Linguistic and Methodic Potential of Food Texts in Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language (Level B2)

Abstract

The authors argue that food is one of the most nationally specifi c topics, which traditionally arouses interest among foreign students, so it is presented in this or that way at all levels of teaching Russian as a foreign language. Russian cuisine is an important part of the national world view and of the world of Russian everyday life. Russian culinary traditions are also refl ected in the Russian language and form a fragment of the national language world image, that is why it is relevant to study them at the lessons of Russian as a foreign language. Despite the considerable amount of methodological material on the topic for level B2 (the Second Level), it is interesting to consider modern texts on culinary topics in order to get acquainted foreign students with famous Russian restaurateurs, the main personalities of Russian gastronomy, talented and successful chefs, new popular, highly sought and recognizable stars, share their gastrophilosophy, history, as well as their recipes for traditional Russian dishes. In addition, texts about food are a source of lexical units with a national and cultural component, such as culinary names, kitchenware names, verbs describing the methods of cooking. In the article, modern multi-genre texts about food become the object of linguistic and methodological analysis. The article is based on an interview with Moscow restaurateur Arkady Anatolyevich Novikov, recipes from the book “Modern Russian Cooking” by Nikolai Ivanovich Kovalev, and a fragment of the book “Heroes of the New Russian Cuisine” by Igor Pisarsky and Igor Ganzhi. The linguistic analysis of the selected texts allowed to determine the specifi cs of its textual factors, to determine the functional and semantic type of speech and the speech genre, and the language means determined by these characteristics. To realize the linguistic and methodological potential of texts, taking into account the educational and content value of the material, the authors compiled pre-reading, while-reading and postreading tasks corresponding to the level of language training of B2 students. When composing tasks for working on texts, the authors used critical thinking techniques. So, at the stage of pre-reading work, the “concept wheel” or “associative map” technique was used; in pre -text work (the comprehension stage), was used the “double entry diary” technique. The system of exercises based on the analysis of texts on culinary topics helps to remove lexical, linguistic and cultural diffi culties, to explicate background knowledge, to activate and replenish the students’ vocabulary, to control understanding of the text, to prepare students to produce their own statements based on what they read.

Keywords:

Russian as a foreign language, speech genres, linguistic analysis of the text, linguistic and methodological potential of the text in RFL teaching, texts about food