Transcript Eurasian English? It is in Russia

Teaching English in Russia
Zoya Proshina
Institute of Foreign Languages,
Far Eastern National University,
Vladivostok, Russia
Language Situation in Russia
• Over 100 languages
• Russian – state / national language
• 30 other official language (in autonomous
republics & regions)
Sakha Autonomous Republic
• 2 national languages - Russian and Yakut;
• 5 official languages – Even, Evenki,
Yukagir, Chukot, and Dolgan;
• 1 official working language – English since
2000
Historical context
• An educated person =
well-read +
foreign languages
(A.Pavlovskaya.
History of Foreign Language Education in Russia.)
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•
•
•
•
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19th century: French
1900-1950: German
Since 1950s: EFL at secondary schools
Self-sufficiency in the closed society
Perestroika > EL boom
Economic needs
Educational context
• 19th century: Private education – learn to
speak by speaking (nurses, governesses)
• 1950-70s: Primary goal: reading +
translation. FL as an outlet, gate to the
outside world.
• 1980s-until now: intercultural
communication in oral and writing forms
Preschools
• Non-mandatory classes
• 5-year-olds and earlier
Secondary Schools
• General Comprehensive Secondary
School (525 hrs / 3 hrs a week)
•
5th -11th grades (normal)
•
1st – 11th grades (experimental)
• Intensive English Schools (4-6 hrs /wk)
•
2nd -11th grades
Foreign Language
is a mandatory subject
at school,
English being one of them.
Interview of R.Line, Great Britain Ambassador to
Russia:
Today about
85 % of Russian students study English
in cities,
70% - in towns,
60 % in villages.
Teachers
• Local
• Peace Corps volunteers (1992-2002)
• At universities: occasional EL grantees
and fellows
Model of ELT
• European part of • Asian part of
Russia
Russia
British English
American English
< British English
5-7 grade curriculum in FL
Subject matter
Hrs
Family and friends. Home. Leisure,
hobbies. Shopping. Letter writing.
School. Holidays. Seasons.
80
Russia and target language countries
(geography, climate, weather, capitals,
sightseeings). City and countryside.
90
Health. Environment.
40
60
8-9 grade curriculum in FL
Subject matter
Interpersonal relations. Character
features of a person. Sport, music,
movies, theater, discotheque. Fashion.
School life. Pen-pals. Professions. Role
of a FL.
Russia and target language countries
(culture, national holidays, customs and
traditions). Traveling. Outstanding
people. Mass media.
Nature and ecology. Healthy way of life.
Hrs
50
35
75
30
Final Exams
• National unified exam
•
•
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Listening
Reading
Vocabulary and Grammar
Writing
Speaking
• Centralized test
• School tests
University Enrollment
• Entrance exam for humanities majors
• National unified exam
• Centralized test
• Tutoring
• ‘Preparatory’ training courses
Universities
• “The Bologna process”: diploma
convertability – adapting to Europe
• Three types of diplomas:
Bachelor degree (4 yrs)
Specialist (5 yrs)
Master degree (6 yrs)
Universities
English for majors
(teachers, translators,
interpreters,
IC specialists)
English
for non-majors
=
General + ESP
English for Majors
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Groups of 10-15 students
4-5-6 years
10-14 hours/week
Aspects:
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Speaking
Listening
Reading (home-reading; individual reading)
Writing
Grammar
Vocabulary
Rhetorics
Linguistics (General L., Theory of E.Grammar,
E.Phonetics, E.Lexicology, E.Stylistics, Pragmatics,
Translation Theory…)
English for Non-Majors
•
•
•
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Groups of 15-40 students
2 years + optional 2 years
4 hrs/week
Non-aspective T/L
Content-based education
Post-university degree
• FL exam:
reading / translating
speaking on the research theme
no writing
Functional context
• Inter-economic:
transnational companies
business with foreign partners
• Intercultural:
information about other countries
information about Russia
Intercultural usage of English
English
Inner Circle cultures
British,
American,
Australian
Russian culture
Expanding / Outside
Circle
cultures
Chinese,
Korean,
Japanese
Intermediary translation
of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
words from English into Russian
Intermediary translation is translation
from an English variety used
by non-native speakers, i.e. from ELF.
e.g.,
Chinese -> China English -> Russian
China Daily
• The Sino-Russian Suifenhe-Bogelanqinei
Trade Complex
• Bogelanqinei = Pogranichnyi
• B<P
• L<R
• Q < CH
• -gel- < -gr-, -qin- < -chn-
Difficulties of Intermediary
Translation
• Irregular spelling
• Qigong
• Xianggang
• Spelling variations
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•
•
•
• From English or from
Japanese?
Tai-chi / tai-ji
Chikung / qigong
Tao / Dao
Hangul / hangeul
• Sushi
– CУШИ / СУСИ
Course of East-Asian Englishes
at FENU
• Pluricentricity of English and basics of the World
Englishes theory
• Brief description of Chinese, Japanese, and
Korean Englishes, their development, status, and
specifics.
• Systems of Romanization in China, Japan, Korea
• Correlations between Cyrillic and Romanized
writing systems that exist in these Asian
countries.
• Asian loan words in English, their assimilation.
• Translating texts on Asian cultures
Moscow State University
• School of Foreign Languages.
• 2001 – new speciality: “Russia”
(Department of Regional Studies)
“Those who know foreign languages have
not studied Russia enough.”
(Prof. Svetlana Ter-Minasova)
St. Petersburg School
Victor V. Kabakchi
•
GLASNOST <l/2> political "the policy or practice of
more open consultative government of information,
esp. in the Soviet Union since 1985 [Russ. гласность,
literally, publicity, openness]." (OEED)
Этот русизм прочно вошел в словарь английского
языка в период перестройки (OED 1972), потеряв
при этом мягкий знак.
Е. g.: The world, having learned the word glasnost last
year, now twisted its tongues around perestroika.
(Newsweek 04.01.1988; summing up the year of 1987)
<> The U.S.S.R. — that mystery inside an enigma that
so fascinated Americans in this Year of Glasnost — is
celebrating its seventh decade... (Life Jan 1988)
As well known as that word has become around the world,
there is still no English translation that fully carries its
Russian meaning. It is usually translated as 'openness',
but it is both more than that and less than that.
(Gorbachev 1988, p. 145)
• GLASNOST and PERESTROIKA
Perestroika and glasnost, glasnost and perestroika. They
will still be secure in the vocabularies of all the
languages of the world long after the children of the
Soviet Union and its satellites have begun to ask:
'Mummy, who was Lenin?' or for that matter:
'Mummy, who was Gorbachev?' (Keith Waterhouse
'Just Two Big Words', Daily Mail 22.08.1991)
Natalya Yuzefovich, Khabarovsk
Englishization of Russian
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Direct borrowings
Syntactic calques
Hybrids
Corporative mixture
Direct Borrowings into Russian
• Business: promotion, advertiser, headhunter, shopping, management
• Communication: internet, web-design, online, display, fax, computer, mass media
• Administration: speaker, grant
• Policy: electorate, consensus, pluralism
• Mass media & entertainment: talkshow,
daily, publicity, DJ, rap, hip-hop, single
• Food: cheeseburger, pepsi, cola, frenchfries
Syntactic calques:
N+N
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интернет-кафе < internet café
караоке-бар < karaoke bar
вэб-администратор < web-administrator
офис-менеджер < office-manager
Hybrids:
“Духless” by Sergei Minayev
слухмейкер (rumor-maker),
беспрайсовый (priceless)
Russification
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•
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Баксы < BUCKSы
Кликать < CLICKать (to click the mouse)
Байкерша < BIKERша (female biker)
Пиарщик < PRщик (a PR person)
Corporative Mixing Jargon
Эйчары обязаны
мотивировать сейлзов на
приобретение
коммуникейшн скиллз. В
частности, презентейшн
скиллз. Именно скиллз,
а не нолидж, как считают
некоторые, вообще часто
определяют саксесс в
бизнесе. И дело не только
в профите.
Своеобразным
бенефитом от работы
может быть и обычный
сатисфекшн, которого
нам всем так не хватает.
• HRs are bound to
motivate sale agents to
develop communication skills. Presentation skills, in particular.
Skills, not knowledge,
as somebody may think,
enhance success in
business. And it is not
just profit that matters.
You can benefit from
work by getting mere
satisfaction which all of
us lack so much.
Nativization of English
• New words and collocations:
unpleasantries
home task (= home assignment),
foreign passport (=for traveling abroad)
state university (=national university)
heroine mother (=having 5 and more children)
Palace of Culture (=community center)
Candidate of Science (Russian PhD)
Change of meaning:
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scientific conference (academic research)
hostess (geisha+waitress)
Gymnasium (type of school)
New Russians (rich)
social work (unpaid work)
Russian mentality in English syntax
• Imperative: Read the text.
• Over-emphasized negation : Do not
disappear (< Stay in touch). I think I
cannot do that. (< I don’t think I can do
that.)
• Double negation: It is not possible not to
see the complexity of the problem.
• Affirmative and negative disagreement:
Yes, I won’t be able to do it. No, you can
call me any time.
Russian students’ preference of the
variety of English to study
Variety of English
%
American English
63
British English
48
Australian English
10
East Asian English
6
Russia English
5
I do not care
3
Faculty preference for varieties
of English to be taught
Variety of English
%
American English
69
British English
56
Australian English
8
East Asian English
21
Russia English
3
Do not know
3
Faculty’s self-labeling of the
variety of their English
Variety of English
%
American English
13
British English
31
Russia English
5
A mixture (AmE + BrE)
13
A mixture (influenced by
Russian)
I do not know
44
0
• Russia English =
• Russian English =
• Ruslish
=
acrolect
mesolect
basilect
Deviations = mistakes?
Deviation “is the result of a productive
process which marks the typical
variety-specific features; and it is
systematic within a variety, and not
idiosyncratic.”
(Kachru 1983: 81)