ON THE PROBLEM OF ANALYZING THE ‘POSITIONAL’ ACCENT IN THE SPEECH OF RUSSIAN-SPEAKING FOREIGNERS

The analysis of Russian language positional patterns based on the studies of language of native speaking students could become a new way to evaluate the features of a foreign accent in Russian speech and to give eff ective methodological recommendations aimedat teaching pronunciation. In this regard, an important task in the context of linguistics and linguodidactics is to describe Russian positional system on a foreign language background. The positional patterns of the sound system of the native language must be taken in consideration when creating nationally oriented courses of Russian phonetics. Representatives of Moscow phonological school found it necessary to take into account the ‘positional’ phonetics of the studied and native languages and to describe the ‘positional’ accent of foreigners in the middle of the last century. Phonological errors of foreigners in Russian speech, which may cause identical pronunciation of diff erent Russian words or complete distortion of a sound image of Russian words, may be quite often related to the transfer of positional patterns of their native language to the one they are studying. The results of comparison of the positional rules of ‘contacting’ phonetic systems give an opportunity both to explain the causes of deviations in a foreign accent and to predict its characteristics. In addition, positional analysis of the phonetic system of the studied language in comparison with the native language makes it possible to determine the featuresof the ‘positional’ phonetics of the native language, which can be useful during the development of Russian pronunciation. The importance of studying the ‘positional’ accent, taking into account the transfer of the laws of the primary phonetic system to the studied one, can be shown on the example of deviations in the Russian speech of native-speakers, speaking typologically diff erent languages.