The meta-disciplinary status of the academic subject "Russian Language" determines the specific features of its teaching strategy. The speech development of a student’s personality should be the main objective of Russian language teaching. It is legitimate to consider the communicative-activity approach as the framework for language education. This choice is conditioned by the need to form students’ ideas of language as a communication tool. Thus, the topical issue in the modern educational environment is to search for and implement while teaching Russian such organisational forms that would contribute to students’ speech development. The case method seems to be a productive way of organising the educational process. The approach balances the communicative aspect with the development of students’ cognitive and regulatory skills. Moreover, it promotes their autonomous work. Besides, cases enable teachers to shape the educational process based on the textocentric principle of Russian language learning. It is through working with text that students comprehend language as a means of fulfilling communicative objectives. The paper aims to provide a rationale for the principles of constructing a textocentric case as the linguo-didactic basis for modern lessons of Russian. We propose a concept of the structural organisation of a textocentric case. It consists of a text, additional materials, and a set of questions and assignments whose purpose is to interpret the text, enhance cognitive activity as well as facilitate students’ speech creation development. The logic of compiling a list of questions and assignments teachers select is based on their division into blocks. These enquires and tasks are preparatory, perceptual, intratextual, contextual, and project-speech-creative. They are combined into blocks depending on their common specific goal. Achieving this objective becomes a stage in comprehending the text and the role of linguistic phenomena functioning in it. We also provide a case example consistent with the defined concept.

The relevance of the article lies in the need to teach teenagers to understand and interpret radio plays. A radio drama is considered as one of the objects of the virtual acoustic environment in which school students’ auditory culture is formed. The paper aims to identify the range of skills a pupil needs to adequately understand and interpret a radio play. Another goal is to offer standard assignments aimed at developing these skills. The study employed analysis, generalisation, extrapolation, and modelling. The teaching materials by A. D. Deikina et al (ed. by A. D. Shmelev) were compared with the teaching materials developed by L. M. Rybchenkova et al according to several parameters. These include the number of exercises based on dramatic texts and the source plays of quotations used in the textbooks, as well as the correlation between the quotations and the literature syllabus. The other three parameters are the relation of the used dramatic material to the lesson topic, the volume of the cited dramatic text, and assignment types oriented towards quotations from plays. The analysis of the dramatic material use in various teaching packages has revealed that the specific features of drama are hardly considered. Work is frequently built on a single sentence. The article lists the conditions for achieving the formation of students’ skills necessary to adequately understand and interpret radio dramas. Using the radio play genre addresses the issue of teaching schoolchildren to understand and interpret sounding dramatic text, forms their value-based attitude to radio theatre. Moreover, it enriches their vocabulary and enhances their ability to communicate with classmates. In the light of this evidence, I conclude that using the radio play genre in Russian language lessons develops auditory culture (and, in particular, the culture of ‘slow’ listening). The research indicates that mastering the skill to understand the logic of dialogues lays the groundwork for completing assignment 27 of the Unified State Examination in the Russian language successfully. It holds true with respect to establishing and analysing the semantic connection between illustrative examples when commenting on an issue.

This paper investigates diminutives and hypocoristics in asymmetric verbal communication of Russianspeaking children, aged 13 to 16, when communicating with their pets. Observational data was collected by semi-formal oral and written questionnaires concerning these derivatives used when communicating with and talking about pets. The frequency of diminutives and hypocoristics, as well as their semantic and derivational features in the speech of boys and girls, are considered against the background of similar data of adults of corresponding gender. The gender and age differences identified in the use of diminutives and hypocoristics by respondents are statistically significant. Specifically, girls’ pet-directed speech was diminutively richer than the boys’ (both in terms of lemmas and tokens). The semantic preferences documented during diminutivization in adolescents of both genders are comparable, but differ from those of adults, as does the inventory of diminutive suffixes. The pragmatic functions of the use of diminutives and hypocoristics indicate a predominant expression of empathy, the trigger for which is a pet. The article also highlights other features of adolescent speech when addressing pets.

The article analyses the punctuation differences in G. R. Derzhavin’s poetical works in various editions. In addition, the research considers the influence of such differences on the formation of syntactic constructions and on readers’ perception of the text of a particular work. Modern essay collections, as well as other sources including the poet’s writings, contain punctuation discrepancies which can affect the understanding of the message of texts. The article analyses seven poems by G. R. Derzhavin ("Picnics", "Drowning", "To the Lyre", "Wealth", "Chains", "Hunter", "To Plamida") in detail. Using quantitative and contrastive-comparative analysis, the article aims to identify the main punctuation differences between two collections of poems by G. R. Derzhavin published in the 19th century. Another objective is to evaluate their influence on modern collections of poems. The research identifies the most typical variation types, for example, variation manifested at sentence boundaries. Other types are the presence of a punctuation mark in one edition and its absence in the other, a colon and its replacement with another punctuation mark, the choice between a comma and a semicolon. The paper particularly considers punctuation variables in cases with two or more epithets accompanying one noun, as well as in constructions with an antithesis. The analysis demonstrates the high complexity of punctuation and its inconsistency in the poet’s texts. The study also confirms the need for a more thorough investigation of the syntax in G. R. Derzhavin’s poetical works based on his punctuation dating back to the "Complete Scientific Collection of Derzhavin’s writings edited by Ya. Grot".

The study aims to analyse the novella "Noble Society" by V. A. Sollogub as the most typical example of the writer’s search for new realistic forms of the linguo-poetic depiction of the aristocratic circle life. Drawing on the Romanticism traditions, the writer develops his own original approach to the artistic exploration of the subject which was already extensively covered in Russian literature of the first quarter of the 19th century. Sollogub offers a kind of alternative to Lermontov’s vision of the beau monde (in content, form, and the author’s position). Without abandoning the experience of a critical and even satirical investigation of the subject, the writer tries to be objective. Using various linguistic and stylistic means, he shows the complexity of the characters, institutions, and customs of the privileged circles of the Russian aristocracy, to which he himself belonged. The article uses linguo-poetic and stylistic analysis of the text in conjunction with observations on its composition and syntax features. The text is examined from the "horizontal" and "vertical" perspectives, i. e. considering its artistic effect, biographical and social connections, as well as the structure-forming linguistic units of different levels. The paper describes composition which is understood (following Yu. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspensky) as a particular point of view and a perspective of reproducing reality. The study classifies the forms of the author’s deviations from the main course of the narrative. The combination of various lexical layers in the text is investigated as a linguo-poetic indicator of the degree of reliability of the characters’ judgments, the "exposure" of the masked truth, the author’s positive and negative evaluation. The research reveals the aphoristic (formula) "code" of high society life and some syntactic devices characteristic of V. A. Sollogub’s style (in particular, the methods of prose rhythmisation). Special attention is given to the specific high society phraseology and vocabulary used for the literary depiction of aristocratic life.

The article examines the novel "What is to be done?" written by N. G. Chernyshevsky. In the post-Soviet space, this work again attracts the attention of researchers. The study focuses on one of the most significant aspects of text organisation essential for understanding its meaning and structure. It is intertext in the variety of its manifestations. The article considers its characterological and axiological (explication of Christian values) functions, as well as the role of intertextual inclusions in the formation of the author’s tone, in expanding the spatial and temporal boundaries of the narrative. The research method is intertextual analysis, i. e. identifying intertextual inclusions and their forms (quotations, allusions, reminiscences). The article investigates the relationship between the pre-text and the receiving context, the functions of intertext, as well as world-generating analysis (O. G. Revzina). The research reveals that N. G. Chernyshevsky organises the spatio-temporal structure of the narrative with the help of intertextual inclusions. The specificity of the narrative consists in the intertwined and interdependent relationship between the atemporal (the eternal values of Christianity) and the temporal (biographical and historical time of the characters and the author).

The article proposes an approach to defining verbal conjugations which is based, in my opinion, on the essential features of this grammatical phenomenon. These include diachrony, the concept of two stems of the verb, and the material of foreign Slavic languages. Of all verbal lexemes, only verbs with the non-root thematic vowels -i-, -eand -а-(-ya-) before -t’ undergoing syncope in the stem of the present (future simple) tense but only in one class with each final belong to the second conjugation. From the diachronic perspective, all these verbs originated from the Proto- Slavic thematic *-ī stem verbs. I consider the verbs shave (brit’), endure (terpet’), twirl (vertet’), offend (obidet’), depend (zaviset’), hate (nenavidet’), see (videt’), look (smotret’), hear (slyshat’), breathe (dyshat’), hold (derzhat’) not as exceptions, but as ordinary verbs belonging to corresponding classes with unstressed vowel endings verified by stress. Each verb class of conjugation II has systemic correspondences in foreign Slavic languages. The study relies on comparative-typological, structural, and diachronic analysis.

The article aims to reveal the relationship between the orthogram in the verbal suffixes -ova-(-eva-)/-iva- (-yva-) and aspectual varieties and inter-aspectual correlation of Russian verbs. Another objective is to provide additional recommendations for choosing the correct suffix spelling. The relevance of the topic is due to the challenge of fostering a culture of conscious literacy which the modern school faces. To examine the factual material, the research employed observation, morphemic and word-formation analysis, as well as comparative-contrastive analysis. The existing recommendations for selecting the correct spelling of the suffixes -ova-(-eva-)/-iva-(-yva-) are based on the formal relationship between verb stems. However, taking account of the fact that the suffixes under consideration can result in perfectivation and imperfectivation of verbs might help to resolve this spelling issue. The study does not include verbs with the stressed suffix -ova-(-eva), verbs with the morphs -irova-, -izirova- and the suffix -stvova- in the controversial cases as the variants *-iryva-, *-iziryva-, *-stvyva- are unacceptable. Perfective verbs, including bi-aspectual verbs, are also excluded since their structure cannot contain the suffix -iva-(-yva-). The article notes the following regularity: imperfective verbs with the suffix -ova-(-eva-) acquire the perfective aspectual meaning while performing the function of a derivational base. Verbs with the suffix -iva-(-yva-) acquire the imperfective aspectual meaning performing the function of a derived unit. The specific morphemic structure of derivational bases determined the absence of prefixes in imperfective verbs with the suffix -ova-(-eva-) and the regular presence of prefixes, including etymological ones, in verbs with the suffix -iva-(-yva-). Based on these patterns, the paper formulates additional recommendations for choosing the correct vowel in the suffixes -ova-(-eva-)/-iva-(-yva-). These guidelines could be useful in the practice of teaching the Russian language at school.

The article considers the issues of using inverted commas when writing toponyms and numerous toponym- based names of museums, nature reserves, zakazniks, resorts, sanatoriums, hotels, boarding houses, and so on. Based on previous studies, the research determines the orthographic status of quotation marks at the lexical level. Additionally, the paper critically analyses the rules of using quotation marks provided in the new edition of the "Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation", as well as in various reference books and handbooks. The research identifies the main corpus of toponym-derived onyms which should be written with inverted commas.

The article analyses the role of A. I. Smirnitsky’s works on general linguistics in determining the status of the word as the central unit of the language system. I consider A. I. Smirnitsky’s ideas which are still relevant today. They concern the criteria for distinguishing between a word and a morpheme, a word and a phrase, a word and a phraseological unit, and so on based on the semantic and formal characteristics of the word. Combining certain features of other units of the language system, the word as the basic linguistic unit is at the intersection of vocabulary and word formation, morphology and syntax.