discuss the relationship between two such phenomena as culture and language. Probably, we will never put an end to this issue. It cannot and cannot be posed, because as long as culture changes, as long as linguistic and non-linguistic changes occur, the object itself will change and the objects of two objects will change. And therefore, people who are related to this field of knowledge, to practice in this direction, will never be left without work.
But we remember that these are not only questions of the culture of speech, not only questions of mastering the norms for using the oral, written language. It is also an academic discipline, always difficult teaching - questions of didactics, questions of methodology. And therefore it is impossible not to take into account the changes that are taking place in education. Here, Lyudmila Alekseevna quite rightly said that the council under the government of the Russian Federation set the task of developing a platform, an electronic system for learning the Russian language in accordance with new, modern principles of education.
And such principles today, of course, are the principles of open education built on an electronic basis. This education maximally includes requests to study at any time, where it is convenient and to the extent that the user needs.
The Russian Language Institute gathered a large team around the problem. These are 74 highly professional specialists representing both the practice and the theory of learning Russian as a foreign language. All Russian leading universities are included in this team, and now the development of a distance course for studying Russian as a foreign language is being completed. From November 20, level A1 will be available in electronic format.
We very much hope that this deep linguistic system will be successful. I want to invite you to cooperate, because we understand that this product is made primarily for you, to help you, to help everyone involved in organizing and promoting the Russian language abroad. This course is definitely up for grabs. We really hope that by registering and becoming users, individual or collective, you will be able to send your expert feedback, which will form the basis for further improvements to the system.
Until the middle of next year, this course will be brought to the C1-C2 level, and I am very glad that the level of university philology is provided by the staff of St. Petersburg State University. This means that interactive multimedia resources, recorded and prepared by the best professors of St. Petersburg University, will be available to the whole world free of charge, openly, anywhere in the world.
The portal has a section of professional support for teachers. On September 1, the first distance course "Practice of Russian Speech" began to work. And surprisingly: without any special, purposeful, wide advertising, two and a half thousand students from all over the world signed up for this course. These are people who are interested in the issues of Russian speech, the teaching of Russian speech, the norms of Russian speech.
More and more of these courses will appear in the near future. Moreover, every university that has experience in implementing similar programs can become a co-author of our platform.
Lyudmila VERBITSKY
Sergey Malevinsky spoke, starting our discussion, how bad it is with dictionaries, how bad it is with modern textbooks. This is all true, but I would like to say that a lot has been done at the Faculty of Philology at St. Petersburg State University. And not only in philology. Representatives of almost all faculties, including mathematicians, sociologists, and psychologists, participated in the preparation of any manual, as well as a comprehensive standard dictionary.
In general, we teach students 160 languages at two faculties of St. Petersburg University. A few years ago, I met the king of the Zulu. When I said that we teach Zulu, he was simply shocked, because he had never heard that Zulu was taught anywhere. We are given the opportunity to develop excellent methods of teaching the Russian language. And I tell my foreign colleagues who complain that they do not know the language: come to St. Petersburg for two weeks. We have a wonderful department, wonderful teachers who, in two weeks, can, at a minimum level, of course, improve their knowledge of the language so that you can answer all questions on the street.
This work has been led by Sergei Igorevich Bogdanov for many years. He is Vice-Rector for Oriental Studies, African Studies, Art and Philology of St. Petersburg State University. And also a member of the Council for the Culture of Speech under the Governor of St. Petersburg.
Sergey BOGDANOV
Vice-Rector of St Petersburg University, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Russkiy Mir Foundation
The topic stated in our panel discussion is related to a very important and very complex issue. It is about defining the national idea. How much has been said about this, but there is no result, at least preliminary, yet.
With regard to Russia, variants of the national idea may have an economic, political or confessional basis. In what direction can one move in terms of defining the national Russian idea? It seems to me that at present this idea is imperial in a good way. That is, ensuring the harmonious collective coexistence of a huge number of ethnic groups that inhabit the territory of the Russian Federation. This corresponds to the historical role of Russia. It was a crossroads connecting the space between the civilizations of East and West. But ensuring this harmonious collective existence of different cultures, different peoples is the Russian historical mission, which is provided by the Russian language and Russian culture.
At the same time, it should be borne in mind that, probably, the greatest contribution of Russian culture, Russia to European and world civilization is classical Russian-language texts, primarily texts of classical Russian literature. The spread of Russian language should ensure the widest possible implementation of Russian culture as an integral and relevant part of world culture.
What do we have now in practice? In practice, we have a situation that contradicts this thesis more and more.
The fact is that humanity, and Russia in particular, has recently received an incredible instrument of collective existence in its hands. These are the Internet and social networks. It seems to me that now we are not ready for the global changes in mass communications at the turn of the century. Every member of society has the right to vote, to publicity. These voices sounded, and the consequences of this spontaneous, unprepared, but accessible to all polyphony turned out to be not only uncontrollable, but also largely unexpected. It can be stated that the intellectual, organizational, communicative level of collective existence began to fall. And this is a reality that we must acknowledge. Previously, the right to speak in public had only trained people: a priest, a teacher, a writer who does this professionally. Now the situation is different: everyone has the right to speak in public, and due to the general unpreparedness and lack of editing in social networks, the level of collective existence is decreasing. In such a state, native speakers can hardly ensure the triumph of the thesis that I spoke about at the beginning.
What to do, how to change this situation? Imagine that there can be only one change: to introduce a high-quality Russian-language text into wide public use, edited, by the way, in the interests of embodying the Russian national idea.
By the way, there is also a positive moment. The fact is that now on the Internet the Russian language is in second place in terms of prevalence. It is significantly behind English, but nevertheless in second place. Approximately six percent. This is more than any other, except English. Accordingly, there is a platform where you can carry high-quality edited Russian-language texts, both classical and new, relevant.
But it would be naive to assume that all Russian speakers who live in social networks will turn to these texts, see the world through them and learn to speak. It is unlikely. But here we have a chance. The phenomenon of the appearance of a new text, and to put it very briefly, it is a kind of hypertext with multimedia components, corresponding to the current medical, I would even say, the state of our youth, it gives a chance. It is, in fact, a kind of technological technique. And if we now create classical Russian-language texts of our classical literature in a new format - and we already have some experience in this regard - then we will use the chance.
Elena KAZAKOVA
Director of the Institute of Pre-University Education, St. Petersburg State University
Language is not only a system of signs, but also a historically established form of the culture of the people. According to W. Humboldt, "language is not a dead clockwork, but a living creation, emanating from itself." The Russian language has evolved over many centuries. His vocabulary and grammatical structure were not formed immediately. The dictionary gradually included new lexical units, the appearance of which was dictated by the new needs of social development. The grammatical structure gradually adapted to a more accurate and subtle transmission of thought following the development of national social and scientific thinking. The needs of cultural development became the engine of the development of the language, and the language reflected and preserved the history of the cultural life of the nation, including those stages that have already gone into the past. Thanks to this, the language is for the people a unique means of preserving national identity, the largest historical and cultural value.
Thus, the culture of speech is an important part of the national culture as a whole.
Develop and maintain culture impossible without the help of the Russian language. Loss of language threatens with loss of culture. The Russian language is the foundation of Russian identity in a multinational state. Ideal to strive for: harmony between national languages and the Russian language. The Russian language helps to preserve the unity of the country.
So we need to create strong resource base for school education. In order for Russian language lessons to be among the most interesting, good teaching and methodological aids are needed that inspire teachers and captivate students.
Next is promotion new educational technologies contributing to the implementation of federal state educational standards. Since the one who is active develops, new educational technologies should help in creating conditions for the development of a variety of student activities. Learn activities in the process of the activity itself. Involve children in reading communities, literature clubs, literature games. Return to school the book of Lev Uspensky "Word about words". To educate not in an authoritarian edifying monologue, but in a dialogue, in the process of discussing complex moral problems in the lessons of the Russian language and literature relating to such values as friendship and love. Teach children to have a constructive dialogue. Only in this way, from early childhood, will we instill the culture of Russian speech and respect for Russian culture.
We have a program at the university called Russian as a state language. It is passed by teachers, doctors, including officials. But businessmen have gone too. A young businessman told me: "I want to be understood, so I came to you." The guy is only 24 years old. He asked: “Is there a good Russian language textbook? Why is it so boring to learn Russian? So colleagues suggest: let's create such an interesting textbook on the Russian language together. This is the only way to revive the interest of young people in the "great and mighty."
21.1. Russian language of the Soviet period and the modern language situation
21.2. Grammatical features of Russian speech of the Soviet era
21.3. Lexical features of Russian speech of the Soviet era
21.4. Functional and stylistic features of Russian speech of the Soviet era
21.5. The inevitability of changes in language in new social conditions
21.6. Scientific Methods for Assessing the Favorability of Language Change
21.7. The need to protect the Russian language
21.8. The state of speech culture of society at the present stage
21.9. Causes of mass speech errors
21.10. Ways to improve the speech culture of speakers
21.11. Methods for self-improvement of speech culture
BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
The historical events of the 20th century could not help but influence the history of the Russian language. Of course, the language system has not changed in one century - social events do not affect the structure of the language. The speech practice of Russian speakers has changed, the number of those who speak Russian has increased, the composition of words in certain areas of the dictionary has changed, the stylistic properties of some words and turns of speech have changed. These changes in the practice of using the language, in speech styles, were caused by major social events during the formation and fall of the Soviet socio-political system. The Soviet period in the history of Russia began with the events of October 1917 and ended with the events of August 1991. Features of the Russian language of the Soviet era began to take shape before 1917 - in the period? world war and finally took shape in the 20s of the twentieth century. Changes in the vocabulary and style of the Russian language associated with the decay and fall of the Soviet system began around 1987-88 and continue to the present. It is interesting to note that the fall of the Soviet system was accompanied by such trends in the speech practice of society, which in many respects resemble the social and speech changes of the 1920s.
politicization of the language;
pronounced evaluative attitude to words;
the transformation of many words into symbols of a person's belonging to a certain socio-political group;
loosening of language norms in mass use and speech of prominent public figures;
the growth of mutual misunderstanding between different social groups.
Both the 20s and the 90s of the twentieth century are characterized by:
The features of the language of the Soviet era and the trends caused by changes in society after 1991 have a direct impact on the current state of Russian speech. Therefore, it is possible to understand the problems of the speech culture of modern society only on the basis of an analysis of the features of the Russian language of the Soviet era.
reports at meetings;
resolutions and orders;
communication with visitors
These features arose in the speech of party leaders and activists, spread through
and became speech models for wide (in the early years of Soviet power - illiterate and semi-literate) sections of the population. From the official language, many words and phrases passed into colloquial everyday speech. In the opposite direction - from vernacular and jargon - words characteristic of the low style and features of the speech of illiterate people penetrated into the language of resolutions, reports, orders. This situation is typical for the 20s, then the speech practice changed in the direction of strengthening literary norms, the educational level of leaders and the entire population increased, however, the very norms of the Soviet official business and journalistic styles came into conflict with the historical cultural traditions of the Russian language.
Department of Education
Municipal Formation "Kholmsky City District"
municipal budgetary educational institution
secondary school No. 8 in Kholmsk
Educational research work
"Culture of speech and features of communication in the 21st century"
Performed:
Hovhannisyan Angelina, 10th grade student
Supervisor:
Kozhukhova Galina Nikolaevna,
teacher of Russian language and literature
Kholmsk
2015
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………...
Chapter 1. The state of the modern Russian language in the 21st century………………….. 6
Chapter 2 Layers of modern vocabulary………………………………………….7
2.1. Borrowed words…………………………………….…………………..7
2.2. What is slang? ....................................................... .................................................12
2.3. Internet – language……………………………………………………………...14
2.4. How does the media influence the Russian language? .............................................. ....................16
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………….………8
Bibliography……………………………………………………………… 20
INTRODUCTION
The Russian language is so rich, colorful and bright, it has so many opportunities for the beautiful expression of one's thoughts that not using them means humiliating the Russian language and oneself as a native speaker of this language. When talking with a person, it is important not only to understand him, but also to enjoy the fact that you communicate with him. It is important to have a culture of speech for everyone who, by their position, is connected with people, organizes and directs their work, conducts business negotiations, educates, takes care of health, and provides various services to people. Speech culture is an indicator of professional suitability for diplomats and lawyers, leading various kinds of television and radio programs, for announcers, journalists, leaders of various levels, an indicator of a person’s general upbringing and education. Therefore, the theme of my work relevant and no doubt.
I look at the world from under the table:
The twentieth century, an extraordinary century.
What is more interesting for a historian,
So much sadder for a contemporary.
The twentieth century turned out to be extremely interesting not only for historians, but also for linguists. In essence, a sociolinguistic experiment that was amazing in terms of scale and results was carried out on the Russian language.
Two major social upheavals - revolution and perestroika - affected not only the people, but also the language. Under the influence of what is happening, the Russian language itself changed, and, in addition, the authorities purposefully influenced it, because the language was its powerful tool. Changes in language, their social causes and consequences are one of the most interesting topics of modern science.
Target: The study of the state of the modern Russian language and its role in the modern world, the identification of factors influencing the development of the Russian language.
To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve a number of tasks :
- Determine the meaning of the concepts "modern Russian language", "norms of the Russian literary language", study the history of these terms.
- Assess the role of the Russian language in the system of world languages and in the modern world.
- Consider the current language situation.
To achieve the main goal of this work, first of all, it is necessary to rely on our oral practice, on living human speech, which isthe object of this study.
As subject of studythere are layers of modern vocabulary that are actively used in our speech.
Hypothesis: it is assumed that the less unjustified use of slang, slang words, inappropriate borrowings in our speech, the richer, more expressive our speech will be, its carrier will become more confident and independent, which means that it will be more in demand in various areas of professional, social life.
Leading research methods:
Theoretical methods (search, reading, study of scientific and methodological, journalistic literature, etc.),
Methods of strategic planning: forecasting, modeling;
Empirical methods: observation, analysis of performance results.
Analysis of empirical data and monitoring, forecasting.
Chapter 1. The state of the modern Russian language in the 21st century
The state of the Russian language in the 21st century isthe most pressing problem for the statefor the whole society. This is one of topical problems of our time: the entire historical experience of the people is concentrated and represented in the language: the state of the language testifies to the state of society itself, its culture. The preservation of the language, concern for its further development and enrichment is a guarantee of the preservation and development of Russian culture. Therefore, every citizen of the Russian Federation, no matter who he works for, no matter what position he holds, is responsible for the state of the language of his country, his people. The frequency of use by people of rude and obscene language has increased, in certain social strata addiction to such vocabulary is being formed. The culture of speech and the general culture of workers in the media of the press, radio and television have fallen sharply. Numerous speech errors, gross deviations from the norms of speech culture are allowed on the air. The level of speech culture has fallen in all social and age groups. High-quality modern communications - mobile phones, computer communications, faxes, etc. - lead to a reduction in the traditional written form of communication, an increase in the share of telephone communication and communication using technical means. A decrease in the volume of writing and reading, which is preferred by a TV, tape recorder, leads to a decrease in the literacy of the population, especially young people. For the same reason, the volume of reading fiction is reduced. An increase in the share of communication with the media leads to a predominance of the perception of information by ear in a modern person and a weakening of the skills of understanding and interpreting a written text.
But it is language that is the most important means of human communication. Communication is impossible without language; society cannot develop without communication.
Chapter 2
Language is, undoubtedly, the most important means of human interpersonal communication. Any language is inextricably linked with thinking, which defines it from the position of a universal mechanism that controls human behavior. Language belongs to those social phenomena that operate throughout the existence of human society.
2.1. Borrowed words
The vocabulary of the modern Russian language has come a long way of development. Our vocabulary consists not only of native Russian words, but also of words borrowed from other languages. Foreign sources replenished and enriched the Russian language throughout the entire process of its historical development. Some borrowings were made in antiquity, others - relatively recently.
In Russia, global changes in the field of linguistic culture at the turn of the century and at the beginning of the 21st century occur under the influence of socio-economic, cultural and political problems.
Clarity and intelligibility of speech depend on the correct use of foreign words in it.In recent years, the problem of using foreign words has become especially acute for Russian citizens.This is due to the fact that along with imported items, scientific, political and economic technologies, a stream of borrowings poured into the country, which are often incomprehensible to most people. In this regard, scientists, writers, publicists and simply thinking people express concern and even sound the alarm about the destructiveness of such a massive process of expansion of borrowed words into the Russian language.
Under borrowed wordin linguistics, any word that came into the Russian language from outside is understood, even if it does not differ in any way from native Russian words in terms of its morphemes.
Foreign words in the vocabulary of the modern Russian literary language, although they represent a rather numerous layer of vocabulary, nevertheless do not exceed 10% of its entire vocabulary.
Depending on the degree of assimilation of borrowed vocabulary by the Russian language, it can be divided into several groups that differ significantly in stylistic terms.
I. Borrowed vocabulary goes back to foreign sources, which has an unlimited scope of use in modern Russian. According to the degree of assimilation by the language, these borrowings are divided into three groups.
1. Words that have lost any signs of non-Russian origin: picture, bed, chair, notebook, school.
2. Words that retain some external features of a foreign language origin: consonances not characteristic of the Russian language (veil, jury, jazz); non-Russian suffixes (technical school, student, director); non-Russian prefixes (broadcast, antibiotics); some of these words are not inflected (cinema, coat, coffee).
3. Common words from the field of science, politics, culture, art, known not only in Russian, but also in other European languages. Such words are called Europeanisms, or internationalisms: telegraph, telephone. A sign of the times is their stylistic neutralization.
II. Borrowed vocabulary of limited use occupies a special place.
1. Book words that have not received general distribution: immoral, apologist, shock, which, as a rule, have Russian or Old Slavonic synonyms; A significant part of the borrowed book vocabulary is made up of terms that for the most part do not have Russian synonyms, which makes them indispensable in the scientific style: jargon, dialect, phoneme, morpheme, metric, rhyme.
2. Borrowed words that penetrated into the Russian language under the influence of salon-noble jargon (amorous - "love", rendezvous - "date", pleisir - "pleasure"). The words of this group have become significantly archaic, they always have Russian synonyms, which are most often used in speech.
3. Exoticisms are borrowed words that characterize the specific national characteristics of the life of different peoples and are used in describing non-Russian reality. A distinctive feature of exoticisms is that they do not have Russian synonyms, so the appeal to them when describing the life of other peoples is dictated by necessity.
4. Foreign inclusions in Russian vocabulary, which often retain non-Russian spelling. Foreign inclusions usually have lexical equivalents in the composition of Russian vocabulary, but differ stylistically from them and are fixed in a particular area of communication as special names or as an expressive means that gives speech a special expression. Their characteristic feature is the distribution not only in Russian, but also in other European languages.
Signs of foreign language vocabulary
Despite the fact that a foreign word is transmitted by means of a borrowing language and acquires an independent meaning, its appearance often retains "foreignness" - phonetic, morphological features that are not characteristic of the Russian language.
Here are some "interethnic" signs of borrowed words:
1. The initial "a" almost always indicates the non-Russian origin of the word: lampshade, diamond, profile, aster, etc. Originally Russian words with the initial a are rare. These are some function words, interjections: a, ah, aha, ah, gasp, come around and a few others.
2. The presence of the letter f in the word is a bright foreign language feature. With the exception of a few interjectional and onomatopoeic words (fu, uf, snort), words with the letter f are borrowed: February, cafe, fact, graphics, lantern, form, sofa, kefir, wardrobe, rhyme, trick, decanter, film, etc.
3. A combination at the junction of the stem and ending ke, ge, he (rocket, cedar, coat of arms, hero, scheme, trachea).
4. Gaping (neighborhood of two or more vowels) in the roots of words: poet, duel, cocoa, out, diet, baul, guard, halo, theater, etc.
5. Some combinations of consonants: anecdote, exam, backpack, zigzag, warehouse, etc.
6. The letter e is found almost exclusively in borrowed words: era, era, floor, evolution, element, echo, peer, ethics, aloe, canoe, etc. In non-borrowed words, e is rarely found - in words of interjective and pronominal nature: e, eh , this, such, therefore, etc.
7. Combinations of kyu, pyu, byu, vu, mu, etc.: mash, banknote, bureau, bureaucrat, bust, debut, etc.
8. Double consonants at the root of the word: abbot, colleague, corrosion, tunnel, sum, cash, diffusion, intermezzo.
9. Inflexibility of nouns: coffee, jury, depot, kangaroo.
10. Morphological inexpressibility of the number and gender of nouns: coat, coffee.
In addition to "international" signs, there are also signs that not only help to determine whether a particular word is borrowed, but also to determine from which language it was borrowed.
New borrowings in Russian
The development of technology, wide international communication, close business and cultural contacts of the modern world cannot but lead and indeed lead to a stormy invasion of new borrowed words into our language.
Foreign words have appeared in our language that were not there before: cruise, motel, camping, service, hobby, etc.
There are practically no languages in the world whose vocabulary would be limited only to native words. Borrowings are a natural result of language contacts, relationships between different peoples and states. There are borrowed words in every language, and no one doubts their necessity as a whole. But should we welcome any borrowing just because there is a common process of interaction between languages? Of course not.
There are a number of requirements for borrowed words in the literary language. Borrowing must be, firstly, necessary - that is, one that cannot be dispensed with. This is usually associated with borrowing the names of things, objects or concepts that exist in another language from other peoples.
Secondly, a foreign word must be used correctly and exactly in the meaning it has in the language.
And, finally, a foreign word should be understandable by the speaker and writer. However, this “understanding” is relative and historically conditioned. What has long been understood and known to a specialist may not be clear to a wide range of speakers; what is incomprehensible today can and will become clear and familiar to everyone over time.
It can be assumed that the development of such words is a matter of time. Indeed, along with the word cruise - "sea voyage" we also have the phrase cruise voyage, that is, "travel of tourists along a certain sea route."
The normal process of borrowing is a creative, active act. It implies a high level of originality, a high degree of development of the assimilating language. The effectiveness and meaning of language contacts do not lie in the number of borrowings from language to language, but in those processes of creative excitement, creative activity and strength that arise in the language's own means as a result of these contacts.
When discussing the question of the admissibility of this or that borrowing, it should be remembered that it is not the borrowed words themselves that are bad, but their inaccurate, incorrect use, their use unnecessarily, without taking into account the genres and styles of speech, the purpose of this or that statement.
2.2. What is slang?
Slang comes from the English word slang. If we talk about the meaning of this word, then it is translated as the language of professionally and socially isolated groups of people, not used in the literary language, or representing a kind of colloquial speech.
In fact, slang is not considered a harmful direction in the language, but is considered as an important part of the modern speech system. It is in constant development and modernization - slang can instantly appear and just as quickly disappear once and for all. All modifications in the language that are associated with the emergence of slang are based on the understanding and simplification of oral speech. Slang itself is a very dynamic and lively system that can be applied to a wide variety of areas of human life.
And where did it all begin?
It is not known exactly when exactly the word slang appeared in English speech, but the first written mention of this term in the UK dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. And in those days it had a slightly different meaning and acted as a synonym for the word "insult". However, with the advent of 1850, the word "slang" received a broader concept and began to mean "colloquial". It began to be identified, as a rule, with the poor strata of the population who used it. And since the end of the 19th century, this term has acquired a generally accepted meaning, which was called colloquial speech.
Linguistics considers slang as one of the styles of the language, which is the opposite of the official or formal language style. It is located at the very last stage of all forms of linguistic communication that exist today and includes various forms of speech that help people identify themselves with certain social and cultural groups. Modern slang consists of phraseological units and new forms that initially arose and were used only by certain social groups, while reflecting their life orientation and priorities. After the lapse of time, such words passed into the public domain, while retaining their special emotional and evaluative color.
Slang ( English
slang ) - a set of special words
or new meanings of already existing words used in various groups of people (professional, social, age, etc.)
The concept of "slang" is mixed with concepts such as "dialectism », « jargon », « vulgarism », « Speaking », « vernacular ».
Professionalisms- these are words used by small groups of people united by a certain profession.
Vulgarisms - these are rude words not usually used by educated people in society, a special lexicon used by people of lower social status: prisoners, drug dealers, homeless people, etc.
jargon - these are words used by certain social or common interest groups that carry a secret meaning that is incomprehensible to everyone.
Many words and expressions that began their existence as slang are now firmly established in the literary language.
Unlike colloquial expressions , slang is actively used in their speech by educated people, representatives of a certain age or professional group. Often this just emphasizes belonging to a certain group of people. A well known example isyouth slang .
A very interesting linguistic phenomenon is Russian youth slang. Scientists note that each generation has its own language, and youth slang exists among urban students. It covers a huge number of life situations, excluding only boring moments. One of the main reasons for the birth of slang is the desire to introduce an element of play into boring reality.
Despite the abundance of new words, a teenager easily changes the style of communication, getting into a different social group. Young people at all times tried to stand out from the crowd, to show their individuality and uniqueness, a certain difference from the older generation. As a sign of her independence, she began to introduce new, incomprehensible words into her speech, the meanings of which only young people knew. So they could communicate with each other and even keep secrets. Of course, teenagers have the right to self-expression, they should be able to stand out, this is how their personality is formed. For parents, the main thing is to skillfully combine the style of communication so that the children are educated and well-read in the future. This is how the language environment develops, the diversity of speech increases.
2.3. Internet - language
Today, when the Internet has become an integral part of society and the number of its users is constantly growing, internet slang more and more actively enters into our speech, more and more often goes beyond the limits of virtual space.
The World Wide Web Internet has long entangled our language of communication with new terms. And if earlier the influence of the network was noticeable only in narrow circles of a few users, now "Internet - neologisms" have become a normal language and even a fashionable style of communication, especially among young people.
Most often, new virtual network words are borrowed from English. In the era of tsarist Russia, at receptions with noble people of their time, the aristocracy used French speech, because it was necessary to stand out pleasantly, so to speak, to prove oneself. A century has passed, but the psychology in this matter has remained the same. A new manner of communication, seasoned with a word from the virtual world, is very fashionable.
Then the question arises: is such communication good or bad? After all, it also happens that sometimes the complex names of simple words are heard absurdly and even funny. Instead of "user" it is better to say "user", instead of "advertising" press the button - this is "spam". The language of communication is already becoming Americanized Russian, and it is difficult to predict how far this process will go.
The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life. And the acceptance of any innovation is carried out primarily through the language. Many words born by the Internet as specialized terms have long since come into use, having acquired an independent meaning.
Of course, any major innovations that become a part of everyday life make certain changes in languages. But the Internet deserves special attention here: it has a stronger influence on the language than other technical innovations. After all, the World Wide Web
this innovation is not only and not so much technical as informational. With the advent of the Internet, people began to write much more. And the circle of people who write is growing significantly.
Written language is very different from spoken language. Spoken language is more free, as its functions are slightly different from written.
The Internet, on the other hand, equates written language with oral language, simplifying it, making it rough. And although it is too early to talk about the completion of the process, the trend is obvious.
Will the Internet continue to influence language norms, blurring the boundaries between written and spoken language, or will this process stop?
Language under the influence of the Internet is not changing as quickly and noticeably as we would like to think. Everything changes very slowly, the language is not prone to rapid transformation. The language system is essentially conservative and is more likely to preserve some basic principles of its existence.
Speech has changed, and we certainly notice that in spontaneous communication in real time, when the speed of transmission of thought is primarily important, we really behave as in oral speech. We forget about capital letters, punctuation marks. Because it's not about them! It is more important for us to provide information and get an answer as soon as possible. And in such a situation, we can say that a new form of oral and written speech is being born. But speech, not language!
2.4. How does the media influence the Russian language?
Language is an invaluable gift, and even more so such as the Russian language. Russian was spoken, thought and written by Tolstoy and Pushkin, Chekhov and Dostoevsky, Lomonosov and Derzhavin and many other Russian scientists and writers.
Historically, the language is more sensitive to the changes that occur in the life of society. And if some hundred years ago it was fiction that was the fundamental factor in the creation of norms of word usage, now this place has been taken by television and the Internet. Modern society is in a huge information dependence, and it is no longer a secret for anyone that, changing, the language turns into a powerful weapon of information impact.
It is a pity, but more and more often you can hear distorted speech, facilitated by modern fashion trends directly from TV screens. Lexical incidents are easy to find in almost every newspaper, and besides them, a huge number of grammatical errors and the free use of profanity and rude colloquial vocabulary. It is difficult to disagree with the fact that this is evil for the language.
It is impossible to take and forbid the use of certain expressions and words, just as it is impossible to force a society to stop development. This is an irreversible process. And yet, mangling and distortion of the Russian language are unacceptable, especially in the media, since it is they who are particularly active in influencing changes in language norms. Most of today's children fill lexical baggage only from the information they receive from the Internet or television. The formation of a high language culture is becoming a very important issue in modern conditions.
The media should take on the function of propagating the correct Russian language, creating an atmosphere of respect and love for it.
Conclusion
Thus, we can conclude that the state of the Russian language in the 21st century is an acute problem for the whole society.Despite all the difficulties of the modern period, we should not forget that the Russian language is our national treasure and we must treat it like a national wealth - to preserve and increase it.
I believe that this work proves that language is the most important means of human communication. Communication is impossible without language, and society cannot develop without communication.
To prove the relevance and significance of this problem, a survey was conducted among students in grades 9-11. The results of the survey showed that almost 80% of respondents believe that the Russian language is not changing for the better.But, answering the second question (the use of jargon in their speech), the opinions of the students differed. So, 30% answered that they do not use jargon in their speech, which is very commendable, and 70% constantly use jargon, not seeing anything shameful in it.
The goal has been reached. The state of the modern Russian language is influenced by many factors, but it will depend only on the person himself, the native speaker, how much the beauty, grandeur, richness of his native speech will be preserved, how literate and expressive it will be.
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Russian language startXXIcentury
Introduction
Law needs such linguistic means that would accurately designate legal concepts and competently express the thought of the legislator. This probably explains the constant, unquenchable interest of lawyers in the language of law. Whatever the goal of the researchers, they all agree that the language of law is quite specific and needs to be improved. But in the works of lawyers there are no specific conclusions about its specifics and no ways to improve the language of laws are indicated. Therefore, the author of this work decided to once again highlight these issues and thereby draw the attention of lawyers to the word. The article is addressed to all lawyers, but first of all to legislators: it is necessary that they formulate thoughts accurately and competently, in accordance with the norms of the literary language, since the formation of legal consciousness of citizens.
In order to effectively fulfill the function of expressing will, laws must be impeccable both in content and in form. The language of the law is extremely precise. Like other branches of science, jurisprudence operates with certain terms - words and phrases that name special concepts; for this, vocabulary of various stylistic layers is used, from bookish ("reclaiming", "to prevent", "burden", "conjugate", "selection") and official business ("concealment", "underdelivery") to colloquial ("begging"); emotionally colored vocabulary is also encountered, for example, "accomplice" is marked "disapproved" in the dictionary.
The desire for an accurate designation of various legal concepts also explains the active word-formation processes in the language of lawyers: "inquiry", "additional recovery", "jurisdiction", "punishment". Most of these words, for example, "punishability", "inquiry", "jurisdictional", "non-jurisdictional", "co-tenants", "alienation", "legal capacity", are given in explanatory dictionaries with the mark "jurid."; the nouns "facilitating", "delivering", "obstructing", "refusal" and the participle "authorized" are not registered in the dictionaries.
One of the features of the language of law is that many legal terms, including evaluative concepts, are compound: "missing without a trace", "acceptance for one's own production", "a milder form of punishment". These are language standards, or cliches, in which everything is defined: lexical composition and word order. Cliches are necessary because they ensure the accuracy of the language of law. But in the use of these stable phrases one can observe interesting phenomena. First.
Some ambiguous words are used in several meanings. So, "imprisonment" in the phrase "imprisonment" is used in the first sense: "action on the verb" to conclude "; in the cliché "preliminary detention" it appears in the second sense: "being in custody, the state of one who is deprived of liberty"; in the standards "expert's opinion", "prosecutor's opinion" has a third meaning: "conclusion from something; judgment made on the basis of something. "Second. In legal terms, there are unusual combinations of words for the literary language. For example, "guilty" has the meaning of "committed a serious misconduct, crime", therefore it is combined with nouns denoting people; in the language of law it is combined with the word "actions": "guilty actions".
The word "measures" is combined, as a rule, with the verb "take"; but as part of the legal terms "measures of influence", "measures of encouragement", "measures of restraint" is combined with the verb "apply". "Damage" is used in the language of law in the first sense: "losses caused to someone, something; damage" and is combined with the verb "compensate" ("compensate"). The word close to it in meaning is "harm" - "spoilage, damage", and on the basis of their semantic (semantic) proximity, the phrase "compensate for harm" and the term "compensation for harm" were formed.
The word "burden" - "bookish, burden, aggravate." The Reference Dictionary states that this word is combined with animate nouns. However, in civil law it is combined with an inanimate noun: "encumber property." The polysemantic word "turn" in the third sense ("a complete change in the course of development of something; a turning point") forms a phrase with the words "execution of a decision": "turn in the execution of a decision." Unusual is the phrase "waste circulation", in which "circulation" is used in the fifth meaning: "use, use. (Econ.). A form of exchange of products of labor and other objects of property characteristic of a commodity economy through purchase and sale." The phrases "perfectly innocent", "wrong party", "malicious agreement", "serving imprisonment" are also interesting.
The forms of management are also peculiar in law (management is a type of connection between words, in which the main word requires a specific case from the dependent: "surrender", "sue"). So, on the basis of the semantic proximity between the phrases "the person conducting the inquiry" and "the body of inquiry", the second takes the form of managing the first: "transfer of the case from the body of inquiry", although it is more correct - "from the body of inquiry". The verb "condemn", meaning: 1) "express disapproval of someone, something, recognize it as bad"; 2) "sentence to any punishment"; 3) "doom to something", - in the third meaning governs the accusative case with the preposition "on". But in the second sense, its synonym is the verb "sentence".
As a result, "condemn" in the language of law governs the dative case with the preposition "to"; the participle "convicted" and the noun "condemnation" receive the same form of control: "when sentenced to imprisonment." The noun "sentence" in the texts of the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes also governs the dative case with the preposition "to": "sentences to deprivation of liberty". The management in the phrase "case proceedings" is peculiar, although along with this option the normative "case proceedings" are also used.
The order of words in individual phrases is peculiar in the language of law: "intentional infliction of moderate harm to health." The inconsistent definition of "moderate severity" should come after the defined word "harm", but this word is part of the phrase "harm to health", so the word order in this phrase is determined by the content.
And one more feature of this professional language is seen in the specific use of homogeneous members of the sentence - words denoting comparable concepts, connected by a coordinating connection and answering the same question. In the text of the law, they perform a clarifying function. It is specific that words that name heterogeneous, disparate concepts or are different members of a sentence can be combined as homogeneous members: "The same acts committed repeatedly (how?) Or by a person (by whom?) who previously committed rape"; "The same acts committed on a large scale (how?) Or by a person (by whom?) Previously convicted."
Numerous in law are such combinations of words as homogeneous members: “on the basis of and in execution”, “on time and in order”, “in the amount, on time and in order”, “on the grounds and in order”, “in order and on the grounds", "on the grounds and in order", "on the conditions and within", in which words that are not homogeneous members are connected by a coordinative connection, besides, their grammatical form is different: "on the basis of" - in the prepositional case , "in execution" - in the accusative; "in terms" - in the plural, in the accusative case, "in order" - in the singular, in the prepositional case, etc., which is a deviation from the literary norm.
The foregoing allows us to conclude that the specificity of the language of law is determined by the need to accurately convey the relationship between legal concepts and the nuances of the legislator's thought. All these linguistic phenomena are characteristic only for the legal sphere of communication and are observed only in it.
However, along with the noted phenomena, quite a lot of linguistic errors were made in the texts of laws. Let's consider some of them.
As mentioned, the accuracy of the formulation of legal norms requires clarity of presentation. However, there are cases of inaccurate choice of words with the same root, similar in sound, but differing in shades of meaning (paronyms). So, in criminal law there is the concept of "the principle of guilt" (Article 5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). But we should not talk about guilt, but about guilt, since "guilt" is "any misconduct, blunder, awkwardness, impoliteness"; "guilty" is "a serious offense, a crime." Thus, the concept in the text of the law is defined inaccurately (see also Article 77 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation). As a result of the confusion of paronyms, all procedural acts sin with similar errors: "guilt admitted", "guilt proven", etc.
In the Criminal Code (Articles 53, 72), the paronym "departure" is incorrectly chosen instead of "serving": "the time of serving the restriction of liberty", "the time of serving the deprivation of liberty". "Departure" (in the second meaning) - "to fulfill a duty, to stay for some time somewhere, fulfilling a duty, duty" (the noun from it is "departure"); "serve" - "perform any duty, duty, etc., associated with staying somewhere" (the noun from it is "serving").
Without taking into account the meaning, the word "carry out" is used: "...children are treated cruelly, including physical or mental abuse against them" (Article 69 of the RF IC). But "to carry out" - "to put into execution, to translate into reality." In this case, it is more correct to use "commit", "apply", "repair" (official).
Further. If the colloquial word "begging" or the emotionally colored "accomplice" are appropriate in the articles of the Criminal Code, since they precisely define legal concepts, then the neologism "money laundering" is inappropriate in an official business style, it is better to use the word "legalization".
The colloquial word "grandmother", expressing a dismissive attitude towards a person, is inappropriate in the text of the law (clause 9, article 34 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). In Art. 67 and 94 UK and Art. 89 of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation, the commonly used variant "grandmother" is given.
The expression "in a drunken state" is assigned to a certain style - colloquial, therefore, its use in Art. 162 and 241 of the RSFSR Code of Administrative Offenses is inappropriate. In addition, these articles are not about the type of person, but about the state of intoxication in which he is. It is necessary: "in a state of intoxication."
Incorrect formation of word forms, for example, the participle "followed" (from it the amount. - Art. 402 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the RSFSR), is noted in the language of law. The verb "follow" is intransitive, so passive participles are not formed from it. In this case, it is better to use "owing".
In the phrases "on a large scale" (Articles 158, 163 and others of the Criminal Code) and "in someone else's interest" (Articles 980, 981 and others of the Civil Code), the number of nouns is not precisely chosen.
The word "size" in this phrase has the meaning: "degree of development, magnitude, scale of any phenomenon, event, etc." and is usually used in the plural. Consequently, the variant used in the text of the law does not correspond to the literary norm. Let's fix it: "large".
The word "interest" is used in the meaning: "usually plural (interests) of whom, what or what. What is good for someone, something, serves for the benefit of someone, something; needs, needs". The variant corresponding to the norm is used in Art. 182, 960 and other GK.
Word order plays an important role in the organization of the text, in the logical expression of thoughts. However, in the texts of laws there are cases of its violation, which prevents their correct understanding, gives rise to ambiguity, is the cause of verbosity or stringing cases. So, in the text "For persons who have committed crimes before reaching the age of eighteen years ..." (Article 95 of the Criminal Code). The correct option is "before reaching the age of eighteen." As a result of stringing cases in Art. 65 of the Civil Code, an ambiguity appeared: "The recognition of a legal entity as bankrupt by a court entails its liquidation." The phrase "recognition by the court" should not have been broken. There is also an incorrect location of additions in the texts: "The investigator has the right to also obtain handwriting samples or other samples for comparative study from a witness or victim ..." (Article 186 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). A similar error was made in the following text: "The court that issued the verdict on confiscation of property, after its entry into force, sends a writ of execution, a copy of the inventory of property and a copy of the verdict for execution to the bailiff ..." (Article 62 of the Criminal Code). In the Russian literary language there is such a rule: if the sentence contains a direct addition ("handwriting samples or other samples"; "a writ of execution, a copy of the inventory of property and a copy of the sentence") and an indirect addition of a person ("witness or victim"; "bailiff" ), then the addition of the person is put in the first place: "... he also has the right to receive samples from the witness or the victim ..."; "...sends a writ of execution to the bailiff...".
In the language of legal documents, forms of management are specific; they are often the result of violations of the norms of the literary language. For example, the word "foundation" in the third meaning ("cause of something; that which explains, justifies, makes clear actions, behavior") governs nouns in the genitive case or verbs in the indefinite form; in article 141 of the UK, it governs the dative case: "grounds for the cancellation of the adoption of a child." Let's fix it: "to cancel the adoption."
The participle "defined" controls the instrumental case, which means that a mistake was made in the phrase "defined by agreement" (Article 231 of the Civil Code). Need to: "determined by agreement."
Incorrect connection of homogeneous members of the sentence leads to ambiguity of the text. In Art. 185 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, verbs of different types are combined as homogeneous members: “When appointing and conducting an examination, the accused has the right to: 1) challenge the expert; 2) ask for the appointment of an expert from among the persons indicated by him; 3) submit additional questions to obtain an expert opinion on them 4) to be present with the permission of the investigator during the examination and give explanations to the expert; 5) to get acquainted with the expert's conclusion. It should be corrected: "1) declare"; "3) represent." In Art. 315 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as homogeneous members, the member of the sentence "duration of the probationary period" and the subordinate part "and who is responsible for monitoring the convict" are combined. Let's correct: "the duration of the probationary period, as well as the person on whom it is assigned ..." The same mistake was made in Art. 281 Code of Criminal Procedure. In Art. 1065 of the Civil Code contains an error - the incompatibility of one of the homogeneous members with the word in the sentence with which the other two are associated: "If the harm caused is a consequence of the operation of an enterprise, structure or other production activity, the court has the right to oblige the defendant ..." Editing option: ". ..is a consequence of the operation of an enterprise, structure, or a consequence of other production activities.
And another important question is about distinguishing between speech clichés and clichés. Language standards are ready-made means of expression (phrases) reproduced in speech, where the composition of words and their order are precisely established, therefore they are used automatically in speech. In the language of lawyers, there are speech clichés - words and expressions with erased semantics and faded emotional coloring: "stop clerical work" (Article 378 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), "on termination of the case by proceedings" (Article 406 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), 172 of the PEC), "on the adjournment of the case by a hearing" (Article 251 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). What are the mistakes here? In phrases, control and controlled words are confused. In law, there is the concept of "initiation of a criminal case", then the "proceedings of the case" are conducted. This means that the proceedings are terminated, i.e. the proceedings are terminated, not the case itself. Let's correct the given stamps: "to terminate the proceedings", "on the termination of the proceedings", "with the termination of the proceedings". The same error is in the stamp "when the case is adjourned by a hearing": a hearing is scheduled, and the hearing of the case is also postponed. We will correct: "when the hearing of the case is postponed." The variant corresponding to the norm is used in Art. 146 Code of Civil Procedure: "until the adjournment of his (case) hearing".
Stamps usually lead to verbosity, for example: "at the place of adoption of a child" (Article 129 of the UK). Two verbal nouns are used here, denoting the same process, so it is permissible to remove "production".
The phrase "from a criminal case on charges" is also a stamp (Article 26 of the Code of Criminal Procedure).
The word "criminal" is used in law in the fourth sense: "associated with the application of state measures of punishment to persons who have committed a socially dangerous act"; This means that criminal cases are always connected with the prosecution, and therefore the phrase "accused" becomes redundant, creates verbosity. The cliché "cases on charges" is correctly constructed (Article 26 of the Code of Criminal Procedure).
So, stamps are a negative phenomenon that violates the norms of the literary language.
This is not even a linguistic phenomenon, but a psychological one, characteristic of people who lack a linguistic flair, a linguistic taste.
The speech culture of lawyers will remain at a low level until the language of laws becomes the standard of official business speech. Work on it should lead to the fact that the meaning of the text easily reaches the consciousness of the reader. The status of law is too high and responsible, and its language is an indicator of the level of culture of our legislators, an indicator of their respect for the citizens for whom laws are written. Therefore, when forming and formulating the norms of law and protecting them, legislators are simply obliged not to violate the norms of their native language.
1. Russian language of the Soviet period and the modern language situation
The historical events of the 20th century could not help but influence the history of the Russian language. Of course, the language system has not changed in one century - social events do not affect the structure of the language. The speech practice of Russian speakers has changed, the number of those who speak Russian has increased, the composition of words in certain areas of the dictionary has changed, the stylistic properties of some words and turns of speech have changed. These changes in the practice of using the language, in speech styles, were caused by major social events during the formation and fall of the Soviet socio-political system.
The Soviet period in the history of Russia began with the events of October 1917 and ended with the events of August 1991.
Features of the Russian language of the Soviet era began to take shape before 1917 - during the World War and finally took shape in the 20s of the twentieth century.
Changes in the vocabulary and style of the Russian language associated with the decay and fall of the Soviet system began around 1987-88 and continue to the present.
It is interesting to note that the fall of the Soviet system was accompanied by such trends in the speech practice of society, which in many respects resemble the social and speech changes of the 1920s.
Both the 20s and the 90s of the twentieth century are characterized by:
politicization of the language;
pronounced evaluative attitude to words;
the transformation of many words into symbols of a person's belonging to a certain socio-political group;
loosening of language norms in mass use and speech of prominent public figures;
the growth of mutual misunderstanding between different social groups.
The features of the language of the Soviet era and the trends caused by changes in society after 1991 have a direct impact on the current state of Russian speech. Therefore, it is possible to understand the problems of the speech culture of modern society only on the basis of an analysis of the features of the Russian language of the Soviet era.
These features arose in the speech of party leaders and activists, spread through newspapers; reports at meetings; resolutions and orders; communication with visitors to institutions and became speech patterns for wide (in the early years of Soviet power - illiterate and semi-literate) sections of the population. From the official language, many words and phrases passed into colloquial everyday speech. In the opposite direction - from vernacular and jargon - words characteristic of the low style and features of the speech of illiterate people penetrated into the language of resolutions, reports, orders. This situation is typical for the 20s, then the speech practice changed in the direction of strengthening literary norms, the educational level of leaders and the entire population increased, however, the very norms of the Soviet official business and journalistic styles came into conflict with the cultural historical traditions of the Russian language.
2. Grammatical features of Russian speech of the Soviet era
The grammatical features of the speech of the Soviet period consist in the disproportionate use of some of the possibilities of the grammatical system of the Russian language. They are typical for book and written speech, colloquial speech was free from abuses in grammar, although some clerical turns could penetrate into colloquial speech.
Typical grammatical flaws in speech were as follows:
loss of verbality of the sentence, replacement of verbs by names (improvement, improvement, increase, in one of the speeches at the meeting - non-exit);
the transformation of independent words into formal service words, including verbs (made an attempt, fight, approach accounting), nouns (task, question, business, work, line, strengthening, strengthening, deepening, construction), adverbs (extremely, significantly );
a heap of identical cases (the possibility of a delaying effect of income taxation);
frequent use of superlative adjectives (greatest, fastest, most wonderful);
improper coordination and management;
wrong word order
formulaic expressions that cause unnecessary personification of abstract nouns.
Examples of template phrases with abstract nouns as subjects are the following sentences:
The deepening of the crisis forces us to assess the prospects of the industry.
The aggravation of the need for steamships prompted Sovtorgflot to raise the question of the speedy transfer of ships to the center.
The merger of homogeneous organizations means limiting the number of procurers.
If we highlight the grammatical foundations in these sentences, we get a rather fantastic picture:
Deepening makes you evaluate ...
The aggravation prompted to arouse ...
Consolidation means...
This elimination of a person from the text, the creation of mythical subjects was sometimes explained by the specifics of the business style. In fact, the reason for such a construction of the statement was the desire to avoid personal responsibility, presenting any situation as the result of the action of elemental forces (deepening, aggravation, decline).
A vivid example of how a word can completely lose its meaning is the following sentence: A lot of hard work has been put into the organization and development of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. If work is put on the "case", then the meaning of the word "case" is completely forgotten.
Already in the 1920s, philologists drew attention to the problems of using the Russian language in newspapers and everyday everyday speech. G. O. Vinokur wrote on this occasion: “Stamped phraseology closes our eyes to the true nature of things and their relations, ... it substitutes for us their nomenclature instead of real things - moreover, it is completely inaccurate, for petrified.” G.O. Vinokur drew the following conclusion: “Since we use meaningless slogans and expressions, our thinking also becomes meaningless, meaningless. You can think in images, you can think in terms, but is it possible to think in dictionary clichés?” (Vinokur G.O. Culture of language. Essays on linguistic technology. M.: 1925, pp. 84-86).
3. Lexical features of Russian speech of the Soviet era
The formation of a new social system was accompanied by the following phenomena in the vocabulary:
the spread of nouns with the familiar-scornful suffix -k- (canteen, reading room, pictorial [Fine Department of the People's Commissariat for Education], economy [Ekonoicheskaya Zhizn newspaper], normalka [normal school], inpatient [stationary school]);
the spread of words with a narrow, situational meaning that existed in the language for a very short time (from a year to five years, sometimes two to three decades), outside the context of the social conditions of a certain period, such words are simply incomprehensible: moderator;
dissemination of abbreviations (Chekvalap - Extraordinary Commission for the procurement of felt boots and bast shoes, hard clothing - clothes made in Tver, akavek - student of the AKV [Academy of Communist Education]);
distribution of borrowed words obscure to the people in newspapers and in the language of documents: plenum, ultimatum, ignore, regularly, personally, initiative (over time, some of these words have become generally understood, but the word must be understood at the time of use, and not ten years later);
loss of real meaning by words (moment, question, task, line);
the appearance of a negative emotional coloring in neutral words as a result of their situational use, which narrowed and distorted the meaning of these words (element, dissident, voyage, labor).
By the 60-70s of the twentieth century, the general level of speech culture in relation to the grammatical and lexical norms of the Russian language had grown significantly, the extremes of the 20s were smoothed out. However, the tendency to distort the meaning of words, to introduce ideological elements of meaning into them, remained. It is also curious to note the fact that books on the culture of speech, officially published in the 1920s, were subsequently placed in the special storage department of the state library and became available after 1991.
4. Functional and stylistic features of the Russian speech of the Soviet era
The stylistic features of the official speech of the Soviet era are:
misuse of metaphors and symbols: struggle for academic achievement, battle for the harvest, vanguard of the working class, on the linguistic front, against bourgeois smuggling in linguistics, signaling [informing], purge, sweep, linkage, linkage, loading, fouling, slipping, hydra of counterrevolution, imperialist sharks, wind of change;
abuse of epithets of majesty: unprecedented, gigantic, unheard of, titanic, unique;
the penetration of words from criminal jargon into newspaper and official speech: grow brown, cover, fake, by gravity, trepach, punks (over time, the stylistic coloring of these words has changed - the words linden, punks, trepach have become literary words of colloquial speech, the word by gravity - the official term in medical documents);
Colloquial speech was characterized by the inappropriate use of clericalism, sometimes distorting their conceptual meaning by shifting it to the objective meaning: a self-supporting jacket (an example from 1925), cooperative trousers (an example from 1989), a leather handbag, a monopoly ( drinking establishment, the conceptual meaning is associated with the state monopoly on the sale of alcoholic beverages introduced in the 1920s).
Regarding the abuse of emotionally colored vocabulary, prof. S.I. Kartsevsky wrote: "The pursuit of expressiveness and, in general, a subjective attitude to life lead to the fact that we constantly resort to metaphors and describe in every possible way, instead of defining" (Kartsevsky S.I. Language, war and revolution. Berlin: 1923, C . eleven).
A typical feature of the style of official and colloquial speech was the use of euphemisms, words that hide the true meaning of the concept: isolation ward (prison), study (rough criticism), seagull, overkill (extraordinary commission), competent authorities (state security agencies), tower (execution).
S.I. Kartsevsky, A.M. Selishchev, other philologists paid attention to the spread of cynical swearing and swearing in society.
After 1917, the attitude towards proper names changed. Instead of traditional Russian names in the 20s, parents gave their children such names, for example: Decree, Budyon, Terror, Vilen [Vladimir Ilyich Lenin], Vilor [Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - October Revolution]. Many cities and city streets were renamed in honor of the leaders of the revolution and Soviet leaders. The names of some cities have changed several times, for example, Rybinsk - Shcherbakov - Rybinsk - Andropov - Rybinsk.
Yu. Yasnopolsky wrote in 1923 in the Izvestiya newspaper: "The Russian language suffered severely during the revolution. Nothing in our country has undergone such ruthless mutilation, such merciless distortion as the language."
Already at the end of the Soviet era, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, prof. Yu.N. Karaulov noted such tendencies in speech as:
the widespread use of abstract words with a pseudoscientific coloring, the semantics of which are so emasculated that they become interchangeable (question, process, situation, factor, problem, opinion, direction);
objectless use of transitive verbs (we will solve [the problem], we exchanged [opinions]);
violations in the verbal and nominal direction (prompted us, makes us, do not want to call, how good they are);
nominalization (replacing verbs with abstract names);
the use of inanimate nouns as a subject (inappropriate personification): creative work, national income, concern for a person, the image of a contemporary become characters in the text;
the tendency to smooth out the personal beginning in speech as much as possible, to increase the feeling of uncertainty, informational vagueness, which at the right time would allow a double interpretation of the content (Karaulov Yu.N. On the state of the Russian language of our time. M .: 1991, pp. 23-27 ).
All these tendencies have not only been preserved, but even intensified in the Russian speech of the 90s of the XX century and are typical of the modern language situation.
5. The inevitability of changes in the language in the new social conditions
After 1991, significant political and economic changes took place in Russian society, which influenced the conditions for the use of the Russian language in oral and written speech. These changes in the conditions of use of the language were also reflected in certain parts of its lexical system. Lost relevance, and went out of active use, many words that called the economic realities of the Soviet era, ideological vocabulary. The names of many institutions and positions were again renamed. Religious vocabulary returned to active use, many economic and legal terms passed from a special sphere into common use.
The abolition of censorship led to the appearance of spontaneous oral speech on the air, democratization - to the participation in public communication of persons with different education and level of speech culture.
Such noticeable changes in speech have caused justified public concern about the state of the Russian language today. At the same time, different opinions are expressed. Some believe that the reforms in society have led to a sharp decrease in the level of speech culture, the deterioration of the language. Others express the opinion that the development of a language is a spontaneous process that does not need regulation, since, in their opinion, the language itself will choose all the best and reject the superfluous, inappropriate. Unfortunately, assessments of the state of the language are most often politicized and overly emotional. In order to understand what is happening with the language, scientific methods for assessing the favorableness of language changes are needed, which have not yet been developed enough.
6. Scientific methods for assessing the favorableness of language changes
The scientific approach to assessing the ongoing changes is based on a number of well-established provisions of linguistics.
It should immediately be noted that the language cannot but change over time, it cannot be conserved by any effort.
At the same time, society is not interested in the language changing too abruptly, as this creates a gap in the cultural tradition of the people.
Moreover, people are interested in language serving as an effective means of thinking and communication, which means that it is desirable that changes in language serve this purpose, or at least not interfere with it.
A scientific assessment of language change can only be made on the basis of a clear understanding of the functions of language and an accurate idea of what properties a language must have in order to best perform its functions.
We have already said that the main functions of language are to serve as a means of communication and the formation of thought. This means that the language must be such that it allows any complex thought to be made clear to the interlocutor and the speaker himself. At the same time, it is important that the understanding is adequate, i.e. so that as a result of the utterance, exactly the thought that the speaker wanted to convey to him arose in the mind of the interlocutor.
To do this, the language needs the following properties:
lexical wealth, i.e. the availability of suitable words and combinations of words to express all the necessary concepts;
lexical precision, i.e. evidence of semantic differences between synonyms, paronyms, terms;
expressiveness, i.e. the ability of a word to create a vivid image of an object or concept (terms of foreign origin do not have this property);
clarity of grammatical constructions, i.e. the ability of word forms in a sentence to accurately indicate the relationship between concepts;
flexibility, i.e. the availability of means to describe various aspects of the situation under discussion;
minimality of non-removable homonymy, i.e. the rarity of such situations when the word in the sentence remains ambiguous.
The modern Russian literary language fully possesses all the qualities listed above. Problems in communication arise due to the fact that not every speaker knows how to use the opportunities provided by the Russian language.
Therefore, to assess language change, the following questions need to be answered:
Does the change contribute to strengthening the positive properties of the language (expressiveness, richness, clarity, etc.)?
Does the change help the language perform its functions better?
A negative answer to these questions allows us to conclude that the change is undesirable.
In order to have reliable data on how language functions, regular sociolinguistic research is needed, during which it would be useful to clarify the following questions:
To what extent do people from different social and demographic groups understand the messages from television news?
To what extent do lawyers and non-lawyers understand the language of the law?
To what extent do industry professionals understand the new terminology?
How accurately are the terms used outside the professional environment?
How often do misunderstandings occur in ordinary everyday conversation?
The answers to these questions would make it possible to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of the use of the Russian language in modern speech communication.
7. The need to protect the Russian language
Since changes in speech can lead not only to positive, but also to negative changes in the language, it is worth considering how to protect the language from unwanted changes.
Of course, the development of a language cannot be controlled by administrative methods. Orders do not make a word more expressive, it is impossible to give a word a different meaning, it is impossible to make people speak correctly if they do not know how to do it.
In protecting the language, the main role belongs not to administrative bodies, but to civil society and the individual.
The protection of the Russian language should be taken care of by political parties (unless, of course, their leaders themselves speak their native language sufficiently, otherwise it will turn out as always), public and scientific organizations, journalistic unions, and other associations of citizens.
Today there are not so many public organizations that would pay attention to the issues of the culture of speech. A useful role in this matter is played by such organizations as the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, the Russian Guild of Expert Linguists, and the Glasnost Defense Foundation.
The popular science magazine "Russian Speech", which promotes scientific knowledge about the Russian language, constantly publishes articles on the culture of speech, is of great benefit.
It is very important that the problems of the culture of speech are discussed with the participation of specialists in the Russian language. A subjective or ideological approach to the issues of the culture of speech can lead to an incorrect interpretation of linguistic phenomena, an erroneous assessment of the state of speech.
Ultimately, the fate of the Russian language depends on each person. The state cannot check every word spoken and stamp it "correctly". A person himself must take care to pass on the Russian language to the next generations in an undistorted form. On the other hand, society should help every citizen in every possible way to improve the knowledge of the Russian language. In this case, state support for the Russian language may also be useful.
provision of scientific, mass and school libraries with new dictionaries of the Russian language and modern textbooks;
financing of scientific and popular scientific journals on the Russian language;
organization of popular science programs in the Russian language on radio and television;
advanced training of television and radio workers in the field of speech culture;
official edition of the new edition of the set of rules for spelling and punctuation.
8. The state of the speech culture of society at the present stage
After 1991, some positive trends have formed in the speech practice of society:
expansion of the vocabulary of the language in the field of economic, political and legal vocabulary;
approximation of the language of the media to the needs of reliable coverage of reality;
the convergence of the language of notes and correspondence with literary colloquial speech, the rejection of the clerical style in journalism;
de-ideologization of some layers of vocabulary;
the disuse of many newspaper stamps of the Soviet era;
return to some cities and streets of historical names.
A positive impact on the development of the language has a change in the conditions of public communication: the abolition of censorship, the opportunity to express personal opinion, the opportunity for listeners to evaluate the oratorical talents of prominent politicians.
Along with the positive in modern speech, negative trends have become widespread:
fixing grammatical errors as samples of sentence construction;
inaccurate use of vocabulary, distortion of the meanings of words;
stylistic speech disorders.
The grammatical flaws of modern speech are:
replacement of personal forms of verbs with verbal nouns with suffixes -ation, -enie, -anie (regionalization, farming, criminalization, sponsoring, lobbying, investing);
loss of a certain meaning by words (progress, panacea, momentum, stabilization, exclusive);
heaps of case forms (during the operation to detain an armed criminal, course correction will be carried out in the direction of tightening reforms, about the plan of events held in connection with the celebration ...);
replacement of case control by prepositional (the conference showed that ...);
replacement of the indirect case with a combination with how (sometimes this is as a concession, he is named as the best player);
wrong choice of case (based on some materials).
Lexical shortcomings of speech are:
distribution of words with a narrow (situational) meaning (state employee, contract worker, beneficiary, industry worker, security official);
the use of borrowings that are incomprehensible to many, sometimes even to the speaker himself (briefing, distributor, kidnapping);
the use of abbreviations (UIN, OBEP, OODUUM and PDN ATC, civil defense and emergency situations);
the ideologization of certain layers of vocabulary, the invention of new labels (group egoism [about the demands of people to respect their rights when building territories, to pay salaries on time], consumer extremism [about the desire of citizens to receive quality services]).
The style of speech (in almost all functional styles) today is characterized by such negative features:
transformation of metaphors into new patterns (vertical of power, recovery of the economy), sometimes meaningless (biased barriers, Russia is sick today with the health of people, Russia is the main person here, local authorities are struggling with a lack of funds [I would like to add here: the shortage is still winning in this unequal struggle] );
the use of words that hide the essence of phenomena (social insecurity [poverty], involvement of firms in charitable activities [illegal extortion from entrepreneurs]);
the penetration of jargon into journalistic and oral official speech;
abuse of emotionally colored vocabulary in official public speech
9. Causes of massive speech errors
The causes of negative phenomena in speech practice include:
people's trust in the printed word (the habit of considering everything printed and said on television as a model of the norm);
reduction of editorial exactingness to journalists regarding the observance of language norms;
decrease in the quality of proofreading work;
the gap between the complicated requirements of the new school curriculum in the Russian language and the real possibilities of today's Russian school;
a decrease in the interest of schoolchildren in classical literature;
problems in replenishing the fund of libraries;
the transformation of the "Rules of Spelling and Punctuation" of 1956 into a bibliographic rarity and the absence of their new edition;
disrespect for the humanities;
disrespect for addressees of speech;
disdain for one's native language.
10. Ways to improve the speech culture of speakers
If we take into account the importance of taking care of the language, then it is quite possible to improve the state of affairs with the culture of speech. For this you need:
explain to persons whose speeches fall into the center of public attention the need for careful attitude to their native language;
explain to the heads of the media the need for high-quality editorial work on the style of published texts;
to organize an advisory service of the Russian language;
promote classical literature;
provide libraries with new dictionaries and textbooks on the Russian language and culture of speech;
prepare and publish a new edition of the official set of spelling and punctuation rules;
promote respect for the Russian language.
11. Methods for self-improvement of speech culture
As mentioned above, the main role in the preservation of the native language belongs to the person himself.
In order for the state of the language not to cause anxiety, each person must constantly think about what he says.
No commissions and federal programs will change anything if the people themselves do not begin to respect their native language, feel their responsibility for every word they say, and think about the meaning of their words.
Even the most comprehensive speech culture course cannot provide answers to all questions. The language is so rich that it cannot be described in one textbook. This means that it is necessary to constantly develop your speech culture, comprehend the depths of the Russian language.
To do this, you can use the following methods:
reading classical fiction (this is the most important and effective method);
careful study of the necessary sections in grammar reference books;
use of dictionaries;
seeking advice from philologists;
use of Internet resources.
There are several sites on the Internet containing reference information on the Russian language, dictionaries, articles on the problems of speech culture and other useful materials:
http://www.gramma.ru/
http://www.grammatika.ru/
http://www.gramota.ru/
http://www.ruslang.ru/
http://www.slovari.ru/
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Speech culture of modern society. The need to preserve language norms. The loosening of traditional literary norms, the stylistic decline in oral and written speech, the vulgarization of the everyday sphere of communication. Attitude to this of different groups of the population.
abstract, added 01/09/2010
Origin of the Russian language. Characteristics of the concept of "culture of speech". Functional styles of literary language. Normative aspect of speech culture. Organization of verbal interaction. Basic units of verbal communication. The concept of oratory.
tutorial, added 07/27/2009
Speech interaction of people. The role of the word (speech) in the life of society. Speech requirement: thoughtfulness and firmness. The concept of a speech event as the main unit of communication, its components. The main features of the speech situation in Aristotle's "Rhetoric".
control work, added 08/12/2009
Russian language in modern society. Origin and development of the Russian language. Distinctive features of the Russian language. The ordering of linguistic phenomena into a single set of rules. The main problems of the functioning of the Russian language and the support of Russian culture.
abstract, added 04/09/2015
Level classification of literary norms. Classification of speech errors as a factor of deviation from language norms. Changes in the Russian language and the attitude of different groups of the population towards them. Speech culture of modern society. Russian Language Reform 2009
term paper, added 11/05/2013
Modern theoretical concept of the culture of speech. Language and related concepts. Oral and written forms of speech, their features. The structure of the modern Russian language. Oratory, its content. Business negotiations: characteristics, stages.
cheat sheet, added 06/23/2012
Functional styles and semantic types of the modern Russian literary language, the ability to express various shades and meanings of speech. Professional and terminological vocabulary, the culture of scientific and business speech, the artistic nature of the description.
test, added 02/19/2011
Work on the styles of the literary language. The study of vocabulary, word formation, spelling and punctuation norms for the design of official documents and business papers. The study of language norms of written and oral speech, phonetics, graphics and phraseology.
A round table was held in the Moscow House of Nationalities not so long ago "Russian language in the XXI century". A lot has been said here about the fact that the culture of speech is being lost everywhere, that the language is in a deep crisis. Needless to say, this is a very common opinion.
It is noteworthy that among the participants in the discussion, there was only one linguist - Lyudmila Cherneiko, professor of the Russian language department at Lomonosov Moscow State University. So she considers such statements to be exaggerated: “I don’t see anything deplorable in the state of the Russian language. I see only threats to him. But we do listen to each other. We speak very well. I listen to students. They speak great. Generally speaking, specialists have always been interested in language. If society shows such an interest in the Russian language, as it has shown now in the last, at least 5 years, this is evidence of an increase in national self-awareness. This inspires optimism.”
Surprisingly, only linguists tend to discuss linguistic problems in a more or less restrained register. Non-specialist debates tend to be heated. Busy: in this case, the arguments are often given the most slanderous. Moreover, it is not only disputes that cause a painful reaction. Many can catch themselves on the fact that, noticing in the speech of an official or, say, a TV journalist, just one, but a gross mistake, they are suddenly ready to jump with indignation or exclaim something like: “Oh, Lord, well, you can’t !"
No wonder there are stable phrases "native language" and "native speech". The word “native” in the Russian national consciousness is closely related to very important deep concepts for everyone, for example, "native home" or "native person". Attacking them causes anger. Damage to the native language too. Lyudmila Cherneiko notes that there is another reason why we are so embarrassed when we learn that we have pronounced or written a word incorrectly. (Compare with your reaction to an error, say, in arithmetic calculations - it will not be so emotional).
Lyudmila Cherneiko believes that speech is a social passport that tells a lot about a person: “Moreover, we will find out the place where a person was born, the place where he grew up. So, you need to get rid of some territorial features of your speech, if you do not want to give extra information to the listener. Further. The level of education. As we say, it depends on what kind of education we have, and especially in the humanities. Why has Bauman University now introduced the subject of “culture of speech”? Moreover, why is slang, such thieves' slang - this is an esoteric system, a closed system, why? Because a stranger is recognized by speeches. By speeches we find like-minded people, by speeches we find people who have approximately the same worldview as ours. It's all about words."
And these speeches have not become more illiterate in recent years, rather, on the contrary. Why do many people have a strong feeling that the Russian language is degrading? The fact is that his existence has changed to a large extent. Previously, oral utterance in a number of cases was only an imitation of such, but, in fact, was a written form of speech. From all stands, starting with the factory meeting and ending with the platform of the CPSU congress, the reports were read from a piece of paper. The vast majority of TV and radio broadcasts were recorded, and so on and so forth. People of the middle and older generation remember with what eager interest the whole country listened to the speeches of Mikhail Gorbachev, who had just come to power, easily (here is a rare case) forgiving him a start" instead of "start a t". The new leader was able to speak without looking at a pre-written text, and it seemed fresh and unusual.
Since then, public oral speech has become predominant, and, of course, if a person does not speak according to what is written, he is more often mistaken. Which does not justify some extremes, emphasizes Lyudmila Cherneiko: “The television audience is colossal. In the absence of self-censorship, when the program for young people is “cool”, “high”, this is an endless “wow” - this way of communication is set as a model, as a standard, as something they want to imitate.
By the way, the English exclamation "wow" Lyudmila Cherneiko does not like it for the simple reason that it has a Russian counterpart. Therefore, she declares, a person who cares about the purity of speech will not use this word. Yes, it probably won’t take root: “If we don’t say “wow” to you, then we won’t say it. We will say Russian "Oh"", - says Lyudmila Cherneiko.
But in general, in the current abundance of borrowings (and this is considered by many to be one of the main threats to the language), the linguist does not see anything terrible: “The language is so arranged, especially the Russian language is an open system, a language that has always absorbed foreign influence, processed it creatively . When, quite recently, our graduate, who has been working in America for many years, spoke at the university, he said: “Let's throw out all foreign roots.” His mission is to cleanse the Russian language of all foreign roots. But I, as a linguist, have a completely natural question - and you, in general, suggest that a Russian person throw out the word "soup". Yes, he will be very surprised. But the word "soup" is borrowed. Therefore, when some completely utopian ideas are offered to me - let's clean the Russian language from foreign borrowings - it seems ridiculous to me. Because it is impossible. For example: "Only a vulgar face does not have a physiognomy." This is Turgenev. You are the word "physiognomy", borrowed, where are you going? By the way, it is a scientific fact that you will not find a single borrowed word rooted in the Russian language that would fully reflect the semantics of the recipient's language, that is, the language from which it was taken. This is not and cannot be. The language takes everything and builds it into its system, because it lacks some means. Among other things, here are such banal things why was “laborer” lost as a name of a profession in Russian? Because you will never cleanse a Russian word from age-old connotations, from associations. Because in every word the associative meaning sticks out in a beam in all directions. Mandelstam wrote about this. A foreign word, especially in term creation, especially in term systems, is absolutely necessary, like air. Because it does not have any unnecessary connotations that are unnecessary for scientific thinking.
And here's something else. It is generally accepted that language is a self-organizing system that lives according to its own internal laws. But not only, says another participant in the round table in the Moscow House of Nationalities - the head of the coordinating and analytical department of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Smirnov. According to him, the political component also plays a significant role, at least when it comes to the area of distribution of the language: “Its use is narrowing - narrowing in the former republics of the former Soviet Union. Although not so long ago, the President of Kyrgyzstan spoke in favor of maintaining the status of the Russian language as an official one.”
