Describes a program in which students were immersed in Russian culture and history in an effort to help them better understand the text of Turgenev's "Mumu." (FL)

Presents statistical data from a survey of Russian culture courses taught at institutions that offer Russian language instruction. Includes data on total number, length, and language of instruction, which, while substantiating the widespread assumption of a culture course explosion, point to the large proportion of courses that are taught in…

Describes methods for creating a database for computer-assisted teaching of Russian by outlining an approach to one general problem, that of entering vocabulary. It is done in such a way that the same entry is available for a wide range of grammar drills. The program's key feature is its flexibility. (PJM)

Analyzes the planning components involved in a language course and the choices that they present. The article discusses the amount of time available and required for effective language teaching; the need for backward planning; the necessity of prioritizing; and diversification of course content. (12 references) (Author/CK)

Observed child-parent interaction to investigate the early temporal and aspectual morphology in four monolingual Russian speaking children. Analysis of data obtained in weekly videotaped sessions shows early mastery of all tenses as well as grammatical aspect at an early age. (Author/VWL)

Examines the relationship between second language proficiency and pausing patterns in the speech of 30 Russian speakers of English performing two oral tasks--a topic narrative and a cartoon description--in Russian and in English. Findings support the view that adherence to the target language pausing norms may lead to the perception of nonnative…

Two surveys conducted in the Soviet Union are reported that demonstrate the complicated interrelationship between linguistic form and meaning. They support Jakobson and Gorbacevic on gender signalling, particularly when the speaker is not certain of the noun in question. (Contains 44 references.) (LB)

Proposes six related cognitive statuses relevant for explicating the use of referring expressions in natural language discourse. A study of the distribution of referring expressions in naturally occurring discourse in English, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Spanish is offered as support for the proposal. (Contains 91 references.) (Author)

Discusses the interactions between different ethnic groups in the former Soviet Union and the factors that may affect their migration decisions. The reluctance of Russian speakers to learn the languages of the peoples amongst whom they have lived has left them vulnerable in nation states where knowledge of the national language is required. (VWL)

A case study of a Russian-Hebrew bilingual woman with transcortical sensory aphasia showed that overall, aphasic symptoms were similar in the two languages, with Hebrew somewhat more impaired. The woman revealed a difference in her ability to perceive phonemes in the context of Hebrew words that depended on whether they were presented in a Russian…

Investigates the social attitudes toward the Hebrew language and Israeli society and the academic skills in Russian and Hebrew of 60 Russian-Jewish immigrant high school students in Northern Israel. Addresses the linguistic social context in Israel and provides a literature review. Presents and discusses the results. Includes references. (CMK)

This exploratory study identifies factors affecting parental choice of language of instruction, based on semistructured interviews with 16 Russian-speaking parents in three urban areas of Estonia. We investigated three different types of language programs: Russian schools, which provided education in the children's first language; Estonian…

EU accession negotiations have impacted on and generated ongoing interest in Baltic language and citizenship legislation. There is however no detailed knowledge of prevailing language attitudes amongst mainstream and minority populations in Lithuania. This paper investigates attitudes to minority language use and to the (officially reinstated)…

Some languages, such as Finnish, use speech-sound duration as the primary cue for a phonological quantity distinction. For second-language (L2) learners, quantity is often difficult to master if speech-sound duration plays a less important role in the phonology of their native language (L1). By comparing the categorization performance of native…

This paper demonstrates the role of disciplinary context in shaping the common rhetorical and textual features of research texts in different languages and, more broadly, problematizes the validity of straightforward sociocultural explanations of rhetorical differences frequently used in the literature. The research is based on the contrastive…