Slavistische Beiträge ∙ Band 432 (eBook - Digi20-Retro) Olga Mladenova Russian Second-Language Textbooks and Identity in the Universe of Discourse A Contribution to Macropragmatics Verlag Otto Sagner München ∙ Berlin ∙ Washington D.C. Digitalisiert im Rahmen der Kooperation mit dem DFG-Projekt „Digi20“ der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, München. OCR-Bearbeitung und Erstellung des eBooks durch den Verlag Otto Sagner: http://verlag.kubon-sagner.de © bei Verlag Otto Sagner. Eine Verwertung oder Weitergabe der Texte und Abbildungen, insbesondere durch Vervielfältigung, ist ohne vorherige schriftliche Genehmigung des Verlages unzulässig. «Verlag Otto Sagner» ist ein Imprint der Kubon & Sagner GmbH. Olga Mladenova - 9783954796335 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 02:04:08AM via free access Sl a v i s t i c h e Be it r ä g e Herausgegeben von Peter Rehder Beirat: Tilman Berger • Walter Breu •Johanna Renate Döring-Smirnov Walter Koschmal • Ulrich Schweier • Milos Sedmidubskÿ • Klaus Steinke BAND 432 V erlag O tto Sagner M ü n c h e n 2004 Olga Mladenova - 9783954796335 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 02:04:08AM via free access 00055998 Olga Mladenova Russian Second-Language Textbooks and Identity in the Universe of Discourse A Contribution to Macropragmatics V erlag O tto Sagner M ü n ch en 2004 Olga Mladenova - 9783954796335 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 02:04:08AM via free access '0065998 PVA 2004. 1143 ISBN 3-87690-881-7 Ѳ Verlag Otto Sagner, München 2004 Abteilung der Firma Kubon & Sagner D-80328 München Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München Olga Mladenova - 9783954796335 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 02:04:08AM via free access ^־־*׳׳־' 04 יל 4 0 00055998 Table of Contents Foreword vu I. Preliminary Considerations: Language and Identity 1 II. Typology of Second-Language Textbooks 28 Ш. Second-Language Textbooks as a Discursive Formation 38 ГѴ. Authors between Anonymity and Authority 58 V. Identity and Second-Language Textbooks 65 VI. In the Field of Concomitance: Valuable Wholes and Their 107 Symbolic Components ѴП. T and ‘We’: Private vs. Public 177 ѴШ. A Bird’s-Eye View 195 Bibliography 200 Index 228 Illustrations 234 Olga Mladenova - 9783954796335 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 02:04:08AM via free access Olga Mladenova - 9783954796335 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 02:04:08AM via free access Foreword In the examination of language, one must suspend, not only the point of view of the 'signified* (we are used to this by now), but also that of the *signifier1, and so reveal the fact that, here and there, in relation to possible domains of objects and subjects, in relation to other possible formulations and re-uses, there is language. (Foucault 1972a. Ill) This study is the outcome of my fascination with Russian second-language textbooks as artefacts of culture, a fascination prompted by the beginning of my teaching career in 1996. Its first version, quite modest in scope, was written in 1997. Being an exploration of the research potential on the macro level of the language-culture interface, it was later incorporated in my SSHRCC-sponsored project, entitled Shared Mental Representations and Language Patterns: Research Strategies and Empirical Studies, I would like to express my gratitude to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its generous support of my research. All work on this study was done under the aegis of the Language Research Centre at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Calgary. I am indebted to my colleagues at the University of Calgary for their goodwill and constant interest in my research in the area of Russian second-language textbooks. So, what is this book about? It is an overview of the modifications and interaction of two discursive formations (the Second Language Learning and the Identity discursive formations) over four centuries of Russian history. The theory I lean on comes from various sources, the most important of which are Michel Foucault's discourse analysis, Roman Jakobson’s framework of the communicative act, semiotics and semantic analysis. The blend is my own. It allows me to compose a three-dimensional explanatory model in which small- scale linguistic detail is combined harmoniously with larger-scale language units Olga Mladenova - 9783954796335 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 02:04:08AM via free access to illuminate matters of cultural importance in their linguistic guise. It makes it possible to analyse images and narratives in a homogeneous manner. Compositionally, interdisciplinarity pours into a non-linear narrative, which follows a spiral that redefines on a higher level and in a different setting distinctions first discovered on a lower level with the theoretical devices of other disciplines. The lower coil of the helix accommodates the complementary argumentations of anthropology and lexical semantics, while the higher one brings the conclusions to the plane of discourse analysis and scmiotics. Chapter I discusses the views of Russian speakers on the Self/Other opposition in terms of ethnicity, citizenship and language, and places Russian second-language textbooks in the framework of verbal communication. It then explores the relevance of the alternative perspectives on Self for second-language textbooks as acts of communication. Chapter 2 offers a typology of second-language textbooks according to anthropological criteria: for instance, the author’s vantage point, desire to provide authentic cultural information and awareness of the legitimacy of cultural diversity; the availability of cross-cultural comparison; and the imagined relationship between Self and Other. An extra discursive dimension is added to this typology in the course of the book. Chapter 3 argues that the network of Russian second-language textbooks in their broad functional definition reflects in writing the existence of a discursive formation, the Second Language Learning (SLL) discursive formation. Since its inception at the end of the seventeenth century, the SLL discursive formation has passed through two stages characterized by numerous distinctions on different levels: a premodem one (up until the 1870s) and a modem one (ever since). Chapter 4 looks at the sources from which textbook authors derive their authority, such as (native) fluency in the target language, the institutional sites with which authors associate and their method for teaching language. In view of the twin objects of the SLL discursive formation (a language and its speaking subjcct), authors can also lean on standard grammars of the target language and Olga Mladenova - 9783954796335 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 02:04:08AM via free access samples produced by different categories of speaking subjects of that language. The existence of partial overlap (a field of concomitance) is established between the SLL discursive formation and two adjacent discursive formations: the Linguistic discursive formation (through the intermediary of the standard grammars of the target language) and the Identity discursive formation (through the intermediary of the speaking subject). Chapter 5 views the second-language textbook as a message and identifies the area in which the overlap between the SLL and the Identity discursive formation manifests. It also characterizes discursively the types of textbooks in which there is no such overlap. Then it surveys the coherent subdivisions of the Identity discursive formation (identity discourses) available in second-language textbooks in their relationship to the range of identity discourses produced in Russian society. This chapter looks at the three stages through which the Identity discursive formation passes: premodem, modem and postmodern, defined discursively as the stages of silence, monologue and dialogue, respectively. Chapter 6 postulates that identity discourses place value on the wholes that form their basis because identity is affiliation of Self with Selfs “own” whole defined in terms of time and space, an affiliation shared with other people. It then proceeds to explore the discourse-specific syntagmatic chains of concepts referring to the events in which the relevant group of people has participated over time in its territory, as well as the paradigms of symbols that coordinate discourses inside the Identity discursive formation. Valuable wholes are presented in textbooks either directly or through their metonymic and metaphorical summarizing symbols. The choice of presentation serves as a discursive marker that distinguishes between textbook types. And finally, chapter 7 introduces the interrelated oppositions of group vs. individual, on one hand, and public vs. private, on the other, in the format peculiar to the SLL discursive formation. These oppositions also serve to delimit a last remaining type of textbook and add an extra criterion for the contrast among identity discourses. Olga Mladenova - 9783954796335 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 02:04:08AM via free access 00055998 X I have made every effort to preserve the authenticity of Russian culture in my English-language presentation. This is the reason for the extensive quotations that give a taste of the kind of data that have served as the basis for my analysis. All citations are preserved in the language of the original. If that language was not English, the quotations are supplied with an English translation. English translations are mine unless stated otherwise in the text. Russian and occasional Greek language data have been transliterated according to the system in general use among linguists. The spelling of pre-1918 texts in modem Russian (defined as the Russian language since A. S. Puškin) has been modernized in conformity with the standard practice in Slavic studies. Earlier Russian texts were transcribed according to the following conventions. Accents and other diacritics were omitted. The letters of the Cyrillic alphabet were rendered in the same way as for the modem period with the following ,[and о as [o], 1a as [ja], Ѣ as [ë <״> ,[exceptions: ъ was transliterated as [й], ь as [ï oy and V as [и], и and I as [i].