Authors

Kirill Ghanza¹;  ¹ Paris Nanterre University, France

Discussion

Teaching the prosody of Russian utterances to foreign students is still largely based on Elena Bryzgunova’s system of seven intonation constructions (IK). Each construction consists of an intonational center (less commonly, two), as well as pre-nuclear and post-nuclear parts, forming together a specific prosodic contour. Bryzgunova’s method includes a range of articulation exercises, primarily based on reading; the student’s task is to identify the formal features of an utterance and apply the appropriate IK. Many have acquired the prosodic fundamentals of Russian using this methodology. However, native French speakers face specific difficulties, which can be divided into two categories: the first set stems from significant differences between the phonetic (segmental) and prosodic (suprasegmental) systems of Russian and French. This often leads to the unconscious transfer of native language features to the target language. For example, when reading the dialogue: Ты придёшь завтра? – Нет, у меня мама заболела, French speakers frequently misplace the nuclear (pitch) accent, highlighting the verb in the final position: *Нет, у меня мама заболела. This disrupts the intended meaning of the Russian utterance. This issue arises because, in French, utterances are marked at the edges, with accent typically falling on one of the first two syllables of the first word or on the final syllable of the last word. In Russian, however, the nuclear accent can fall on any word, regardless of its position within the utterance. The second set of difficulties is related to the limitations of Bryzgunova’s framework itself. The primary challenge for French-speaking students lies in correctly identifying nuclear accents in order to construct melodic contours for utterances – an issue that Bryzgunova’s framework leaves completely unaddressed.