Richard D. Schupbach

Teaching a Large Russian Language Vocabulary by the Mnemonic Keyword Method.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a mnemonic procedure, called the keyword method, for teaching a large Russian language vocabulary to college students. The method divides the study of a vocabulary item into two stages. The first stage requires the student to associate the spoken Russian word with an English word (the keyword) that sounds like some part of the foreign word; the second stage requires the student to form a mental image of the keyword “interacting” with the English translation. Thus, the keyword method can be described as a chain of two links connecting a foreign word to its English translation through the mediation of a keyword: the foreign word is linked to a keyword by a similarity in sound (acoustic link), and the keyword is linked to the English translation by a mental image (imagery link). A computer controlled curriculum using the keyword method served as a supplement to the second-year Russian language course at Stanford University. Students studied a large basic vocabulary over an 8 to 10-week period. Data obtained during the study and student reports indicate that the keyword method was highly effective.

Syntactic profiles of style in Russian

Abstract Analysis of case usage in Russian provides quantitatively verifiable ‘syntactic profiles’ of three styles in Russian. They are: spoken, belletristic, and technical. These differences in case usage are shown to be a function of the differing role of marked ‘shifters’. When the verb evinces a high degree of marked verbal shifters (spoken dialogue) the case system is heavily dominated by unmarked cases, particularly the nominative. When verbal shifters are absent or unmarked (technical prose), the reverse is observed, and the case system evinces a high degree of usage of marked, i.e. oblique cases, in particular the genetive. In these regards Russian belletristic prose occupies a middle ground and appears to be diachronically quite stable. The fact that, within the sentence, marked values tend to be either nominal or verbal, but not both, is viewed as a syntagmatic corollary of Stankiewicz principle of paradigmatic limitation of co-occurrence of marked values.

The limits of Russian derivation

lhe present article seeks to answer the following questions: When and under what circumstances does successive suffixal derivation in Russian stop ? Does suffixation taper off =lue to decreasing numbers of potential deri~ng bases, or is it blocked by certain conditions which necessarily terminate the derivational process as a function of language competence, not performance ?rl Such an investigaticn requires the examination of derivation as a system, not as a series of individual relationships. This global view of Russian derivational morphology has begun to emerge in the literature only recently. ~) The most significant departure fr)m established procedure in the present work is that we shall deal w ith relationships which have been treated by scholars as being beyond the realm of derivational morphology; specifically, those which may be interpreted as etymological (vodawater : vodka vodka; beda misfortune : bedny~poor) on the one hand, and those which are commonly dealt with as part of x) The data used in this reso~rch all assume the original aeriving base, the point-of-origin to be a non-derived substantive. The material for this a~ic!e is taken from a work in preparation Russian desubstantival derivation. ~) See for e~ample V. P. Danilenko Imena su~estvitelnye (naricatelnye) kak proizvodja~ie osnovy sovremelmogo slovoobrazovan~ja and Imena sobstvennye kak proizvodja~ie osnovy sovremenv.ogo slovoobrazovanij~, Razvitie gratnmatiki i leksiki sovreme~mogo russkogo ~azyka., (Moscow, 1964), p. 63-76 and p. 77-92, respectively; N. A. Janko-Triinickaja, Osnovy su~estvitelnyx na -onok, -ata v kafiestare proizvodja~ix i suffiksy soder~a~ie -at-, Ogerki po slovoobrazovaniju i slovoupoi~.rebleniju, (Leningrad, 1965), p. 159-167; D. S. Worth, A. S. Kozak, D. B. Johnson, Russian Derivational Dictionary, (New York, 1970) G.S. Zenkov, Voprosy teorii slovoobrazovanija, (Frunze, 1969); O.G. Revzina, Struktura slovoobrazovatelnyx polej v slavjanskix jazykax, (Moscow, 1969).