The paper examines methodological conditions necessary to achieve the expected learning outcomes of studying Russian as a school subject. To be more specific, careful attention is paid to such aspects of teaching school students as written text creation, analysis, and assessment of their own and other learners’ speech acts from the standpoint of the communicative task, situation, and the conditions of communication. The performed analysis of learners’ final (‘December’) essays and detailed (comprehensive) answers written in the Unified State Exam (EGE) in the humanities testifies to the existence of serious shortcomings in teaching school students to produce written speech spontaneously. One of the most significant problems is the mass creation of pseudo-texts by school students in conjunction with written speech templating. The major reasons for this phenomenon lie in methodological flaws such as the replacement of writing skills formation by preparation for a specific essay type. Other flaws consist in the lack of attention to the specific features of writing as a speech activity and in the prevalence of teaching practices related to producing texts on the basis of clichés and templates suggested by the teacher. The aim of the paper is to substantiate the point that teaching writing will only become effective in case learners are aware of the specific nature, features, and laws of writing treated as a type of speech activity. The analysis of methodological research into learners’ speech development issues, works on speech studies and the psychology of speech combined with a comparative analysis of learners’ detailed written answers enabled the author to obtain the results presented in this paper. The method employed in the study is modelling a system of tasks on the basis of a rhetorical approach. The analytical tasks described in the study are specially tailored for school students. Doing them, learners will definitely gain an insight into the dialogic nature of written speech as it is addressed to an ‘imaginary interlocutor’. They will also become aware of the distinctive features of a writing person’s motivation as well as primary objectives that have to be achieved at each stage of writing. The excerpts from school-leavers’ essays with comments made by the author confirm the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

The paper exposes a contradiction between the subject-specific (listening and reading) educational outcomes required in the Federal State Educational Standard of basic compulsory education and the actual data concerning the development of teenagers’ receptive skills. The author suggests adopting an integrated approach to teaching the two above-mentioned types of speech activity. Learners are instructed in listening and reading in an interconnected manner using the method of intonational and sound text interpretation. The study relies on literature analysis, the content analysis of scientific concepts, the methods of concretization and reading activity modelling in conjunction with an abstraction technique. Intonational and sound interpretation is construed as a teaching method and a type of creative reading. Additionally, the paper brings to light the differences between reading aloud and role-reading on the one hand and intonational and sound interpretation on the other. The differentiating features of the proposed activity are its dialogic nature; the attitude to text as to an object open to modifications; the focus on addressing the acoustic-semantic issues related to textual transfer from visual to auditory modality; applicability in Russian lessons in the 8th–9th forms. The paper describes a processual model of a reader’s activity. The intonational and sound text interpretation includes the stages of orientation, performance, reflection, and evaluation. The performance stage consists in working with the author’s speech plane as well as the character’s speech plane and the reading activity itself. The paper presents a detailed methodology of working with N. V. Gogol’s poem "Dead Souls"; moreover, other works which can be subject to an intonational and sound interpretation in Russian lessons in the 8th–9th forms are mentioned. The research resulted in an enumeration of the conditions necessary to efficiently organise intonational and sound text interpretation. These include the choice of a sound-oriented work for reading; group work; practicing in spoken form without recording the results of the conversion from written speech to oral speech in writing; the audio recording of the product of intonational and sound interpretation of a dialogic fragment. The author concludes that the chosen method facilitates the development of learners’ skill to comprehend what they read; motivates them to orient themselves in the work while converting an excerpt from the visual into the auditory modality; gives an idea of the polyphony of a literary text. Moreover, it promotes the psychophysiological mechanisms that are involved in the auditory activity and reading (memory, attention, acoustic control, the converting mechanism, probabilistic forecasting); enriches readers’ apperceptive basis (background knowledge), stimulates readers’ interaction in a work group.

The paper aims to outline the role of algorithms in improving the effectiveness of studying pronouns at school level. The study demonstrates the correlation between the lexico-grammatical classes of pronouns and the nominal parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, and numerals). The focus of analysis is the grammatical features, declension, and spelling of pronouns. Additionally, the basic spellings and usage of pronouns with prepositions are analysed. The research uses the technique of structuring and processing grammatical material in the form of diagrams, tables, algorithms which are created in the classroom. Thus, they facilitate a successful acquisition of the grammatical material on the syllabus. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology for studying pronouns was proved during a research and methodological investigation. This conclusion is valid as sixth formers learnt to 1) view pronouns in conjunction with their general grammatical meaning; 2) distinguish the morphological features of pronouns; 3) classify pronouns according to their semantic affinity with the nominal parts of speech; 4) decline pronouns and build normative grammatical forms of words; 5) classify the lexico-grammatical classes of pronouns in accordance with their correlation to the nominal parts of speech; 6) identify grammatical homonyms among lexico-grammatical classes of pronouns. The paper substantiates the practicality of the algorithmic approach to teaching the above-mentioned grammatical material in the 6th form. This is evidenced by schoolchildren’s ability to differentiate between pronouns and other parts of speech, discern morphological errors while building word forms and correct them in compliance with algorithms.

The article which is written within the framework of linguopoetics analyses the sense-making mechanism from a cognitive perspective. The basic tool used to create this mechanism in O. Mandelstam’s poem "Palace Square" is vertical context. The vertical context of the poem under study is a complex structure consisting of not only separate linguistic units (historisms, archaisms, proper nouns, lexemes characteristic of religious discourse, quotations, and allusions) which have national and cultural specific features and require a commentary, but also a number of linguistic paradigms based on various principles of grouping. These principles are: taxonomic (passive vocabulary, including obsolete lexemes and religious discourse words), thematic (the lexico-semantic fields "The Roman Empire", "The Russian Empire", "Pushkinian Petersburg" and the semantic field "Faith"), figurative (metaphtonymies, aposiopesis, metaphors, metonymies, similes) as well as the relations between the elements of these paradigms. The units representing metaphtonymies which facilitate the formation of a "bunch of meanings" according to Mandelstam and the markers of aposiopesis (a trope requiring a deep ethnocultural analysis, which implies a "visualization" of the depicted urban landscape) pose the greatest difficulty in the process of analysis. The principles of repetition, antithesis, assimilation constitute the basis of the language composition of the poem. These principles interact with one another structuring the vertical context with respect to the artistic merit and making its semantic perspective broader.

Yu. D. Levitansky’s creative work has repeatedly become the object of literary analysis. Nevertheless, the poet’s writing has not been subject to detailed linguo-stylistic research. The article aims to analyse the linguistic means expressing the author’s message in the poem "The winter was like a snowy pass" and on the basis of this characterisation to reveal the philosophical content of the lyrical poem. To achieve the stated aim, linguo-stylistic text analysis is employed. This approach permits the determination of the role and functions linguistic units perform in revealing the poet’s world view. Componential analysis is used to identify the means of semantic extension and transformations of primary and customary meanings of lexical items, which turns out to be important to form the philosophical basis of the poem. The paper concludes that Yu. Levitansky paints a picture of a man’s and poet’s life searches. Additionally, the modes of expressing the author’s message are identified. The reality and fiction are closely intertwined and complement each other. Thus, they help to reveal the view of life of an individual and the whole generation better. Using the monochrome palette of black-and-white films (the poem is part of the winter cycle of the "Cinematograph" collection), the author provides philosophical reflection on life, creativity, and his own place in the fate of the Sixtiers’ generation.

The article explores the ways onomatopoeic words function in children’s fiction. The aim of the study is to identify the functional and stylistic distinctive features of using onomatopoeic vocabulary in Vitaly Bianki’s short stories and fairy tales. Onomatopoeic words are an important expressive means which characterises the individual style of the writer considered to be one of the founders of the Soviet nature prose. Such words reflect the author’s subjective emotional attitude to the natural world and perform important stylistic functions (figurative, characterizing, expressive, heuristic, aesthetic, and others) in his works written for children. To achieve the aim, the methods of functional and stylistic analysis were employed. As a result, the paper identifies the basic techniques exploited to actualise the onomatopoeic component of lexical units in V. V. Bianki’s prose. It has been found that the onomatopoeic usage patterns reveal the fundamentals of the naturalist writer’s view of life and his creative manner.

The article prompts a discussion of several traditional and new issues concerned with the orthographic rules of spelling adverbs. The research work performed prior to the formulation of spelling rules for the academic description necessitated a more rigorous evaluation of several established ideas about the ways adverb spelling rules are organized and what the actual lexical material relating to this area is. In addition, it should be clarified to what extent this material is governed by rules and to what extent – by a dictionary. The paper examines the approach to the rules of spelling adverbs proposed in scientific literature and draws attention to the difficulties in employing this approach in the classroom. The focus of the present analysis is such specified criteria for the concatenated spelling of adverbs as the lexical dependence of the nominal part of the word, the intermorphemic insertion, and declension question. The research reveals that these criteria do not serve as a tool for spelling selection. The dependence criterion cannot be considered an orthographic rule because it is fundamentally selective. Specifically, the mode of spelling words containing a dependent nominal part (i.e. in the concatenated fashion or as separate units) is actually lexicalised and is only characteristic of certain words. The other two criteria are not applicable to the material and thus mislead writers. This paper is part of a series of publications devoted to the academic description of Russian orthography. It also suggests addressing other controversial issues of studying the spelling of adverbs.

The article aims to present a comprehensive sociolinguistic and expressive-syntactic analysis of the phrase "ot slova sovsem" ("from the phrase at all") which has become widespread in the Russian language since the beginning of the XXIst century. Computer slang is a possible source of this fixed phrase scheme; its field structure consists of the core ot slova and the periphery zone sovsem. The article hypothesizes that it is feasible to consider this model as an agrammatism and a parcelled construction. The formation of this fixed phrase scheme was accompanied by semantic-pragmatic and grammatical shifts such as desemantisation of the core (the word form ot slova transformed into a signaling speech reference to the speaker’s emotional sphere) and the use of the polyfunctional adverb sovsem as an intensifying evaluative particle. The transition of this model to general usage (due to computer-mediated communication) caused further language transformations: the periphery zone enriched with diverse words of different parts of speech, which enables addressers to convey expressiveness and evaluation ambivalently, i. e. with both negative and positive connotations. The paper presents contexts of this construction usage in the Russian language space (sprachraum) and makes prognoses concerning its use in contexts characterised by hyperintense expressiveness. The research relies on the systemic, definition, classification, modelling, and prognostic methods.

The article asserts the necessity to create psychological and pedagogical conditions aimed at forming professional and communicative competence of university students in the process of teaching speech-oriented disciplines. Such conditions include understanding the professional ideal as a personal, inner motivation for learning; the use of the communicative-cognitive approach; the focus on the step-by-step personality formation of a communicative personality. To identify the above-mentioned conditions, the author employed the following research methods and techniques: structured observation of students’ speech, group and individual interviews with learners, psychosemantic approach, self-characterisation and self-presentation methods, socio-pedagogical investigation. The best practices aimed at a gradual formation of a communicative personality and learners’ professional ideal are described through the analysis of studying speech genres, the orthographic and pronunciation (orthoepic) norms of the Russian language.

The paper analyses the 1757 and 1765 editions of "Russian Grammar" and on this basis aims to formulate M. V. Lomonosov’s orthographic program as well as specific spelling rules set forth in his grammatical piece of work. An important objective of this research is to trace the influence of the Lomonosov rules on the orthographic practice in the XVIIIth–XIXth centuries and works by the great scientist’s followers. As a result, the study identified the enormous significance of Lomonosov’s works for the formation of the Russian literary language spelling standards. Not all rules prescribed in the Grammar were supported in common usage and stood the test of time, for instance, including the prefix s- (Russian с-) to the rule concerning the prefixes ending in z- (Russian з-). Nonetheless, the scientist deserves much credit as he laid the fundamental groundwork for the Russian literary language spelling standards. M. V. Lomonosov was the first to formulate the basic orthographic principles; he made it a rule to spell roots according to their derivation ("po proizvozhdeniyu"); in addition, the scientist insisted on the uniformity of spelling prefixes and suffixes; finally, he suggested standardising the spelling of Russian endings by contrast with Church Slavonic ones. The norms prescribed in the "Russian Grammar" treatise underpin all the later Russian spelling rulebooks and are still relevant nowadays.