'kushat''

[Gerald McCausland]

I've encountered this very verb, along with a host of similar lexical
items, from heritage speakers. In view of how they learn and use Russian,
it's completely to be expected that they would learn speech that is not
appropriate for formal situations. Although the question is interesting to
linguists, I've always considered it unwise, for several reasons, to tell
such students that they are speaking "substandard" or "dialectical"
Russian. I try to impress on them the importance of learning Russian for
"formal" situations and avoid evaluating their current speech in such terms
as dialectical or substandard. It would be silly to pretend that no one
living in Russia ever deviates from the "literaturnyi iazyk."

Is there a consensus on this issue among the people on this list? Should I
be more uncompromising in my feedback to such students? I realize we have
hashed out the "heritage speaker" issue on this list before, but I would be
grateful for feedback from those of you with more experience.

         Jerry.

At 06:32 PM 4/1/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>Hello all. My question is: What is the sphere of usage and the 'status'
>of the verb 'kushat''? I have an emigre student who uses it instead of
>est', zavtrakat', etc., for example, when I ask the students what they
>did yesterday. Is it colloquial? Substandard? Dialectal?
>     Thanks!
>     Emily Tall
>
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======================
Jerry McCausland
University of Pittsburgh
gmmst11 at pitt.edu
http://www.pitt.edu/~gmmst11

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