Section III. Stylistics, speech culture, history of language and the study of foreign languages as a field for the practical application of general linguistic knowledge
For schoolchildren. Optional course. 6-9 grades. A manual for general education students. institutions - M.: Education, 2009.
§1. LINGUISTICS - THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE
There is a legend about the ancient Greek fabulist Aesop. Aesop was the slave of the philosopher Xanthus. One day, having invited guests, Xanthus sent Aesop to the market and ordered him to buy “the best thing in the world.” When the guests arrived, Aesop served only tongues on the table: fried, boiled, salted. Xanth was surprised, and Aesop said: “Isn’t language the best thing in the world? People use language to agree, establish laws, talk about wise things - there is nothing better than language!” The next day, Xanthus ordered to buy “all the worst things in the world.” And again there were only languages on the table. Aesop explained: “Isn’t language the worst thing in the world? People use language to deceive each other, start disputes, discord, war - there is nothing worse than language!”
The role of language in human life is enormous. Language is the most important thing for people means of communication.
Task No. 1. Answer the question. What proverbs and sayings about language do you know?
Our subject is called "linguistics". This word comes from the Latin lingua - language, which means linguistics is the science of language. This science is called differently linguistics, which speaks for itself.
What language is the subject of linguistics - Russian, French, English? Yes, them too. And also Chinese and ancient Greek, Japanese and Hebrew and all other languages spoken or spoken by the peoples of the world, as well as sign languages, children's speech, languages used in modern computer programs and many others. That is, in our lessons we will talk about the various types and manifestations of human language and even talk about whether animals have their own language. But we will pay most attention to the general patterns that are characteristic of many (or even all) languages of the peoples of the world that currently exist or existed in ancient times; we will also talk about specific interesting phenomena in some languages (for example, Russian, French, English). Of course, most of all we will rely on examples and rules from the Russian language, because this is our native language, and we, as Russian speakers, it’s easiest to understand its intricacies.
Native speaker of a language- this is a person who knows it from birth and for whom this language is the main means of communication.
All questions related to the origin and general laws of human language are studied in general linguistics in institutes and universities. However, now that many schools study humanitarian subjects in depth, as well as several foreign languages, the need has arisen to introduce such a subject in secondary school. The interesting knowledge and useful information about the language that you will receive in our lessons may be useful to you when studying your native and foreign languages. They will be needed not only by those who later become linguists or translators, but in general by any educated person.
Would you like to know why it is so difficult to master pronunciation when learning a foreign language, and where unpronounceable consonants and fluent vowels came from in the Russian language? How can one restore the words of the language spoken by the ancestors of the Russians, French, English, Germans, Greeks, and Indians when they were a single tribe? And in general, is it possible to find out what the very first words were uttered by ancient man? Now that there are computers, do we need to learn different rules?
Maybe special programs that are entered into computer memory and become more and more sophisticated will automatically correct any text you enter into the computer? You will receive answers to these and many other questions as you study this book.
Linguistics will help you understand that many linguistic phenomena that seem incomprehensible and therefore sometimes boring become interesting when we learn something new about them. For example, many children find grammar boring. Therefore, schoolchildren often do not like Russian language lessons - after all, they have to learn the rules and do exercises to consolidate the acquired knowledge. What if you look at grammar differently and see in it not a collection of boring, not very clear rules, but the frame of a house - our knowledge of the language? If it weren’t for this framework, then all the words, roots, suffixes, endings would simply be dumped in a heap. If every word did not have its place in a sentence, we would not be able to express even the simplest thought. We live in this house and don’t notice how convenient and interesting it is, because we only look at its individual parts. But “big things are seen from a distance.” Only by looking at the native language as a whole can one notice its patterns. Then the study of a foreign language is also filled with other content. After all, now it will be clear that it is necessary not only to learn new words and rules, but to enter a new home. In some ways it will be similar to ours, but in others it will be structured completely differently.
Linguistics teaches people such a holistic approach to language; it will help you organize the knowledge that you receive in Russian and foreign language lessons, and not only in them. After all, language is the main material for presenting facts in any science.
Familiarizing yourself with the basics of linguistics can make learning specific languages more interesting and enjoyable.
This is interesting . So that you can understand for yourself what an amazing science linguistics is, let's see how linguists answer some difficult questions related to the meaning and origin of words.
1. What do the parts of the words “burger” in the word “cheeseburger” and “bus” in the word bus mean?
Let's look at the word "hamburger" first. It originally meant “Hamburg schnitzel” and was derived from the name of the city of Hamburg, where this schnitzel was first made. It is written in English as hamburger. People usually didn't think of Hamburg when they ordered this dish. Many thought that this name was somehow connected with the English word “ham” - ham, ham. And when they started making such a schnitzel with a piece of cheese on top, they tore off the “ham” from the old name and put “cheese” in its place. In the word “cheeseburger,” the second half remains from a word associated with Hamburg, which no one now remembers when talking about the schnitzel placed inside the bun.
In the word bus, the “auto-” part means “self” in Greek. The history of the “-beads” part is very unusual. The first type of public transport (multi-seat horse-drawn carriage) was named by the Latin word “omnibus”. Translated from Latin, omnibus means “to all, for all.” This is a form of dates. plural case including the word omnis (all), formed with the ending “-ibus”. Oddly enough, this ending later became the basis for the names of many types of transport: bus, trolleybus (“trolley” in English “roller”), airbus (“aer” in Greek “air”). It turns out that the “-bus” part in these words now means nothing, although now in people’s minds it is firmly associated with modes of transport. And in the English language, the combination “bus” has become not even part of the name of the transport, but a whole word: the British call the bus “bus” [bass].
2. How did the words “sharomyzhnik” and “Odessa” come about?
The word "baller" comes from the French words "cher umi" (dear friend). This is how French refugees and soldiers wounded after the retreat of Napoleon’s army in 1812 addressed those from whom they asked for alms. Now the word “sharomyzhnik” means “a person who likes to make money at someone else’s expense, a swindler.” The word “Odessa,” according to one version of its origin, is “assez d’eau” turned inside out (there is enough water), as the French emigrant de Ribas, who founded Odessa, allegedly said (hence, by the way, the name of the city’s main street – Deribassovskaya).
3. Are the words “atom”, “volume”, “anatomy” related?
At the level of the modern Russian language, it is difficult to grasp the connection between the words “tom”, “atom” and “anatomy”. But if you trace the history of the origin of these words from the Greek word “tomos” (part), it becomes clear that they are connected: volume - a part of the book, as if cut off from it, atom - having come into the Latin language, this word meant “indivisible” ( “a” is a prefix of negation), and anatomy is the opposite, division, dissection (“an” is a variant of the prefix “a”, and a double negation leads to the original meaning).
Linguistics has a long history of development. At all times, people, communicating with each other, faced the following problems: how best to express their thoughts, what words are easier to convince the interlocutor of something? With the advent of writing, difficulties associated with learning to read and write arose. Finally, I had to think about the structure of language, when I had to communicate with people of another tribe, people, and master a foreign language. All this forced people to notice some patterns in the language, and then formulate language rules.
This is interesting . The first real work on grammar is believed to have appeared in ancient India in the 4th century BC. e.. Studies of linguistic phenomena were carried out even earlier, for example, in Ancient Greece. But these were only individual statements about language by the great Greek philosophers - Heraclitus, Democritus, Plato. In the writings of Aristovek BC. e.) there are already grammatical descriptions, for example, of a verb. The ancient Greeks are credited with creating science rhetoric, which was also called the art of speaking beautifully. In the theoretical science of language, the Greeks laid the foundations for division into parts of speech, case declension and many other phenomena familiar to every modern schoolchild. In Ancient Rome, the traditions of Greek linguistics were continued. Many linguistic concepts have come to us from those times. The terms “vowel and consonant sounds,” “name,” “verb,” “adverb,” “case,” “mood,” “sentence,” etc. are mostly translations of Greek and Latin terms.
The Chinese tradition of language learning was completely different. There are no declensions or conjugations in the Chinese language, so grammar is not so important for it (the first grammar of the Chinese language appeared only at the end of the 19th century under European influence). But in China, the most important thing was the compilation of dictionaries. After all, in order to read books, a literate Chinese must memorize the spelling of thousands of words, each of which is indicated by a hieroglyph or a combination of hieroglyphs.
In the Middle Ages, Arabic grammars made a great contribution to the science of language - linguistic phenomena in them were described more accurately and in more detail than in the ancient Greek and Roman ones.
In all countries where linguistics developed, interest in language was not based solely on human curiosity. Grammar, dictionaries, manuals on rhetoric were compiled primarily for practical purposes - to translate religious texts, help prepare public speeches, write poetry, etc. In the 15th - 16th centuries, works appeared describing the spoken languages of Europe: Spanish, Italian, then French, English and others. It has become possible to compare the structure of different languages, to identify differences in them and, very importantly, general patterns.
The later development of linguistic science is represented in a huge number of grammars, dictionaries, textbooks, and scientific treatises. The ideas that appeared among linguistic researchers gave rise to numerous directions and branches of the science of language. You will become familiar with many linguistic phenomena discovered at different times in our course.
Linguistics does not exist by itself. It is connected with many sciences. Moreover, relying precisely on linguistic facts, scientists make discoveries in various fields of knowledge. For example, in history. Here is one example. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, linguists, comparing words from the languages of different peoples separated by tens of thousands of kilometers, came to the conclusion that these peoples are close relatives, children of the same tribe, since their languages go back to the same proto-language (i.e. the great-grandfather of these languages). It was discovered that there is a large group of Indo-European languages, uniting Indians, Russians, Germans, French, English and many other peoples into one family. This was a revolution in the consciousness of people who had previously been at odds, but now realized that they were brothers and sisters.
Or here’s another example – medicine. It would seem that it has nothing to do with linguistics. However, linguists can help doctors diagnose some patients. It is known that with head injuries, a person’s speech can be impaired. So, it turned out that by what mistakes the patient makes in speech (for example, incorrectly coordinating words or missing verbs), it is possible to accurately determine which parts of the brain are damaged.
Linguistics is also connected with mathematics and cybernetics (the science of management, communications and information processing). Modern computers created on the basis of cybernetics, as you probably already know, can “talk” to a person, asking him certain questions and, depending on the answers received, perform the necessary actions. Today, many computer programs have already been created - translators from one language to another. Of course, so far these programs produce translations much worse than professional translators. But computers have great advantages - very high speed of operations and huge memory. Therefore, translation programs can be very useful to a person. To create them, it is necessary to collaborate between mathematicians and programmers and linguists.
This is the interesting science of linguistics. It turns out that a person needs it to acquire knowledge in all areas of life and activity. Of course, one cannot expect miracles from linguistics, even in the field of studying languages; for example, I started studying it and immediately began to write more competently. She can explain to a person where certain rules in a language come from, how the rules of one language differ from the rules of another language. Thus, it makes the study of languages more meaningful, and therefore deeper.
1. Linguistics (linguistics) is the science of human language.
2. A native speaker is a person who knows it from birth and for whom this language is the main means of communication.
3. General linguistics helps a person organize the knowledge that a person receives in any science. It is especially useful for a deeper study of native and foreign languages.
4. Linguistics is connected with many sciences - history, mathematics, cybernetics, medicine and a number of others.
LINGUISTICS AT SCHOOL:
RANGE OF OPPORTUNITIES
The article discusses different types of language work that can be implemented in schools of various types (primarily in gymnasiums and lyceums, as well as in schools with in-depth study of language and other subjects). Depending on the type of educational institution, the level of preparation of the class, and the competence of the teacher, the proposed teaching approach can be used in whole or in part.
The basis of the proposed approach was the identification of a general linguistic component (GLC) of education in Moscow gymnasium No. 1541, which already has 15 years of experience in such work.
In the 1990s, an integrative course was developed, which became the basis for the study of Russian and several foreign languages in a modern school. The focus of the course on improving the linguistic competence of students made it possible to informally approach the solution of a complex task - to form in children their own view of language.
Schoolchildren gain an understanding of the role of language in the life of society, the constant development of language and the factors causing changes in it, the systemic nature of language, the diversity of languages and the place of the Russian language among them, the functions of the Russian language in the modern world. In the process of work, the course, which aims primarily at the language development of schoolchildren, acquired general educational significance, because also contributed to the development of intellectual and creative abilities. Currently, it is taught according to the educational and methodological complex of O.E. Drozdova, consisting of a manual for students “Linguistics Lessons for Schoolchildren” (M.: VLADOS, 2001) and a book for teachers “Methodological recommendations for linguistics lessons in grades 5–8” (M.: VLADOS, 2003).
Let us list the main directions for improving linguistic competence and the subject areas with which they are associated:
1) communication of new information about the language as a whole (connection with history, cultural studies);
2) comparison of facts and phenomena from Russian and foreign languages (connection with the study of foreign languages and cultural studies);
3) comparison of phenomena of one language in a diachronic aspect (connection with history, sociology, cultural studies);
4) comparison of phenomena at different levels of the Russian language (systematization, deepening and expansion of information from the basic course of the Russian language).
Let us briefly describe the content of the sections of the course, which is intended for students in grades 5–8. The first one is about about language “as such”, which is embodied in the topics: “Language as a sign system”, “Language and society”, “The origin of language”, “Living and dead languages, artificial and natural”. This part of the course provides an overview of the languages of the world, primarily the Indo-European family.
In the second section, the material concerns specific units of different language levels– sounds, words, sentences, etc. Examples from Russian and foreign languages are also used here. Let's name some topics: “The relationship between sounds and letters in different languages”, “Reasons for borrowing words and the life of a word in a foreign language”, “Elements of the meaning of a word”, “Grammatical categories in different languages”, etc.
The third section is mainly related to practical application of acquired linguistic knowledge. Lessons on stylistics discuss how to make your speech relevant to specific situations. In speech culture lessons, students gain an understanding of the language norm, that the norm can change, and also learn to see typical speech errors and classify them. The material of lessons on the history of the Russian language reflects the need of students to learn not only how to speak and write correctly in their native language (these tasks are solved in Russian language lessons), but also why we are guided by these particular rules. For example, just one lesson “Phonetic processes: from the Old Russian language to Russian” helps children understand where fluent vowels, unpronounceable consonants, zero endings, etc. come from in modern Russian.
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Linguistic topics in Russian and foreign language lessons
The allocation of the educational and cultural complex made it possible to make changes to the content of basic lessons in Russian and foreign languages, as well as other humanities subjects.
In Russian language lessons, it is useful for students to better assimilate theoretical material by presenting one or another linguistic fact in comparison with foreign languages.
Here's how you can talk about the convention of assigning meaning to the gender category for many nouns (using examples from Russian, French and German).
There are words whose gender corresponds to the gender of people or animals: boy, father, tiger, rooster - masculine; girl, mother, tigress, hen - feminine. We attribute other words to one gender or another only by their endings: book is feminine, since this word is inflected in the same way as girl. And the table is masculine, since its endings are the same as those of the word boy. For many words, you just need to remember the gender affiliation - night And day at first glance there should be no difference grammatically, but one word–feminine, the other masculine. The convention of assigning grammatical gender becomes especially clear when translating into other languages: in Russian book feminine, and table masculine, and in French, on the contrary, book(un livre) masculine, and table(une table) – female. And there are many such examples. But here’s a very unusual one: in German the word girl(das Madchen) – neuter!
When working with students on the topic “Homonyms,” the teacher can draw attention to the fact that homonymy is a property of any language and give examples of homonyms from different languages.
Many homonyms are found in other languages: in French canon[canon] gun and canon– rule, coupe[cup] – glass, cup and coupe– cutting, chopping; in English light[light] – light and light –easy; in German Mal– once and Mal- birthmark. And the French word mine[min] – mine–there are two homonyms: mine– a mine that explodes, and mine– mine, facial expression.
For comparison, here is an example from a non-Indo-European language: in Uzbek (Turkic family) karam- generosity, mercy and karam –cabbage.
Like Russian, English and French have many homophones. Yes, in English night[night] is night, and k n ight [night] – knight; in French they sound the same - [ver] - words ver(worm), vert(green), verre(glass) (strictly speaking, only ver And verre– homophones, since they are the same part of speech).
In foreign language lessons, you can rely on the student’s ability to compare words from different languages. This makes it possible to more effectively carry out such types of work as analytical reading of authentic texts (for example, from magazines in the country of the language being studied) without the help of a dictionary. Thus, by highlighting familiar roots and other morphemes in French words whose translation is unknown, comparing these morphemes with similar elements in Russian and English words, one can grasp the general meaning of the text.
Entertaining material in language (and other) subjects enjoys constant success. How, for example, may you not remember the name “idiom” when studying phraseological units if the introduction of this term is accompanied by the following comment:
Word idioma goes back in Greek to the word idiots- peculiar, unusual. The word goes back to him idiot, now denoting a stupid, ignorant person. But in the title of the world famous novel by F.M. Dostoevsky’s “Idiot”, this word just had the meaning of “peculiar person”.
Linguistic topics in non-linguistic subjects
The emphasis on educational language and the dissemination of the very idea of attentive attention to the linguistic aspect of teaching forces teachers of non-linguistic subjects to supplement their lessons accordingly. The study of scientific terminology takes place in the lessons of literature, history, MHC, social studies, biology, and mathematics. Teachers, in order to achieve a complete understanding of the term, practice working with dictionaries (in some cases, they compare definitions of the term from different sources), and also tell students the history of the appearance of a particular term and provide etymological information.
Here is an example of linguistic work with terms in law lessons. Introducing schoolchildren to the term, say, prolongation(agreement), the teacher can rely on the students’ knowledge of the English language. Without explaining the meaning of the term, the teacher asks the schoolchildren to identify the English root they are familiar with in this word (children will easily remember the word long– long, long), and then, taking into account the meaning of this root, offers to formulate the meaning of the term themselves. Similar comparative work can be carried out when studying concepts parliament(the word has a similar pronunciation in English, French, and German; children easily discover the connection with the French verb parler- speak), totalitarian(students point out the connection with the English word total, going back to Latin totalis– whole, complete, whole, which is borrowed by many languages; this word is often found in everyday life, for example, it is written on a check when calculating the total amount, appears on the scoreboard when calculating the overall score in different sports).
A large number of scientific works are devoted to the formation of schoolchildren’s speech in mathematics lessons. I will give fragments of one of these works.
Stages of formation of mathematical speech:
Operating with the characteristics of objects;
Mastery of the logical action of classification;
Formation of the ability to draw conclusions through genus and species differences;
Operating with logical connectives not, and, or;
Operating with logical words (quantifiers) all, some, every, any and etc.;
Formation of the ability to draw the simplest conclusions.
Various ways to develop the formation and development of students’ mathematical speech:
Mathematical dictations;
Work in the notebook “Schoolchild’s Mathematical Dictionary”;
Tasks on the transition from verbal to symbolic recording and back;
Logic exercises; research work on the content of tasks;
Compilation of reference records and signals of a generalizing and algorithmic nature, etc.
Of course, in all lessons, including mathematics, the teacher’s language mistakes are unacceptable; control over students’ speech, both written and oral, is also necessary (previously it was called unified speech mode). But you can often hear from a teacher (and after him from students: X equals eight(but not x is equal), three x equals one hundred twenty(but not three x's equal one hundred twenty).
Similar work can be useful in chemistry and biology lessons. An example from the practice of chemistry teacher I.N. Khachatryan. Giving 8th grade students an idea of genetic relationship organic substances, the teacher was faced with a misunderstanding of the children until she began to explain the word itself to them genetic through the word gene, i.e. genus(lat. genus). Thus, genetic relationship is explained as one in which transformations from one state of matter to another (metal - salt, etc.) are constantly taking place. The presence of a specific atom, which manifests itself in all transformations, can be compared with the presence of a gene, which manifests itself in all generations of relatives. Another example. Let's say, one of the chemical laws formulated by Lomonosov is written down, and the children must understand which law is meant and translate it into modern Russian (of course, this is more of an Olympiad task).
Let us give examples of language work in history lessons. As in other lessons, these can be short etymological excursions designed to make the lessons more entertaining. Quote from the textbook: Katsva L.A., Yurganov A.L.. History of Russia VIII–XV centuries. M.: MIROS, 1994. pp. 6–7.
Linguistic sources are also very interesting, i.e. language data. For example, onomastics studies proper names. One of its sections is toponymy - the science of geographical names. Without knowing this science, it is easy to fall into mistakes, sometimes very funny ones. For example, someone might think that the village of Volkovo was named so because there were many wolves in the area. In fact, the name comes from the surname of the owner - landowner Volkov. And the city of Kholui (in the Ivanovo region) has nothing to do with servility (servantry). Its name comes from a word that in the local dialect means a snag in the river.
Historians often use the works of linguists, building a chain from the historical reconstruction of words to the reconstruction of a way of life. Directly in the lesson you can use individual comparisons from the book by O.N. Trubachev "History of Slavic terms of kinship and some of the most ancient terms of the social system."
Today, linguists deal a lot with national concepts - generalized concepts characteristic of the mentality of a certain people. For example, in the book by A.D. Shmelev “Russian language and extra-linguistic reality” (Moscow, 2002), history teachers can glean many interesting examples of how Russian speakers’ attitude to time and space is reflected in the linguistic picture of the world, as well as some important life attitudes (humility, pride, shame, etc.). The title of the chapter “Small words as exponents of life position” is noteworthy, containing information about the use of words maybe And I suppose expressions just in case, in case something happens, if anything happens.
Linguistic topics in class
Linguistic topics can add variety to the work of classroom teachers. Class hours dedicated to your hometown are probably held in all schools in Russia. It would be very useful for children, along with the history and sights of their hometown, to know the peculiarities of the speech of their fellow countrymen (and therefore, to understand the peculiarities of their own speech, which become noticeable when you travel to another region of the country).
Having become acquainted with the popular books of the radio hosts of the Ekho Moskvy channel, “Speaking Russian with Olga Severskaya” or “Speaking Russian with Marina Koroleva,” students can prepare speeches in which the names of the same objects would be compared, say, in Moscow and in St. Petersburg (in the first of the named books, one chapter is called “What is a loaf in Moscow, is a bun in St. Petersburg”; you can also compare the titles entrance(in Moscow) and front door, and sometimes just ladder in St. Petersburg, remember curb - curb and even shawarma - shawarma).
An interesting linguistic twist can also be given to a class hour dedicated to the future professions of graduates. Let's start the conversation by reading a few advertisements from the newspaper "Looking for work." Are the titles of many of the jobs offered clear, e.g. sales manager or account manager, system administrator, web designer, copywriter or HR? Not all. To be honest, many of us find it difficult to explain the meaning of such seemingly more familiar names as dealer And broker. The teacher will find a wonderful book by M.A. to help him. Krongauz “The Russian language on the verge of a nervous breakdown” (M.: Languages of Slavic Cultures, 2007), in which many interesting processes in the modern language are described in living language. The chapter devoted to the names of professions is interesting; possible reasons for the appearance of a huge number of such new words are given. One can also name the actual linguistic reason: often today the principle of naming, which is unusual for us, is used (not through the subject area and a specific matter, but, as M.A. Krongauz writes, through a rather abstract function. The most striking example may be the word manager, which, without further explanation, says almost nothing about human activity. It seems to be connected with the function of management, but management of everything, and in the broadest sense (cf. Sales Manager And HR manager). By combining all modern trends, it is possible to construct even such a strange phrase as cleaning manager(meaning the cleaning lady).
Debates, discussions and conferences on linguistic topics
Debates and discussions that form communicative competence become current forms of student activity. During class hours, in the form of debates, you can discuss linguistic topics, for example, “The original and the translation are the same work or different?”, “Is borrowing good or bad?” There are various debate technologies. In general, the scheme is as follows: two teams defend opposing points of view on the problem under discussion. The teacher builds a chain of questions in advance (one representative of each team speaks about each) and supplies each team with the appropriate material for preparation.
Here is a chain of questions that were used during the debate on the topic “Borrowing – is it good or bad?”: fashion for borrowings at different times, “historical waves” of mass borrowings, the number and areas of use of borrowings in the modern Russian language; where it is possible and where it is impossible to do without borrowing, is it possible to borrow phraseological units; hidden borrowings (calques), non-Russian construction, intonation in Russian speech, bad translation, “false friends of the translator”; opinions of famous people from different times about borrowing. Material to help the discussion: articles from the volume “Russian Language. Linguistics” by the publishing house “Avanta+”, from the “Dictionary of a Young Linguist”, book by V.G. Kostomarov “Linguistic taste of the era”, as well as numerous popular science books on linguistics (L.V. Uspensky, A.A. Leontyev, N.M. Shansky, B.Yu. Norman, V.A. Plungyan, etc.) .
The discussion allows for greater freedom of action. Children can be given a list of questions to be discussed in advance, but they must prepare without the help of a teacher. During the discussion, the role of the facilitator is very important, who must carefully prepare a presentation of questions and illustrative material that stimulates the activity of schoolchildren. An example of such an event could be a discussion that was held in gymnasium No. 1541. Here are some of the issues that were discussed at it:
Why do many people accuse journalists of spoiling the language?
Can you give examples of misspellings in the media that have led to the spread of this error?
Remember the statements in the media by famous people, primarily politicians, that have become catchphrases.
Do you agree that now “fathers” and “sons” speak almost different languages?
At all times, this situation was common: the elders taught the younger ones in all areas of life, including language. Can we say that this order is now in some sense disrupted?
Another form of extracurricular work for schoolchildren, which, thanks to the allocation of educational and educational activities, has aroused great interest - linguistic research activities. Moscow Gymnasium No. 1541 annually (for 12 years now) holds the conference “Linguistics for Everyone.” Its main co-founder in recent years was the State Institute of Russian Language named after A.S. Pushkin. In 2007, i.e. In the Year of the Russian Language, the conference received the support of the Russian Society of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature and is now held under the auspices of ROPRYAL. There is already a fairly clear structure for the conference and a methodology for its preparation. The theme of the conference changes every year, which forces schoolchildren (and students in grades 6–11 can give presentations) each time to look at language from a new point of view, or rather, to explore different aspects of culture through the prism of language. Here are some topics from previous years: “Language and History”, “Language and Humor”, “Language of the Media”, “Language Contacts”. The theme of the future conference in 2009 – “Language and norms” – invites schoolchildren to explore such topical issues as changes in the language norm in Russian (including in neighboring countries) and other languages, typical mistakes in different areas of language use, deliberate violation of norms in Media and literary texts.
Vavrenchuk N.A.. Special course “Formation of mathematical speech of junior schoolchildren” in the system of professional training of primary school teachers” // Methodology, theory and practice of natural-mathematical and pedagogical education: Sat. materials International scientific-practical conf. Brest, May 15–17, 2007 / General. ed. Dr. ped. Sciences A.N. Sender; [editor: M.E. Chesnovsky, A.N. Sender, Ya.V. Radyna and others]. Brest. state University named after A.S. Pushkin. Brest: BrGU Publishing House, 2007. pp. 20–23.
O.E. DROZDOVA,
Ph.D. ped. sciences,
Moscow
Second edition (the first was in the VLADOS publishing house: 2001 - a manual for students, 2003 - a book for teachers)
Drozdova O.E. Fundamentals of linguistics for schoolchildren. Optional course. 6-9 grades. A manual for students of general education institutions . – M.: Education, 2009
Drozdova O. E. Fundamentals of linguistics for schoolchildren. Guidelines. 6-9 grades. Manual for teachers of general education institutions. - – M.: Education, 2009
The purpose of the general linguistic course for schoolchildren:
the formation of linguistic competence, which should become the basis of the linguistic worldview of schoolchildren - a necessary condition for improvement in the study of languages, primarily their native one.
The course program consists of three sections. Their summary:
Section I. Language as a sign system, language and society, the origin of language, living and dead languages, artificial and natural, history of writing, overview of the world's languages.
Section II. Level-by-level (from phonetics to syntax) study of linguistic units in their manifestations and relationships, both horizontal - within a level, and vertical - between levels (based on Russian and foreign languages).
Section III. Stylistics, speech culture, history of language and the study of foreign languages as a field for the practical application of general linguistic knowledge.
The fundamental differences between studying a language system in a linguistics course and studying a Russian language course:
1) most examples of linguistic facts and phenomena are given on comparative material from Russian and foreign languages;
2) a more consistent division into language levels is carried out;
3) facts known to schoolchildren from the basic course are supplemented with new information, generalized, and students consider them from the perspective of linguists.
Basic teaching methods:
comparison of facts from languages of varying degrees of kinship,
etymological excursions,
extensive use of examples from the media,
creating in the classroom the “effect of involvement” in the linguistic discoveries of mankind,
modeling a new phenomenon for schoolchildren using familiar language material,
special targeted work with linguistic terms and dictionaries,
use of terms from mathematics and computer science in relation to language material.
The classification of tasks was carried out taking into account two main factors:
1) educational actions performed by the child: recognition, understanding, selection, selection, comparison, classification, combination, modeling, search;
2) the nature of the language material: only from the Russian language or from Russian and foreign languages.
Section I “Language and the science of it. Languages of the peoples of the world"
Lesson 1. Linguistics - the science of language
Lesson 2. Signs around us. Language is a sign system
Lesson 3. Language and society. Verbal and non-verbal forms of communication
Lesson 4. Origin of language
Lesson 5. Human language and animal language
Lesson 6. Living and dead languages
Lesson 7. Natural and artificial languages
Lesson 8. Languages and dialects
Lesson 9. Prerequisites for the emergence of writing
Lesson 10. Pictographic (pictorial) writing
Lesson 11. Ideographic (symbolic) writing
Lesson 12. Transition to sound-letter writing
Lesson 13. Comparative-historical method in linguistics
Lesson 14. Proto-Indo-Europeans and their language
Lesson 15. Indo-Iranian languages
Lesson 16. Slavic and Baltic languages
Lesson 17. Celtic languages. Greek, Albanian, Armenian languages
Lesson 18. Germanic and Romance languages
Lesson 19. Other language families
Examples of tasks from section I
Task No. 1. Which of the foreign words found in the table exist in the Russian language (or are the words of the Russian language derived from them)?
lat. Italian French English German Polish
school schola scuola école school Schule szkoła
teacher magister maestro maître mister Meister mistrz
board tabula tavola tableau table Tafel tabela
lesson studium studio étude study Studie studia
Task No. 3. Try to guess what the name Joseph sounds like in the same languages. This is its Greek version (Russian will be Osip), and this name also came from Hebrew, where it was pronounced Yosef. Rely on the fact that changes in the initial sound in the names Ivan and Joseph are the result of regular sound correspondences.
Section II "Language System"
Lesson 20. Phonetic level of the language. Speech sounds
Lesson 21. Articulatory base of the language. Human speech apparatus
Lesson 22. Vowels and consonants
Lesson 23. Phoneme
Lesson 24. Stress and intonation
Lesson 25. The relationship between sounds and letters in different languages. Transcription
Part II
Lesson 1. The word is the basic unit of language
Lesson 2. Meaning of the word. Polysemy
Lesson 3. Types of figurative meanings
Lesson 4. Dividing words into classes. Thematic groups of words
Lesson 5 - 6. Homonyms
Lesson 7 - 8. Synonyms
Lesson 9. Antonyms
Lesson 10. Terms
Lesson 11. Jargon.
Lesson 12. Original and borrowed words
Lesson 13. Reasons for borrowing words. The life of a word in a foreign language
Lesson 14. Phraseologisms
Lesson 15. Sources of phraseology. Phraseologisms in different languages
Section II "Language System"
Lesson 16 - 17. Dictionaries. Types of linguistic dictionaries
Lesson 18. Semantics - the science of the meanings of linguistic units
Lesson 19. Elements of word meaning.
Lesson 20. Morpheme. Morpheme variants
Lesson 21. Roots and affixes. Types of morphemes in different languages
Lesson 22. Inflectional and word-forming affixes
Part III
Lesson 1 – 2. Word formation processes
Lesson 3. Grammar is the way language is structured. Why do we need
grammar
Lesson 4. Grammatical form and grammatical meaning
Lesson 5. Ways to express grammatical meaning. Synthetic
and analytical languages
Lesson 6. “Gluing” and “welding” morphemes
Lesson 7. Parts of speech
Lesson 8. Grammatical categories in different languages. Languages without "grammar"
Lesson 9. Syntactic level of language. Sentence and phrase
Lesson 10. Sentence stem. Predicativity
Lesson 11. What are the members of a sentence
Lesson 12. Word order in sentences and phrases. The role of word order
in different languages
Types of practical tasks on interlingual material:
to understand the meaning of a foreign word or expression;
to compare linguistic phenomena in Russian and foreign languages;
to select examples of linguistic phenomena known to students in the Russian language, based on foreign language material;
to model foreign language features on Russian material;
to highlight structural elements in words of a foreign language.
Tasks to compare linguistic phenomena in Russian and foreign languages.
Name the nasal consonants in the Russian language. In French there are many more nasal sounds (both vowels and consonants). List them if you can. Do you know what nasal sounds were in the Old Russian language?
Which Russian phraseological unit corresponds to: 1) English. “it’s all still up in the air”; French “It’s not in your pocket yet,” German. “it’s written in the stars for now”; 2) English “like two peas in a pod”, German. “similar as one egg to another”, 3) “eng. “it rains like dogs and cats”, German. “rain pours like jugs” 4) French. “to call a cat a cat”, English. “calling a spade a spade.”
A task to model foreign language features using Russian material.
Write down the proverb “If you love to ride, you also love to carry a sleigh,” arranging the signs as is customary among the Chinese, Arabs, and also as the ancient Greeks did.
Self-sufficient linguistic task.
Solve a linguistic problem (from the book by B. Yu. Norman “Fundamentals of Linguistics”). Below are some words of the Old Church Slavonic language, written in the Glagolitic alphabet, and, in a different order, their translation into modern Russian. Try to determine which translation corresponds to which word:
Faith, word, year, eye, body, head.
Translate the word “gate” into Old Church Slavonic and write it in Glagolitic letters.
Section III “Linguistics: the path to language mastery”
Lesson 13. Stylistic resources of the language. Using various linguistic units for stylistic purposes
Lesson 14. Functional language styles. Conversational and formal business
styles
Lesson 15. Scientific, journalistic and artistic styles
Lesson 16. Language and speech
Lesson 17. Language norms and speech errors. Orthoepic norm
Lesson 18. Lexical norm
Lesson 19. Morphological norm. Syntactic norm
Lesson 20. The emergence of Slavic writing
Lesson 21. Slavic alphabet Cyrillic. Slavic account
Lesson 22. Phonetic processes: from Old Russian to Russian
Lesson 23. Grammatical forms: from Old Russian to Russian
Lesson 24 – 25. Historical changes in the vocabulary of Russian literary
language
Lesson 26. Learning foreign languages
Examples of tasks from section III
Task No. 4. Write in words: choice from 835 options, example on page 445, staircase with 342 steps, task for 8217 schoolchildren.
Task No. 5. Try converting text from one style into text from another style (trying to completely preserve the information being conveyed). For example, write down a fairy tale in the language of a scientific article, instructions for using household appliances in the language of a youth party, an application for admission to school in a sublimely artistic style, etc.
Last assignment of the linguistics course
Write an essay on the topic “Linguistics in our lives”, consisting of two parts. The first part can be given the conditional title “Why do we need linguistics.” While covering this part of the topic, try to answer the following questions:
Were there any questions related to languages that you yourself thought about, and the linguistics course helped you answer them?
Have you gotten into the habit of comparing words from different languages, noticing mistakes in the speech of your friends and presenters of television and radio programs? Have you started paying more attention to your speech now?
Did the knowledge you gained in the linguistics course help you: 1) in Russian language lessons; 2) in foreign language lessons; 3) in communication with friends; 4) in communication with parents?
Would you like to continue studying linguistics?
Where do you think linguistic knowledge might be useful to you later in life?
The second part of the essay is “A linguistic topic that interested
me most of all." In this part, you should reasonably explain why you are interested in this or that topic, perhaps give related examples from life and additional linguistic literature.
Educational objectives:
1) introduce students to the object of linguistics, its conceptual and terminological apparatus and research methods;
2) give schoolchildren a scientific understanding of issues related to human language in general: the origin and development of language, the sign nature of language, the relationship between language and society, the differences between human language and animal language, language from dialect, as well as the history of writing;
3) familiarize students with some types of classification of languages: natural and artificial languages, living and dead languages, genealogical classification of languages;
4) to form in students an idea of the systemic structure of language, considering the relationships both between individual facts or phenomena of language, and between language levels;
5) ensure that schoolchildren assimilate the idea of the need for linguistic knowledge both in the process of schooling and in later life.
Developmental tasks:
1) increase schoolchildren’s interest in learning languages, and primarily their native language;
2) give students a scientific understanding of the Russian language as a special case of language in general, help them realize the unity of functions and the difference in the forms of their implementation in all languages;
3) promote the formation of skills to analyze, compare, and generalize language material, thus developing the scientific thinking of schoolchildren, stimulating the overall development of their intellect;
4) involve schoolchildren in solving heuristic problems using language material, thus developing their creative abilities;
5) help overcome the psychological barrier to difficulties in learning the native language and mastering foreign languages.
Educational tasks:
1) to form in schoolchildren a conscious value attitude towards their native language, which helps to increase the prestige of studying it;
2) give students an idea of the universality of any language in expressing human communicative needs, thus forming a respectful attitude towards the languages of different peoples and their culture as a whole.
Overcoming school myths about language Myth No. 1:
a language is a set of rules that someone came up with(accordingly, learning a language mainly comes down to learning and applying these rules).
Myth #2:
The subject “Russian language” is not a school version of any science.
Myth #3:
You must study the language at school, first of all, in order to successfully pass the final school exam (university exam).
Myth #4:
linguistic subtleties, something unusual, memorable in the language can (and should) be noted first of all (and perhaps only) when working with a literary text.
Myth #5:
Russian and foreign languages are different worlds, that is, schoolchildren have no idea that these are private manifestations of the Human Language, which means they have a lot in common.
From the manual:
Drozdova O.E. Fundamentals of linguistics for schoolchildren. Optional course. 6-9 grades. A manual for general education students. institutions - M.: Education, 2009.
§ 2. SIGNS AROUND US. LANGUAGE IS A SIGN SYSTEM
Do you know what these pictures mean?
We call all this signs. Signs surround us everywhere in life. Most of the goods sold bear the brand name of the product manufacturer. People put stamps on an envelope with a letter - postage marks. On the first of September, children give flowers to their teachers as a sign of gratitude and respect. These are signs that can be seen.
Here are the signs that you can hear. In the morning the alarm clock rings - this is a sign that it is time to get up. During the war, the sound of a siren is a sign that you need to go down to the bomb shelter.
Task No. 1. 1) Give other examples of signs we see and signs we hear. 2) Draw the traffic signs you know.
An action can also become a sign. For example, you answer a given lesson, the teacher nods his head as a sign of approval; During a battle, a soldier raises his hands up - he surrenders to the enemy.
Each of us understands what is meant by the word “sign”. But it is very difficult to give this concept a strict definition. This often happens with what is very important in our lives: the simpler the concept seems to us, the more difficult it is to define it (try to say what light or sound is, and you will immediately feel it). I would like to say something like: “a sign is something that means something.” But you can’t do that. The definition should not contain words related to the word being defined. After all, “denotes” this is “is a sign.” Let's try to highlight at least some properties of the sign.
There are always two sides to a sign. On the one hand, any sign is somehow externally expressed (epaulettes, a bouquet of flowers, an alarm clock ringing, etc.). On the other hand, each sign hides some kind of internal meaning (military rank, love and gratitude, a signal that it’s time to get up, etc.). Scientists call these two sides: meaning And signified.
For example:
- “pharmacy”, a place where you can buy medicines
(signifier) (signified)
Task No. 2. Find the signified from the following signifiers:
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What else is needed for a sign to “work” as a sign? Let's take a traffic light as an example. Red light means you can’t go, green light means you can go. How do we know that red means prohibition and green means permission? And here's where it comes from. Once upon a time people Deal about this, we learned it and follow agreement. For example, the signs “red cross” and “Olympic rings” will be understandable only if the agreement is known in advance about what they mean. Such signs are also called symbols. Many of the signs you know are symbols, but not all. For example, if we see smoke, we understand that something is burning. Smoke is a sign of this, but not a symbol. People don't need a contract to understand what it means. Without an agreement, we will recognize an acquaintance in a photograph, but a photographic portrait is also a sign. For all such signs, the signifier is immediately associated in our minds with the desired meaning, but for symbols - only by agreement.
Task No. 3. A striking example of signs and symbols are the flags and coats of arms of countries around the world. Describe or draw the flags and emblems of various states known to you.
This is interesting . For different peoples, the same signifier can be associated with different signifieds. This can lead to confusion. When a European traveler landed in South America in the last century and, getting up in the morning, began to brush his teeth, the Indians watching him killed him, deciding that he was practicing terrible and unknown witchcraft.
If there is no agreement, the sign may be completely misinterpreted.
And one more important property of the sign. Many signs cannot “work” alone. In order for them to act, other signs are needed to form with them system. We will encounter the concept of a system more than once. This is one of the concepts that is difficult to define in simple words. Let's try to show an elementary example of the system. We have already talked about the traffic light. Could it help with traffic if it had a green light all the time? No, such a traffic light is not needed. It does its job only if it has at least two signals - red (prohibiting) and green (permissive). By the way, instead of turning on the red light, you could turn off the green one. But such a traffic light would be less reliable. The driver may decide that the traffic light is not turned off, but broken. Many traffic lights also have a third element - yellow (attention: there will be a transition from one signal to another). There are many sign systems: military insignia, traffic signs, Zodiac signs and others. True, if we see one shoulder strap, for example, with one stripe (the military calls it “clearance”) and two stars, we can guess that this means the military rank of “lieutenant.” Although if there were no shoulder straps indicating other military ranks, such information would provide almost nothing. Shoulder straps are complex signs, but the stars on them are a simpler sign; without stripes it will not “work” at all.
Task No. 4. How does the musical notation system work? How do you indicate the length of a musical sound? What are the signs “treble clef” and “bass clef” needed for?
Can you make up your own signs? This is a very interesting activity. Especially if you need to convey some kind of statement with signs. Let’s take the sentences: “You must listen in class,” “You must not run during recess.”
Let's mark the lesson with a sign -
Open book (or notebook),
then change
This is a closed book.
To convey the meaning of “running”, you can simply depict four legs (while running, the legs flash quickly).
Then the statement “You can’t run during recess” will be indicated by the following complex sign:
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Task No. 5.
Draw a sign for the statement “You have to listen in class.”
Draw a sign for the saying “Stairs must be walked”
Come up with signs that can convey the meaning of the proverb “An old friend is better than two new ones.”
You see that a message can be conveyed using various signs. Humanity has already developed the most convenient sign system for communication - language. You are familiar with many linguistic signs: letters are signs for sounds; words are signs for concepts (objects, actions, signs, etc.); period, comma, dash, etc. are punctuation marks; they indicate pauses and intonation in writing. All these are signs in which the signifier and the signified are bound by an agreement accepted by people. Once upon a time, our ancestors decided that the letter “A” would represent a vowel sound in writing, which was pronounced with the mouth wide open. We learn about this agreement when we learn to write, and we get so used to it that it already seems: “Could the sound [a] be indicated by another letter?” By the way, in an unstressed syllable it can now be designated by another letter – o (water – [vada]), but that’s a completely different story.
This is interesting . Here are some facts from the history of the origin of punctuation marks. In ancient times, people did not put spaces between words in writing, but separated words or parts of text with a period at the bottom, in the middle, or at the top of the line. Most punctuation marks in their modern form and meaning began to be used with the advent of printing in Europe (XV - XVI centuries).
The Russian name “point” comes from the verb “to poke, poke”, as does the Latin name for point – punctum (from the verb pungo – “to stab”). The word "comma" comes from the verb "comma" (to hinder, delay), a cognate of the word "to stammer."
Interestingly, the semicolon was used by Slavic scribes as a question mark. This was (and still is!) accepted in Greek writing.
The question mark comes from a modified spelling of the first letter of the word Quaestio (Latin for “question”), which was written after interrogative phrases in Latin texts.
The exclamation mark is a modified version of the first letter of the Latin word Io, which was used in writing to express joy (Based on materials from the Encyclopedia for Children, Avanta+, vol. 10).
Let's take a word, for example, "cat". Who agreed that this combination of sounds (in spoken language) and letters (in written language) would mean a furry pet with a mustache and a tail? We don’t know this, but this is the way it is in the language, and we follow these rules. The connection between the sound (or spelling) of a word and its meaning is conditional. We are, of course, not talking about words like “glass holder”; here it is clear that this is an object located “under a glass”, but the connection between the sound and meaning of the word “glass” will be conditional. Let's return to the word "cat". In Russian, this combination of sounds denotes an animal, but in French, the same combination of sounds denotes a shore (written côte).
This is interesting . And here is another example of signs (words) from different languages with the same signifier (sound) and different signifier (meaning). In Russian, a hole is a depression, and in Japanese a word with the same sound means “mountain.” The name of the highest mountain in Japan, Fuji, is translated as “Mount Fuji”.
Signs can be simple or complex. Complex signs are made up of simple ones. Simple signs cannot be divided into elements that are also signs.
There are signs called zero. You know about null endings. Why do we highlight it in words and not say that there is no ending? Because the absence of an ending in inflected words is significant, for example, in the words “table”, “brother” it is an indicator of the nominative case of the singular, and in other cases these words have endings. And the word “far” does not have a zero ending, it is simply absent, it is an unchangeable word (adverb).
Zero characters can be not only linguistic. For example, if for a scout a flower in the window of a safe house (remember, in the famous film “Seventeen Moments of Spring”?) is a sign of failure, then the absence of this sign is very important. This is also a sign - “everything is fine, there is no failure.” Zero characters are spaces in written or printed text, intervals between pulse beats, etc. A zero character would also be the green light at the traffic light turned off in the example above.
You can learn more about signs and sign systems from the book by G. E. Kreidlin and M. A. Krongauz “Semiotics, or the ABC of Communication.”
A sign has an external expression (signifier) and an internal meaning (signified).
The signifier is usually associated with the signified, a conditional contract between people. Signs of this type are called symbols. But there are signs of another type, the meaning of which is clear even without a contract.
Many signs cannot “work” alone. In order for them to act, other signs are needed to form a system with them.
Language is a sign system. Language signs – letters, words, punctuation marks, etc.
If the absence of a sign carries a semantic meaning, then it is a zero sign.
