Linguistic Security of Russia in the Mode of Multilingualism

Abstract

The article examines the problem of linguistic security of Russia within the logic of integration into the world community. A new language situation is developing in the context of modern socio-economic and political reforms in Russia. While, on the one hand, there is a rejection of monolingualism and a tendency towards the development of Russian national polylingualism, on the other hand, there is a clear orientation towards promoting multilingualism as a consequence of rapprochement with Europe. The European Union is actively promoting the policy of multilingualism, encouraging learners to expand their linguistic repertoires. Like other representatives of non-EU countries, young Europeans entering Russian universities are mostly multilingual, and for them the Russian language offered as part of their university course is just another foreign language. To promote the Russian language and culture through educating foreign students, faculty members of Russian universities seek to create a special language environment, activating all possible means and technologies to optimize the process, teaching Russian courses for international students, and organizing engaging extra-curricular activities. Despite such serious efforts, however, many foreign students perceive this as an imposition that limits them in the study of other languages and cultures. The authors of the article see a potential solution to this problem in using a multilingual approach as a mechanism for “subtle engagement and promotion” of the Russian language and culture among foreign students. They offer a case study of implementing this approach in a technical university where Russian is taught as a foreign language to future engineers and describe the functional characteristics of multilingual modules built into the Russian language course (facilitative, accelerative, communicative, organizational, and transferable), highlighting the advantages and prospects of the multilingual approach in the formation of linguistic security.