Abstract:

The article deals with the specific features of a “new” communicative approach to the teaching of the foreign language grammar. The work aims to determine the distinctive criteria of traditional and “non-traditional” approaches to the teaching of grammar, to find differences between the varieties of the communicative approach and to determine the place of this approach in the contemporary methodical “worldview”. The authors raise the question of the continuity of methodical tradition, tracing the origin of the communicative approach and its theoretic background and considering its involvement in the contemporary humanitarian paradigm. The opinion of G.A.Zolotova is being referred to, according to which it is the anthropocentric point of view that explains grammarians’ interest towards communicativity and functionality. The authors postulate that traditional grammar used to deal with the structure of the language whereas “non-traditional” grammar is interested in its functioning. Consequently, “non-traditional” grammar is speech-oriented, the speaker’s intention determines his speech behavior and the choice of linguistic means. The methodological similitude of traditional and “non-traditional” grammar is being emphasized in the article, although both approaches contradict to each other taking into consideration their being onomasiologically or semasiologically oriented and their preference of the specific type of verbal activity. Further, the three species of communicative “non-traditional” grammar approaches are characterized: the functional-communicative grammar of G.A.Zolotova, the theory of functional grammar worked out by A.V.Bondarko and the applied theory of functional syntax of M.V.Vsevolodova. It is also highlighted in the article that all the above mentioned species of communicative grammar are discourse- and text-oriented. The authors point out their following differences connected with the consideration of comparative and methodical criteria. The functional-communicative grammar considers the unity of systematic idea of grammar and the text analysis within the specific language whereas the theory of functional grammar takes comparative criterion into account. The applied theory of functional syntax is both speech- and system-oriented. On the basis of the brief overview of various grammar tasks in the contemporary textbooks on Russian as a foreign language it is concluded that it is the functional-communicative grammar that builds the core of the contemporary linguodidactic model of teaching Russian as a foreign language.

Keywords:

Teaching methods, Russian as a foreign language, the functional-communicative grammar, the theory of functional grammar, the functional syntax.