Modern EFL teaching in Russia pays much attention to variations in the cultural schemata represented by students' L1 and the target language, as well as behavioral patterns of their speakers. However, teaching practitioners scarcely address certain issues of Russian L1 prosodic interference that cause attitudinal confusion on the part of native English speakers. The study explores the wrong pragmatic effects created in English due to the transfer of Russian intonation contours and the reasons behind the failure of Russian EFL teachers to address the issue. Specifically, it investigates English speakers' negative perceptions of Russian L1 intonation and examines Russian teachers' practices and beliefs with regard to the place of intonation in a language classroom. The paper draws on findings from recent studies on effects of Russian L1 prosodic features in English and the results obtained from a survey conducted by the author among 29 Russian EFL teachers. The paper argues that whereas L1 intonation interference seriously affects learners' cultural image, its role in EFL teaching is significantly undervalued as compared to that of grammar and vocabulary. It concludes by suggesting practical ways to facilitate intonation teaching in a Russian EFL classroom.Keywords: prosodic interference, L1 interference, intonation, pragmatics, Russian English Due to certain prosodic features, which are normally ignored in the process of English language teaching in Russia, it is not infrequent that learners, though demonstrating a high level proficiency in grammatical and lexical accuracy of the target language (English), still fail to produce the desired pragmatic effect on the listeners. Various researchers have addressed this issue (Crosby, 2013;Jenkins, 2007;Pavlenko, 2007;Pervesentseva, 2013;Proshina, 2010; Vishnevskaya, 2013), beginning with Leed (1965) who conducted a most comprehensive study of Russian intonation in English. Literature review and the author's own teaching practice have helped single out the most common prosodic interference features which are demonstrated by even proficient English speakers of Russian background. Contributing to attitudinal confusion on the part of native English speakers, these features are not generally addressed in the teaching process in educational institutions unless these specialize in translation studies and prepare professional interpreters and translators. The issue in question is connected with suprasegmental features of Russian English, specifically intonation contours, which seem to be absolutely similar in form in Russian and English, but differ in their distribution. And this is where L1 interference most readily comes into play: the functional discrepancy between the application of such contours in the two languages produces an undesirable pragmatic effect on the listeners and contributes to the negative image of Russian EFL learners in the eyes of the English-speaking community.
The article presents the results of the analysis of words-stimuli "home", "Motherland", "Russia", "Russian", "language", undertaken with consideration of the data obtained in a pilot associative experiment with Russian-speaking groups of migrants (ethnic Jewish and Germans), living in Munich (Germany). A comparative analysis of experimental data and the data given in associative dictionaries was performed with the aim to reveal the influence of respondents' ethnic background on transformation of associative fields, which is connected with changes in cultural environment. The authors draw a conclusion that in the fields with the words-stimuli "Russia", "Russian language" the respondents' quantitative reactions demonstrate a low level of change, coinciding with the ones, stipulated in the dictionaries. This type of words-stimuli is labeled as "migratory stable" and is opposed to "migratory unstable" in the contents of associative fields with the words-stimuli "home", "Motherland". Some noticeable changes and trends of considerable transformations under the influence of the foreign culture environment are discovered. The respondents' quantitative reactions deviate from those registered in the dictionaries. The article gives reasons for transformations and/or preserving the contents of associative fields of the words-stimuli under study. The ethnic characteristics of the groups under experiments are stated having little influence on transformation of the associative fields, whereas the cultural background, the worldview was formed at, demonstrates some considerable effect on their consciousness.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.