Grammatical mistakes & Kalbouss

[John Dunn]

Anne-Marie Devlin touches on a question that has long interested me: do the same standards and expectations apply to learners of a language as apply to native speakers, or are the former expected to observe a particularly conservative set of standards, with certain areas of the language, which may be widespread among native speakers, being effectively off-limits to them.  If, as I suspect, the latter is the case, it may be interesting to speculate on the reasons.  It may in part be a reflection of a certain reality: learners tend to be taught a fairly conservative standard.  There may, also, however, be an element of 'language property' involved: 'This is our language and you, as a learner, are merely a guest user, and as such, you will have the goodness to confine yourself to those areas of the language that we choose to make available to you'.   I don't know, though if it exists, the thought I have reproduced above is not normally spoken aloud.  It does, though, seem to be!
  the case that as learners become more proficient, more and more areas of the language are opened up to them.  

John Dunn.

________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of anne marie devlin [anne_mariedevlin at HOTMAIL.COM]
Sent: 18 October 2011 22:42
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Grammatical mistakes & Kalbouss

I admit that offence was too strong  a term and of course native and non-native reactions are of great interest esp. when it comes to identity issues and perceptions of users of non-standard variables.
My specific field is second language acquisition and more particularly the acquisition of sociopragmatic variation, hence my defence of non-standard language use.  However, learners should be aware of the identity they are portraying by using such forms and when use is acceptable.  Ideally a native and non-native speaker should be able to accommodate their language to suit the context.  Think Bakhtin and heteroglossia and polyphony!
To get back to Russian, from my own experience as a classroom learner who, after 4 years of formal learning, was parachuted into a obshezhitie with Russian room mates, encountering forms such as poshlyomte, nety, datushki or ikhnii was quite a shock.  None of the terms was present in my language books.
On a related point, i'd be really interested to discover native and non-native opinions on the use of diminutives.  I resisted the use of forms like khlebushka as I initially perceived them as sounding babyish.  After 6 years residence, however, use of diminutives became the norm.
I look forward to hearing you opinions
AM

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