Mastering the ways of indicating transport when mastering Russian as a native and as a foreign language

Van Lina ORCID: 0009-0006-2790-0676 Postgraduate student; research group "Russian language, languages of the Peoples of Russia"; St. Petersburg State University 199058, Russia, Leningrad region, St. Petersburg, Morskaya nab., 39, sq. 48 linawang511@gmail.com

Introduction

Methods of teaching Russian as a native language, as one of the native, as a non-native, as a foreign language have been actively developed in recent years and are the subject of close scientific research and interest. Scientists note that in the modern multilingual and multicultural environment, the creation of special syncretic methods is required, and the interpenetration of methods of teaching Russian to different categories of students is planned ^{[10, p. 83]}. In this regard, the question of how the processes of language acquisition differ in different situations and in what they are similar becomes very relevant.

L. S. Vygotsky argued: "If the development of a native language begins with free, spontaneous use of speech and ends with awareness of speech forms and mastery of them, then the development of a foreign language begins with awareness of language and arbitrary mastery of it and ends with free, spontaneous speech" ^{[9, p. 292]}. Children unconsciously and spontaneously analyze speech input at the first stages of natural language acquisition and gradually become familiar with declarative rules already at school age. Adults who study Russian as a foreign language follow the "top-down" path: they comprehend and memorize declarative rules and only then move from conscious control to unconscious use of the language. Hence the differences in the processes of language acquisition and use, which lead to different types of errors of monolingual children and adult foreigners.

According to S. N. Zeitlin and T. A. Kruglyakova, children make mistakes due to the unformed mechanisms of RAM and other cognitive mechanisms ^{[25, p. 107]}. Adults who start learning a foreign language have developed cognitive abilities and communicative needs, but they cannot always express them in speech in a foreign language. This leads to simplification, which "finds its manifestation in the simplification of linguistic phenomena" ^{[26, p. 520]} and interlanguage interference.

In any case, procedural rules are implicitly formed in the minds of children and adults, regulating the choice of a language unit and, if necessary, its construction. As a result, children and adults make common mistakes, which are commonly called systemic, since they are caused by the peculiarities of the Russian language system itself. S. N. Zeitlin and T. A. Kruglyakova argues that these errors are "characteristic of all language learners and paradoxically are evidence of awareness of language laws" ^{[25, p. 105]}.

A special way is to learn a language in a situation of emigration, if the native language of the parents is preserved as a family language. M. Niznik argues that important speakers (heritage language speakers) as native speakers of the family language, who grew up in families where they spoke another language and speak to varying degrees both the dominant language and the family language From a linguistic point of view, they represent a special group ^{[21, p. 93]}. The input of erythage speakers is poorer than that of monolingual children, which gives them fewer opportunities for linguistic generalizations. At the same time, cognitive abilities and communicative needs outstrip the possibilities of expression in speech in the family language, which leads to a significant number of "mistakes of a foreigner".

Literature review

There are a large number of works that consider the possibilities of expressing case values in the Russian language ^{[5, 6, 13, 20, etc.]}. In particular, scientists are conducting comparative studies of ways to indicate a vehicle in different languages ^{[3, 4, 14, 15, 22]}. The research carried out in line with functional syntax allows us to trace how the category of case is arranged in different languages of the world.

The study of the ways of formation of case meanings when learning a language in different communication situations also contributes to the description of the universal and specific structure of the category of case in different languages.

The specifics of the development of case meanings in the speech of a Russian monolingual child have been well studied ^{[1, 4, 9, 12, 16, 24 There are scientific works that allow us to compare the nature of errors and analyze the mechanisms of mastering Russian case constructions by native speakers of different languages [7, 18, 19, 21, 25, 27, 28, 29]}. However, the linguistic development of the problem is at the beginning of the path; special works devoted to the formation of specific case meanings are still few and our research is designed to fill this gap.

Goal

Russian Russian prepositional case constructions indicating vehicles are analyzed through the prism of mistakes made by Russian-speaking monolingual children, adult native Chinese speakers learning Russian as a foreign language, and brave native Russian speakers with various first languages. Our tasks included tracing the directions of grammatical interference and analyzing the causes of difficulties experienced by monolingual children, foreign students and native speakers when referring to means of transportation in Russian.

Research materials

The materials were collected in the Russian linguistic corpus RLC, developed by HSE researchers under the guidance of E. V. Rachilina (http://www.web-corpora.net/RLC /). The search in the building was carried out using keywords naming vehicles (bus, plane, tram, taxi, subway, escalator, bicycle, ship, boat), and animals (horse, dog). 56 contexts containing errors in the choice of preposition and/or case ending were selected.

At the second stage of the study, two series of experiments were conducted. The subjects were asked to describe the picture using a given word that names the vehicle depicted in the picture. We assumed that the choice of the prepositional case form would depend not only on the verb, but also on the noun included in the construction. The experiments involved 24 students of the Quadrivium elementary private school and Gymnasium No. 171 of the Central District of St. Petersburg aged 8-11 years and 47 foreigners with native Chinese - students of St. Petersburg State University and St. Petersburg State University of Economics.

Results and discussion

The comparison of data on the formation of case grammar in the course of mastering the language as a native, foreign and non-native in different situations allows us to make the following observations.

1) At the initial stages of mastering case grammar, Chinese students resort to a strategy of simplification, using the initial forms of nouns without a preposition when pointing to transport. We can assume that such "frozen forms" of the nominative case are used when generally referring to an object: ride a bus, fly a plane. It is possible that in this case it makes sense to talk not about the frozen nominative, but about using the accusative form without a preposition. It is this form that is the easiest way to point to an object in a broad sense. Another possible explanation for such errors is the non–distinction of constructions indicating the direction (to get on the bus) and location (to ride the bus), which leads to a mixture of accusative forms, coinciding with the nominative, and prepositional cases.

It is possible that the occurrence of such errors is influenced by the native language: in Chinese, in this case, equivalent constructions are used without a preposition with the verb 乘坐 (cheng zuo: to go) indicating movement: 乘坐公 (cheng zuo gong jiao che: 'to go by bus’)(Cheng Zuo Fei Ji: '(Cheng Zuo: go plane'). However, similar errors were also observed in the spontaneous written speech of non-native speakers with different first languages: I love watching and flying an airplane (FL (first language): Japanese).

2) We assumed that the preposition would not be skipped in constructions with non-declinable nouns, since in this case it represents the only indication of grammatical meaning. However, in the speech of important speakers, the omission of the preposition in constructions with nouns taxi, metro was encountered: The wolves will invite them to enter the dachshund and take a taxi (FL: French). The same mistake is noted in the speech of Chinese students. Perhaps the reason lies in interference if the first language of the writer uses an uncomplicated construction: 乘坐地铁 (Cheng zuo di te: ‘take the subway’ – Chinese; prendre le métro 'take the subway’ – French).

3) Contrary to popular scientific opinion, according to to which the choice of the correct ending in combination with the omission of the preposition is considered a typical mistake of a Russian-speaking child, in contrast to the speech production of an adult foreigner ^{[24, p. 171]}. Non-native speakers often omitted the preposition, putting the noun in the form of the prepositional case: I'm not on the bus (FL: French). Such errors were also found in the speech of native Chinese speakers learning Russian as a foreign language: You need to go to the zoo by bus and then walk. The reason for the errors is that in the native language, a preposition is not required in such expressions. Knowledge of the native language was superimposed on a foreign one, and the student invented a construction with a noun in the form of a prepositional case without a preposition.

4) Native children do not make mistakes of choice and feel subtle semantic nuances that allow them to convey various grammatical forms. In our experimental material, proposals were presented in which we expected the appearance of forms on the bus, in the bus, by bus. According to M. V. Vsevolodova and Yu. V. Vladimir's spatial meaning, complicated by the scheme of the mode of action, has three sub-meanings: 1) movement by means of vehicles, 2) location and movement in space, 3) fixing one object with the help of another ^{[5, p. 80]}. In Russian, when referring to vehicles, forms with the preposition on are more often used, however, when indicating what is happening inside the vehicle, forms with the preposition b are preferable, and when generally indicating the mode of movement, including when combined with the words last, morning, passing, the use of "c + creative" is possible, "creative without preposition", "on + prepositional" ^{[5, pp. 80-81]}. The form of the creative case without a preposition did not appear in children's speech, but the difference between the variants on the bus and on the bus was felt by children.

5) Foreign students, on the contrary, did not feel any differences in grammatical meanings and chose a construction with a preposition on, including in the locative meaning: Anton rode the bus and played with his smartphone. Such forms can be explained by interference. In Chinese, when pointing to a locative value, the service word will be used ... 里 (zai... li: inside the object). In the speech of non-native speakers, constructions with the preposition on are also used in the locative meaning when referring to events that occurred in transport: I hope that tomorrow on the bus someone will talk to me, or give me something to do (FL: English).

6) Native speakers and Chinese students use the construction "c + noun in the creative case" as a universal way to indicate an instrument, including transport: We took the bus to St. Isaac's Square (FL: Swedish). S. N. Zeitlin also notes that for a foreigner, "the preposition is recognized as the main (and only) marker of meaning" ^{[24, p. 275]}. We also found a preference for this construction in the speech of children who are native speakers of Turkic languages when pointing to an instrument: He makes boats with paper, waters them with a watering can ^{[17, p. 668]}.

7) In the speech of non-native speakers, we found errors in which the preposition did not correspond to the chosen case ending:Before I go to Uppsala University, I first go by bus, then by meter and then by train (FL: Swedish). This form is a contamination of two constructions with the meaning of transport: "on + prepositional case" / "creative without preposition". Contaminated constructions are noted in the speech of bilingual children and in the speech of Russian-speaking preschoolers with general speech underdevelopment: The boy rides a bicycle ^{[1, p. 14]}. At the same time, the "foreign ending" with a preposition is not typical for the speech of typically developing monolingual children. S. N. Zeitlin explains this as follows: "By the time prepositions appear, they are already an element of certain prepositional case constructions, the connection of the preposition with the case is clearly fixed in the linguistic consciousness of the child" ^{[24, p. 178]}. A similar error was not observed in the speech of Chinese students.

8) Separately, we examined the constructions with the dependent word escalator. When indicating the means of performing an action in Russian, the route can be simultaneously indicated (sing by notes; climb, descend stairs, escalator) ^{[13, p. 139]}. The construction "by + noun in the dative case", according to the National Corpus of the Russian language, is used more often than "by + noun in the prepositional case" (98 and 22 occurrences, respectively) (https://ruscorpora.ru /). In the experiment, Chinese students resorted to constructions with a noun that coincided in form with the nominative case: to climb an escalator (30% of responses), but most often chose the standard design to climb an escalator (60%). The frequent construction of climbing the escalator in the language was found in 10% of the responses.

9) When referring to animals used as a vehicle, the difficult question is the choice of the number form of the noun. According to M. V. Vsevolodova and Yu. A. Vladimir, when pointing to the general means of performing an action, the noun stands in the plural form on deer, on dogs, for the word horse, the form of the creative horse is possible ^{[5, p. 81]}. The singular form indicates a specific animal: he rode a horse, rides a mare, etc. The participants of the experiment chose the singular form in 30%. At the same time, Chinese students found it difficult to choose the case and resorted to the construction "c + creative case": with dogs. According to other experiments, such a construction is a prototypical way of expressing instrumental meaning in the speech of Chinese students ^[17].

Conclusion

Based on the analysis of the data obtained, the following conclusions can be drawn.

An indication of a vehicle in Russian can be made using various prepositional and case constructions: "on + prepositional case", "in + prepositional case", "creative case without preposition", in special cases – "with + creative", "by + dative", as well as constructions with derivative prepositions. Each of these constructions has a specific additional meaning (locative, transitive) and the scope of use, the choice may depend on the lexical content of the construction. The grammatical meaning lies in both the case ending and the preposition.

Carrier children make almost no choice mistakes when pointing to a vehicle. However, the construction "creative without a preposition" is not used in children's speech. The stylistic affiliation of derived prepositions is also not always taken into account by the Russian child.

Foreign students and native speakers, on the contrary, do not feel subtle semantic nuances, often confuse the locative and transitive meaning and indication of a vehicle.

Both Chinese students and native speakers chose a simplification strategy using nominative forms without a preposition when referring to transport. This form is also the easiest way to point to an object in a broad sense.

The case ending is the main way to indicate a vehicle, which leads to the omission of the preposition in the speech of all categories learning the Russian language. In the speech of children and non–native speakers, the indication of transport is usually transmitted using prepositional case endings, in the speech of foreigners - creative and prepositional.

The construction "c + noun in the creative case" is a prototypical way of referring to an instrument, including transport, in a foreign audience. Children prefer the construction "on + prepositional case", and in an experimental situation they can use the construction with prepositions using, with what.

Errors in choosing the case ending with the correct preposition are often observed in the speech of foreign students and native speakers, but do not appear in children's speech.

Thus, in Russian there is a wide variety of ways to indicate a vehicle. Choosing the right design when referring to transport is a specific difficulty in the course of mastering Russian as a foreign language and requires special attention.