Abstract:

This article represents an experience reading the autobiographical work of "Birth of the Day" (1928) by the famous French writer Sidonie-Gabriel Colette (1873-1954) with students specialized in linguistics, theory and practice of intercultural communication. It is an attempt to understand the type of comment needed for this type of work.

The question of comments when reading a foreign text arises with particular acuity, because it is about a foreign culture (the mother tongue of the speaker being here Russian), and requires moreover a level of control of the foreign language. Is it possible to understand a literary text that speaks of "the stranger" in a foreign language?

In the current work with students, we have used the subjective reading method proposed by T. Kasatkina (Kasatkina, 2017: р.19). First of all, this method was born from the practice of teaching literature, it is not the fruit of theoretical thought. It is no coincidence that the author precedes his article of practical recommendations: lived experience is more important than dead methodological diagrams. What is this method? The object of knowledge gives way to the subject that interacts with the text, which is a living person, and not the result of a mechanistic addition of form and content. It is no coincidence that the creator of the method pointed out that "personality is a text - and the text is a personality" (Kasatkina, 2017: р. 131). As a result, the paradigm of student-teacher subordination is replaced by the paradigm of cooperation, the creative meeting of two or more equal people. The object becomes a subject with its voice and position. Hence the basic principle vis-à-vis the student: it is an absolute opening. Openness and freedom to ask any question, to propose, at first glance, the most ridiculous interpretation, not to be afraid of making a mistake - all of this leads naturally to a slow and thoughtful reading, designed to develop at home. studying a working method with an artistic test that has its own specificity in relation to scientific or journalistic. According to T. Kasatkina, "we begin to see not what we want to project in the text, but what it represents in one way or another" (Kasatkina, 2017: р.132).

In addition, the subjective reading method is based on the need to re-read, ideally several times. Only in this way will we find in the text "points of entry", markers of the otherness of the other: strange words of use, unknown realities, incomprehensible places requiring interpretation and commentary, because "in a literary work, there is not a single detail that can be excluded without changing the meaning of everything "(Kasatkina, 2017: 136). It is the commentary of the text read together that becomes the necessary tool without which it is impossible to grasp the intention of the other. Therefore, by working with the students, we encouraged them to comment and interpret the text. Essentially, student testing becomes a kind of detailed interpretation of what they read.

Keywords:

Autofiction, from subject to subject, text interaction, cooperation paradigm, multiple reading, entry points, reading media.