From the experience of using media texts in RFL classes in a group of 4th-year philology students of Shenzhen MSU-BIT University

Danilina Ol'ga Russian Language Centre, Shenzhen MSU-BIT University 518172, China, Guangdong Province, Shenzhen, Guojidasueyuan str., 1 olgadanilina@mail.ru Other publications by this author

As is known, recently the concept of a language environment has acquired special importance in the methodology and practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language ^{[1, 2]}, the key component of which is a textbook accompanied by a sufficient number of a wide variety of materials of a linguistic and cultural nature, including media texts ^[3]. The interest of researchers in studying the problems of media speech, the peculiarities of language functioning in the field of mass communication is constantly increasing, and a significant number of linguists are engaged in the problems of media text in modern linguistics ^[4-8]. In particular, N.A. Kuzmina understands the media text as "a dynamic complex unit of the highest order, through which speech communication is carried out in the field of mass communications." The researcher notes that the media text, "being the main unit of the media stream division," unites "such diverse and multilevel concepts as a newspaper article, radio broadcast, television news, Internet advertising and other types of media products" ^{[4, p.6]}. All these genres usually arouse keen interest among representatives of the younger generation, so it is not surprising that the student audience reacts with great enthusiasm to this type of texts, if they are offered as a supplement to the textbooks and teaching aids used.

In the era of the evolution of media culture, foreign students of university age also show an increase in interest in authentic materials appearing in the Russian media space. In this regard, the experience of familiarizing students with such modern media genres as advertising, blog, post or meme is particularly relevant ^{[9, p.45; 10]}.

At the moment, the teaching methodology of the RCT discusses the issue of attracting authentic media texts even at the initial stage of training ^{[11, 12]}. At the B2-C1 levels, characterized by broad communicative competence and understanding of many nuances of intercultural communication, the use of such materials seems simply necessary ^[13-16]. Some authentic Internet texts may often require the formation of foreign students-recipients of communicative competence close to the capabilities of native speakers of the Russian language. However, even such texts can be extremely useful for solving certain methodological problems. In this regard, I would like to share my experience of working with such media texts in the group of philologists of the 4th year of the MSU-PPI University, a group that just corresponds to a high level of language proficiency (B2).

The program of the 4th year philology students includes training in writing a review. The main work is carried out on the manual for foreign students "The Russian language in texts about philology" by A.V. Velichko and L.P. Yudina. The study of the section "Reviewing" aims to familiarize students with this genre of scientific text, with different types of reviews, including a review of the genre of artistic journalism, characterized by freedom of composition and a variety of language tools used ^[17]. In the manual by A.V. Velichko and L.P. Yudina, students are offered two reviews of the book by D.S. Likhachev "Letters about Good and Beautiful" (authors A. Pestunova and I. Fonyaev) for analysis. Students' attention is drawn to such features of reviews characteristic of journalistic texts as the presence of oppositions, the use of predicative adverbs, inversions and rhetorical questions. As an additional material for introductory individual reading, the manual offers an excerpt from the "Memoirs of D.S. Likhachev".

In order for the review analysis to be more substantive, it seemed appropriate to first introduce students to the primary source — an excerpt from the book by D.S. Likhachev "Letters about the Good and the Beautiful". In addition to the task of bringing students closer to the subject, acquaintance with an excerpt from the book by D.S. Likhachev was aimed at expanding the cultural knowledge of fourth-year students, developing their professional competence, improving their general language proficiency through discussion of an urgent problem that is important for humanities students. The letter 12 "A person should be intelligent!" was chosen to work in the lesson ^[18].

Due to the fact that the subject of this letter can be perceived distantly by representatives of the younger generation, I wanted to first analyze it using the example of a text of a genre closer to the youth audience. An authentic text of the media was involved in the work — a post (that is, a message published on forums, websites and online communities) on the topic of intelligence. Representatives of the younger generation feel more organic when reading such texts, they are closer and more accessible to this genre, which they encounter daily in the media space. In addition, visual material usually attracts the eyes of students in the literal sense of the word. Students were presented with a post popular in the Internet space from the site "Pikabu" - an information and entertainment community that publishes jokes and memes, funny photos and videos, informative articles and interesting comments ^[19].

The post, which was a comment on the meme, aroused the keen interest of students. The choice of the material was due to its thematic relevance, as well as provocative sharpness (always interesting for representatives of the younger generation) in presenting a stereotypical idea of the intelligentsia.

The linguistic competence of students studying already in the fourth year of the Faculty of Philology allowed them to feel both explicitly and implicitly expressed nuances of a stylistic and culturological nature. In addition, in the process of working with the proposed media text, students turned to additional Internet resources in search of information of a general cultural plan that interested them, expanded their list of names significant for the history of literature and philosophy.

The discussion of the semantic side of the text activated the critical thinking of students (note, by the way, that the ability to critically perceive and evaluate information that is broadcast by the media can be called one of the most important social skills these days). The discussion was conducted taking into account the following issues:

- How urgent is the problem of intelligence these days?

-        What traits, in your opinion, should an intelligent person possess?

-        What is the reason for the appearance of a comic stereotype of an intelligent person?

-        How does the history and culture of a country influence the understanding of intelligence?

- Do you agree that an apparently harmless (even frivolous) form can be a discussion of an important social and spiritual problem?

The discussion allowed the students to form and develop their own communication skills. It is worth noting that materials of this kind really allow students to teach various forms of self-expression, which is especially important in modern lessons of Russian as a foreign language.

The discussion of the language side of the text was also extremely useful for students. In the process of analyzing the post, the attention of students was drawn to the stylistic and genre features of the presented media text. Since at the previous stages of their studies, philology students were already familiar with the features of journalistic texts of the widest range of functioning, it was interesting for them to pay attention to the features of both the presented media text and similar ones: the specifics of the website and the genres of meme and post; the use of visual effects (logo, picture, symbols, including smiley); the use of title and subtitle, font features, the use of italics, landscape or mirror layout on the page; color and location of links; features of the author's style (the use of concise sentences, graphic means (dashes, capital letters), inversion, anaphora, parcellations; expressiveness of the message, the use of language game); features of vocabulary (including the predominance of words with positive or negative connotations); features of the sound series and the internal rhythm of the text; a combination of logic and emotionality (that is, activation of both intellectual and emotional response in the reader); a combination of informing functions and influencing the reader.

During the discussion, students independently noted that the title of the post is a rhetorical question with three question marks that create a certain emotionality: "Are there many intellectuals among us)" Students noted that the question sets the topic of the post in the perspective of contrasting an "unintelligent" person with an "intelligent" one, that at the end of the sentence the author uses a closing parenthesis, symbolizing a smile, which creates an ironic effect: the question asked seems serious, while the answer is ridiculous, ironic.

The students assumed that the author of the post intentionally includes himself in the circle of "intellectuals", using the personal pronoun "us", which creates an informality of tone. The students noted that the length of the post helps to retain the reader's attention and interest, since longer texts can alert the reader who is set on rest with their seriousness. The students drew attention to a number of homogeneous terms in the second sentence, to the fact that the enumeration begins with the surname of the great writer, and ends with a word of a reduced stylistic tier, which enhances the already created ironic effect. The repeated language error ("... distinguishes Gogol from Hegel, Hegel from Bebel ..."), according to the students, may be intentional. The students suggested that the consonance in a series of homogeneous terms helps the author to show that for an unintelligent person, all the listed words mean the same thing. It seemed to the students that the last ellipsis, unlike the previous two, does not have an ironic character, but invites the reader to a joint reflection on whether there are many true intellectuals among the visitors of this site. The students realized that the attached picture is a caricature depicting an "intellectual". They noticed the contrast of the black-and—white suit and the burgundy drink inside the glass, assumed that it was wine in harmony with the monocle - the main attribute of the so-called "intellectual". The students noted the juxtaposition of the text itself, which talks about the inner world of an intelligent person, to a picture indicating his appearance. So, according to the students, the author brings the reader to the idea of the text: an intelligent person is primarily determined by his actions, his inner content, and not his appearance.

The students concluded that, despite the fact that the post belongs to such categories as "memes", "anecdote", "joke" and "banter", the author manages to convey deep thoughts to truly intelligent readers.

The chosen media text gave students the opportunity not only to analyze and interpret the statement, but also to evaluate it (which was especially interesting in relation to the text, implicitly already broadcasting background evaluation information). The post aroused keen interest, the motivation of the students increased, and they felt more comfortable when getting acquainted with a complex problem related to important spiritual aspects of human life. Under the reading of the 12th letter "A person must be intelligent!" a certain emotional base was summed up.

Thanks to the preparatory work described above, the acquaintance directly with the text of Likhachev's letter took place in an atmosphere of interest. The interest of students in the material of a problematic nature has already been activated, a heated discussion of the letter "A person should be intelligent!" centered around the following question: "Do you agree that a person's social duty is to be intelligent?"

The analysis of the linguistic features of the 12 letters was especially interesting in comparison with the complex analysis of the text of another genre that has just been carried out. Students were asked to answer, for example, the following questions:

-        What signs of journalistic style can you note in the 12th letter?

-        What expressive means help the author to influence the emotional side of the reader?

-        What keywords help to understand the direction of the author's thought?

The final stage of working with the primary source was the completion of a written task — writing an essay on the topic "Is intelligence needed these days?" Subsequent classes were devoted directly to acquaintance with the features of the review of a literary work (in particular, the genre of fiction journalism) and the preparation of a review of Likhachev's 12th letter.

Thus, the work with authentic material that is minimal in volume, but as representative as possible for the modern Russian media space, has proved its motivating and cognitive value. Working with this kind of language product, students immerse themselves in an environment that is closer in terms of the mentality of a young person, which is perceived more organically by people of this generation. The use of media products of the considered type in Russian language classes at an advanced stage is a way to increase the motivation of students when discussing complex socio-cultural and linguistic problems.

Application:

1. The work of a student Yang Wen (MSU-PPI, Philology, 4th year, group 2), completed at the end of the lesson (given with the preservation of the author's style).

Intelligence

There is no definite answer to the question of what qualities an intelligent person should have. Scientists also answer this question in different ways, including D.S. Likhachev.

According to Likhachev, an intelligent person has such positive qualities as respect for other people, the ability to understand, respect for nature, good manners, etc.

D.S. Likhachev also draws readers' attention to the fact that every person has a social duty to himself — to be intelligent. I fully share the opinion of the great scientist. Since intelligence is needed in modern society, each of us is obliged to fulfill this social duty.

The modern world is developing fast enough: new technologies are emerging, new products are constantly being produced. More and more people are noticing that many of us often cannot resist these temptations. Striving for wealth and novelty, we gradually forget what intelligence is. Offenses, bad manners, pollution of nature — everything happens before our eyes.

This phenomenon reminds me of the novel "Mayhem", where all people, whether aristocrats or simple peasants, succumb only to their instincts. It was a terrible time of disorder and arbitrariness, a time that may be repeated in the history of mankind.

The potential of a country is not so much in its economic or military might, as in the behavior and moral qualities of its citizens. As members of modern society, we must be (or at least try to be) intelligent. Taking advantage of the benefits of the development of the modern world, we simultaneously have a duty to it. I hope that light and love will reign in our hearts!