M. A. Rybnikova: work on the language of a literary piece (to the 140th anniversary of the birth)

Abstract

Though Maria Aleksandrovna Rybnikova’s name (1885–1942) is iconic in methodology, her early works, primarily "A Language and Literature Teacher’s Work at School" and "A Book on Language", are practically unknown to teachers. However, they describe her methodology of working on literary piece language. M. A. Rybnikova considered this methodology the most important part of her methodological system. Based on the content analysis of these sources, the paper shows how the methodologist supported her thesis "against studying literature history at school and for an in-depth study of the author". It is also demonstrated how she organised observation of text language in literature lessons, doing this both incidentally, i. e. in the course of studying a literary piece, and asking students to complete certain assignments. The article describes three groups of special stylistic exercises developed by M. A. Rybnikova. The example of analysing epithets proposed in the "Book on Language" shows how these exercises evolved into a system of work with a literary trope. The article notes that working with language in the format proposed by M. A. Rybnikova was strongly criticised. Nevertheless, the methodologist herself, even when developing curricula in the 1930s, created on fundamentally different methodological grounds than the curricula of the 1920s, strives to convince teachers that in literature lessons, attention to language as the essence of the text should be the most careful. In one chapter of her "Essays on the Methodology of Literary Reading", the philologist shows how this idea can be put into practice. She identifies thematic complexes for enlarging schoolchildren’s vocabulary by their year of study and demonstrates how this can be executed in the process of studying literary works. Methodological techniques for linguistic text analysis in literature lessons enrich modern philologists’ methodological toolkit. Using them will be effective for both speech and literary development of students.