RUSSIAN AS STATE (LITERARY) LANGUAGE: MANDATORY AND POSSIBLE SPHERES OF APPLICATION, NORMS AND REAL USAGE

The paper clames that the Law on the State Language established the status of the literary Russian language as a state language due to its inherent polyfunctionality and normativity, allowing its usage in any sphere of communication throughout the country. Thus, it is proved that the entire literary language is the state language, however, in different spheres of life it is not used as a whole, but only as a certain functional style, even its variety, that is chosen according to the aims and goals of communication. Language is alive, and therefore, is evolving, and, unfortunately, not always in the direction of complexity and enrichment of the system. First, modifications in language are observed in speech, and gradually the language itself changes under this influence, so the control of these changes through a more rigorous enforcement of uniform norms of the literary language is particularly needed in regard to the presence of dialectal differences and the influence of other national languages (depending on the region) in such a huge country. The idea that speech culture requires functional-style differentiated literary language skills and at least the general notion of non-literary strata of the national language is upheld. The public position holders and, more broadly, public figures are responsible not only for acquiring their professional variety of functional style, but, more importantly, for becoming the role model of the native speaker who effectively communicates in any style of literary language, rather than acts as careless language user. The high level of literary language proficiency is one of the reliable proofs of a person's suitability for solving state's problems. It is pointed out that special attention should be paid to the discussion of the question of teaching Russian as a foreign language, in particular, it is stated that textbooks for foreigners should undergo a multidimensional examination.