PERCEPTION OF PRAGMATIC APPROPRIATENESS OF RUSSIAN IMPERATIVES: THE CASE OF L2 LEARNERSAND HERITAGE LEARNERS OF RUSSIAN           by   MARINA TSYLINA             A THESIS   Presented to the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Program   and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon   in partial fulfillment of the requirements   for the degree of   Master of Arts   June 2016             ii   THESIS APPROVAL PAGE Student: Marina Tsylina Title: Perception of Pragmatic Appropriateness of Russian Imperatives: The Case of L2 Learners and Heritage Learners of Russian This thesis has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Program by: Anna Mikhaylova Chairperson Cynthia Vakareliyska Member and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2016                           iii         © 2016 Marina Tsylina                               iv   THESIS ABSTRACT   Marina Tsylina Master of Arts Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Program June 2016   Title: Perception of Pragmatic Appropriateness of Russian Imperatives: The Case of L2 Learners and Heritage Learners of Russian   The study compared 10 fluent second language learners (L2Ls) and 10 heritage learners of Russian (HLs) to monolingual controls (n=20) in their judgments of the subtle nuances of aspectual usage in direct positive and negative imperative structures. The participants were asked to rate the appropriateness of pairs of imperative sentences differing in the aspectual form of the verb against the suggested discourse context. The analysis of the ratings revealed assumed deviations from the baseline in L2Ls. The HLs also revealed deviations, but unexpectedly, did not follow the baseline tendencies of the control monolingual group. Frequency and learning experience are some of the possible explanations of these finding and implications for pedagogy.       v   CURRICULUM VITAE     NAME OF AUTHOR: Marina Tsylina   GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:     University of Oregon - College of Arts and Sciences, Eugene   Nizhny Novgorod Linguistics University, Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures     DEGREES AWARDED:     Master of Arts in Russian and East European Studies   University of Oregon, June 2016   Specialist degree of Higher Education in Theories and Principles of Teaching Foreign Languages and Cultures (English and German Languages), June 2006 AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:   Second and Heritage Language Acquisition     PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:     Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Russian, East European and   Eurasian   Studies, University of Oregon, Eugene, 2014-2016   Senior Teacher of English Language, Department of Professional Education Through Foreign Language Acquisition, Nizhniy Novgorod Institute of Public and Business Administration, Russia, 2006-2014   GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS:     Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Program, University of Oregon, Eugene, 2014-2016   Graduate Research Fellowship, Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Laboratory, University of Oregon, Eugene, 2015   The Dan Kimble First-Year Teaching Award for Outstanding Teaching,   University of Oregon, Eugene, USA, 2016   Fulbright Grant, FLTA, Portland State University, Oregon, USA, 2009-2010       vi   ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS   I would like to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude to my committee chair, Professor Anna Mikhaylova. Thank you for guiding me through these two years of my graduate school, supporting me every step of the way. Thank you for always finding good things to say about my work and providing detailed feedback on all my thesis drafts.   I would like to thank my committee member, Professor Cynthia Vakareliyska, for her wonderful classes and valuable comments on this manuscript.   I also would like to express my gratitude to the Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies Program for developing and supporting a healthy working atmosphere. It has been pleasure to be a part of this program.                               vii               Моему мужу, который всегда верит в меня больше меня самой, и без которого это увлекательное путешествие длинною в два года не стало бы реальностью.                             viii   TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 II. INTERSECTION OF ASPECT AND MOOD IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE ............................................................................................... 5 2.1 Aspectual Opposition in the Indicative Mood ............................... 5 2.2 Aspectual Opposition in the Imperative Mood. What is Appropriate and What is not Appropriate in Imperative Structures? ........................................................................................... 7 III. SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS AND HERITAGE LEARNERS/SPEAKERS OF RUSSIAN .................................................. 11 3.1 Two Groups of Learners ................................................................ 11 3.2 Aspectual Knowledge of Second Language Learners of Russian . 14 3.3 Aspectual Knowledge of Heritage Learners of Russian ................ 19 3.4 Pragmatics in Second and Heritage language Acquisition ............ 22 3.5 Interlanguage Pragmatics of L2Ls ................................................. 22 3.6 Interlanguage Pragmatics of HLs .................................................. 24 3.7 Summary and Research Questions ................................................. 25 IV. THE PERCEPTION OF IMPERATIVES BY L2LS AND HLS OF RUSSIAN ............................................................................................. 29 4.1 Study Objectives .............................................................................. 30 4.2 Methodology .................................................................................... 31       ix   4.2.1 Recruitment ................................................................ 31 4.2.2 Participants ................................................................. 31 4.2.3 The Main Task ........................................................... 34 4.3 Data Analysis, Results, and Discussions ........................................ 37 4.3.1 Analysis 1 ................................................................... 38 4.3.2 Analysis 2 ................................................................... 39 4.3.3 Analysis 3 ................................................................... 41 4.3.4 Analysis 4 ................................................................... 42 4.3.5 Analysis 5 ................................................................... 44 4.4 Summary of research Questions ...................................................... 45 4.4.1 Monolinguals ............................................................. 46 4.4.2 The HLs ..................................................................... 47 4.4.3 The L2Ls .................................................................... 49 4.4.4 The HLs and L2Ls Compared .................................... 49 V. LIMITATIONS, SUMMARY, AND CONCLUSIONS ............................ 53 5.1 Limitations of the Research .............................................................. 53 5.2 Summary .......................................................................................... 54 5.3 Further Research ............................................................................... 55 5.4 Pedagogical Implications ................................................................. 57 APPENDICES A. 20 MOST FREQUEST VERBS IN NON-PUBLIC SPOKEN CORPUS OF RNC …………………………………………………….. 60       x   B. THE MAIN TASK ……...……………………………………………… 61 REFERENCES CITED ............................................................................................ 68       xi   LIST OF TABLES   Table Page   1. Background Characteristics of the Participants ………………………………... 32 2. The percentage of learners’ judgments matching those of monolingual controls across the four imperative categories …………………………………………… 39 3. Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Translations …………………………………… 59       1   CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION     The acquisition of imperative commands in the Russian language presents an interesting area for research. Russian native speakers subconsciously combine their knowledge of aspectual grammatical category with knowledge of pragmatics in the Russian language in order to correctly interpret the meaning; conversely, Russian learners struggle with this combination. Russian learners in the United States are mostly either Americans who study Russian as a foreign language, or heritage Russian learners (hereafter HLs). These two groups of learners have different sociolinguistic backgrounds, with second language learners (hereafter L2Ls) representing a more or less homogeneous group of students, and HLs representing a more diverse group (Andrews, 2001). However, there are at least two areas in the language acquisition that pose difficulties for both groups of learners: the acquisition of aspect (Boots-Ebenfield 1995; Laleko 2010, 2011; Mikhaylova 2011, 2012; Robin 2011, 2012) and interlanguage pragmatics (Dubinina 2011, 2012; Mills 1993; Shardakova 2005).   The question of aspectual choice in the Russian language has been of interest to Russian and Western linguists since the 1950s (Rassudova 1967; Forsyth 1972; Comrie 1976; Lehmann 1989; Benaccio 2002). Yet no exhaustive explanation has been offered in the literature concerning why native speakers prefer a certain aspect in a certain situation. Linguists are continuing to discover new facts that might influence native speakers’       2   aspectual choice. Therefore, effective instruction methods do not exist in second language teaching that will allow learners to master the usage of aspect. Subtle nuances in aspectual usage are acknowledged obstacles in the classroom and may never be fully acquired.   Another area that represents difficulty for L2Ls and HLs of Russian is interlanguage pragmatics. Studies in this area suggest that high-proficiency L2Ls deviate from the target performance, i.e. from the performance of Russian monolinguals (Mills 1993; Shardakova 2005). Similarly, high-proficiency HLs of Russian, although they can be expected to converge with the performance of Russian monolinguals, also deviate from the target-like norm, but closely approach it and outperform second language learners (Laleko, 2010; Dubinina 2010; Mikhaylova 2012). Laleko’s (2011) and Mikhaylova’s (2011) studies of high-proficiency heritage speakers’ comprehension of finer nuances of aspectual usage, even though with the main focus on aspect, revealed reduction in the learners’ knowledge at the interface of syntactic and pragmatic knowledge.   Although advanced proficiency learners of Russian are reported to be rather familiar with the basic aspectual characteristics (Robin 2012:341), this does not keep them from incorrectly interpreting the subtle nuances of aspectual usage, which are the main focus of this study.   The current study empirically investigates learners’ perception of imperative structures that embody various direct speech acts. Specifically, this research is interested                                                                                                                1 Based on data from Oral Proficiency Interviews.         3   in pragmalinguistic knowledge of learners, and it examines how they correlate aspectual forms with a variety of routine imperative speech acts. Sociopragmatic behavior of learners is restricted and controlled by the nature of the research task. L2Ls and HLs of comparable proficiency were compared to Russian monolinguals in their sensitivity to subtle nuances of aspectual usage across the four groups of verbal imperatives: (im)perfective positive imperatives and (im)perfective negative imperatives. A scaled acceptability judgment task was used to elicit the results. The participants were asked to judge the imperative structure in accordance with its appropriateness in the context of the described situation (discourse completion judgment). Overall, the results revealed that both groups of learners behaved target-like in the two positive imperative categories and deviated from the target performance in the negative categories with L2Ls being more perceptive to the monolingual tendency to use an appropriate verbal form. This study contributes to our understanding of the interlanguage pragmatics of HLs and L2Ls and have implications for heritage and second language pedagogy.   The rest of this thesis is structured as follows: Chapter II reviews theoretical literature relevant to this study of aspect in the imperative mood. Chapter III discusses the key features of the two learner types, heritage learners and L2Ls, based on available empirical evidence about acquisition of aspect and interlanguage pragmatics. Chapter IV presents the methodology, results and discussion of an empirical investigation of the perception of Russian imperatives by L2Ls and HLs and compares their performance with the control group of Russian monolingual speakers. Finally, Chapter V discusses the       4   major findings of the study and their implications for future research and pedagogical practice.                                           5   CHAPTER II:     INTERSECTION OF ASPECT AND MOOD IN THE RUSSIAN LANGAUGE   Chapter II consists of 2 sections and provides an overview of relevant observation about the aspectual system in the Russian language and how aspectual opposition is realized in the indicative (section 2.1) and imperative moods (section 2.2); namely, what aspectual form is preferable or appropriate in different imperative structures.     2.1 Aspectual Opposition in the Indicative Mood   A decision to use a certain verbal aspect is made by native Russian speakers subconsciously. The nuanced meanings of the aspectual forms are influenced by choices, which are substantiated by several rules. These rules allow, forbid, or prescribe the choice of perfective or imperfective aspectual usage in the same context. Almost all verbs in the Russian language are represented by an aspectual opposition, and they carry aspectual functions when they occur in a context.   A widely-accepted approach to the perfective/imperfective opposition comes from the markedness theory (Rassudova 1967; Bondarko 1996). This theory states that a perfective verb is marked with the inherent meaning of a “complete whole” event with “a single juncture”, which “reduces the situation to a single point” (Comrie 1976:18; Rassudova 1967; Forsyth, 1972, Bondarko 1996:108). An imperfective verb lacks any inherent meaning and can acquire a variety of meanings in certain contexts. For example, in Russian (1) On delal mnogo, if it is not opposed to the perfective form as in (2) On       6   mnogo delal, no malo sdelal, the imperfective can be referred to a complete action as well (examples from Comrie 1976:113). In other words, the perfective has an inherent meaning of the single complete whole action, whereas the imperfective may or may not have it.   Another way to describe the perfective/imperfective opposition is an imaginary distance between a speaker and a speech act. In the perfective action it can be imagined that the speaker takes a step back and views the whole action from the outside. Conversely, the imperfective action is viewed by the speaker from the inside. That is, the speaker is within the situation (Comrie 1976:24). Compare these two examples in English: (3) ‘I have read the book’ and (4) ‘I am reading the book’ (from Comrie 1976:24). In sentence (5), the speaker is outside of the action, which is observed as a whole event with no specific emphases on its parts. In utterance (6), the speaker is inside the action, in the middle of it, s/he cannot see the junctions of the action. However, because the imperfective does not necessarily mean the whole action with its inception and end, it does not imply that the action is incomplete or unsuccessful. For instance, (7) ja napisal emu pis’mo. Even from this limited context it is understood that the letter is written and is ready to be mailed, or has been already mailed. If we put the imperfective in the same context, (8) ja pisal emu pismo, it would not be clear from this context whether or not the letter is written up to the end, whether or not it is a repeated action, or the action in its progress. If we add some context, for instance, (9) Ja pisal emu pis’mo každuju nedelju, it definitely does not mean that it is a single action. The context adds the meaning of a repeated habitual action (Comrie 1976:18). That is why, because the       7   imperfective lacks any inherent meaning it can be used in the context where the perfective is more appropriate, unless there is a specific reference to the completeness of the event. However, in the following example, the imperfective cannot substitute for the perfective for the reason of specifying the meaning of the total event:   (10) Na etot raz my *rešali (imperf.) zadaču za pjat’ minut ‘This time we *were solving the problem in 5 minutes’ (examples from Comrie 1976:113).   The perfective cannot substitute for the imperfective in the following utterances:   (11) Ja *napisal.PRF emu pis’mo každuju nedelju ‘*I have written a letter to him every week.’   (12) On *polučil.PRF pis’ma každyj den’ ‘*He has received letters every day.’   In examples (11) and (12), the context requires the imperfective, as the speaker intends to underline the meaning of the repeated situation.   In sum, a verb in the imperfective just denotes the fact that the action takes place, as if it does not occur in any specific context. Conversely, the perfective has its own inherent meaning, which is independent of any context.     2.2 Aspectual Opposition in the Imperative Mood. What is Appropriate and What is not Appropriate in Imperative Structures?   The knowledge about the general meaning of perfective and imperfective is applied to explore the reasons for using different aspects in the imperative mood. The markedness theory implies that the perfective/imperfective opposition will carry the same meaning in the imperative mood as it does in the indicative mood (Satunovskij       8   2009:249). However, Comrie (1976), Rassudova (1967) and Forsyth (1972), the pioneers in aspectual studies, were criticized for “using words about the theory of speech acts but not using the theory itself” (Lehmann 1989:77).   Perfective or imperfective utterances were assigned specific modes of politeness and appropriateness by the above mentioned authors, but they did not specifically mention that the context played a big role in the choice of an aspect. Lehmann (1989:78) was one of the first scholars to conclude that “aspectual functions represent neither meaning of aspect alone nor the meaning of context alone, but they originate from the interplay of aspect and its context.” His idea was later supported by Tyurikova (2008).   Together, these theories suggest a noteworthy pattern that explains native speakers’ aspectual choice. They use a perfective verb in the speech acts that describe situations, which can be observed from beginning to end, when the speaker is outside of the situation. Because of the imaginary distance between the speaker and the action, the perfective verb in this case introduces an action that is not known to the speaker or the listener; thus, it is a new concept (Forsyth 1972:199). Therefore, verbs in the perfective aspect tend to be used in such speech acts as requests, proposals, commands/orders, and instructions (Lehmann 1989), for they carry NEW information for one of the participants of the speech act. For example, (13) Otkrojte okno! In a situation where a window is closed and it is hot in the room, an individual, standing near the window, will most likely interpret the statement as a request or a command because of the new information being conveyed to that person. In other words, s/he would not expect this request/command to happen (example from Rassudova 1968:110).         9   The only function of the perfective negative imperative is warning (Rassudova 1968:112). In such situations, something unpredicted can happen to a listener that the speaker does not want to happen or be completed. When choosing the perfective in negative imperatives, the speaker might be afraid that the action will be performed accidentally and wants to avoid it. For example, in the sentence (14) Ne zaxlopni dver’, the speaker warns the listener that the action can accidentally occur. This is a new piece of information to the listener because the action or the object has not been previously mentioned.   Verbs in the imperfective aspect in imperative structures are most likely to be used in such speech acts as permission, encouragement, urging, reminding, starting, and invitation (Lehmann, 1989). In these speech acts, a speaker and a listener can predict the actions, which will be performed, as they are understood to be looking at it from the inside.2 Thus, there is no imaginary distance between the speaker and the situation, and there is no new information for the speaker or for the listener. For example, when we give permission, we might be responding to a request or to something that we think the listener wants or needs. Thus, there is no new portion of information for us, conveyed by the speech act of permission. Consequently, after a knock (request) on the door, (15) Zaxodite! could be said in the situation when a person behind the door is known to the speaker and is expected (example from Rassudova 1968:109). In a setting when someone in your household mentions that he/she is thirsty, the sentence (16) Nalivaj čaj! would also sound more as an invitation, encouragement to go ahead and perform the action (the                                                                                                                2 Permission is a reaction to some already known/discussed action; we encourage to do smth that has been or is being discussed/mentioned; the same with urging, reminding, etc.         10   author’s example). The imperfective in this situation will sound more appropriate, because the concept introduced by the imperfective verb is not new to the participants of the situation, and the completion of the action is not important.   When it comes to the negative imperfective verbs, they are generally used to avoid the meaning of the perfective verb. The reason why the imperfective is used in negative imperatives is because there is no need in performing the action. For instance, the utterance (17) Ne piši pis’mo! does not seem to have any meaning in the limited context of this sentence. The context and the intonation can add a certain nuance of prohibition or the absence of the need to perform the action. Thus, imperfective negative commands denote the speech acts when there is no need in performing actions that represent known concepts to the speaker and the listener.   In sum, the general meaning of the perfective/imperfective opposition does not contradict its meaning in the use of imperatives. On the contrary, it allows Russian speakers to express subtle nuances. Verbs can be perfective or imperfective in the Russian language, but the meaning of aspect in the indicative and in the imperative mood is realized only through contextual usage. Thus, it is difficult to assign an appropriate function to any aspectual form without context.                     11   CHAPTER III:     SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS AND HERITAGE LEARNERS/SPEAKERS OF RUSSIAN   The chapter consists of four major sections. The first section introduces the two groups of Russian learners, L2Ls and HLs, and discusses their background differences and similarities. The second and the third sections of this chapter examine studies of the general difficulties that Russian aspect poses for these two groups of learners. The fourth section describes deficiencies in learners’ pragmatic knowledge that may influence their acquisition of imperative structures; thus, providing support for continued research on the interactions of aspectual and pragmatic knowledge. The chapter concludes with the research questions for this study.     3.1 Two Groups of Learners   A small body of studies have focused on analyzing empirical evidence of learners’ aspectual acquisition. Likewise, even less has been written about the acquisition of aspect in imperative structures by L2Ls and HLs; consequently, published empirical data are scarce. However, since the acquisition of imperative structures is closely linked with the acquisition of aspect in the Russian language, it is relevant to provide examples of acquisitional patterns in the category of aspect in the interlanguage of the two groups of learners. Yet, before saying how Russian learners acquire aspect, L2Ls and HLs       12   groups need to be introduced, for they have some important differences and similarities in their social background and in their interlanguage3 system.   A member of L2L group is generally a sequential bilingual, or in other words an adult who learns a second language after their first, most likely after puberty (Montrul, 2005) without any prior exposure to the target language and without parental or societal input. Therefore, they represent a rather homogeneous group of learners. The interlanguage characteristics of L2Ls have been studied by a large number of scholars (Boots-Ebenfield 1995; Thompson 1996; Rifkin 1995, 2002, 2010; Pavlenko & Driagina 2007; Brown, Bown, & Eggett 2009; Moskver 2008; Hasko 2009; Robin 2011; Dewaard 2012, and et cetera.). Thus, this group of learners is more or less familiar to researchers and instructors. As for HLs, each of them is so unique in terms of their social and language background that investigators are still in search of a good definition that will cover their multi-faceted backgrounds (Valdés 1999; Andrews 2001; Polinsky & Kagan 2007; Laleko 2010; Aleeva 2012). Based on the literature above, heritage speakers (hereafter HSs) are broadly defined as bilingual individuals who were introduced to a language other than English from birth. Their non-English language often becomes secondary to English. These speakers may possess a range of knowledge about their heritage language. They may continuously develop their heritage language ability through exposure to frequent input and become fluent speakers, or conversely, may cease their language development at an early age, possessing very basic vocabulary and                                                                                                                3 The term interlanguage was coined by Selinker (1972) to refer to the developing language system of a language learner. It has been since extended to heritage speakers as well (Smyslova 2009; Montrul 2014).           13   grammar knowledge of their heritage language without fluency. They may or may not have any literacy skills or formal/classroom learning experience with the heritage language.   Since the results of the study may be the basis for enhancing classroom instruction for learners, the study focuses on the linguistic behavior of the subset of HSs who have had educational experience and are continuing to pursue instruction in Russian, i.e. HLs. Also, for the purpose of the experiment, it seemed important to recruit HLs with a level of proficiency comparable to that of L2Ls, who mainly learned the target language in a classroom setting. Thus, the age of acquisition or onset of bilingualism would be the main differentiating variable among the groups.   Therefore, the interest of this study is an even smaller subset of heritage speakers, heritage learners, who were introduced to Russian from birth and are currently dominant in English. However, these learners have had explicit classroom instruction about the structure of their heritage language in order to improve their knowledge and have put some effort into studying their heritage language. More specifically, they have studied their heritage language at advanced levels, and thus, may have approximated their performance to the baseline4 of monolinguals. Nevertheless, while having near-native fluency in their heritage language, they may differ from monolinguals of their heritage language in some subtle nuances of the language (for example, in aspectual usage or in using pragmatically appropriate grammatical forms to fulfill a communicative function).                                                                                                                    4  By baseline here, I mean the performance of the monolingually raised participants of the study.         14     3.2 Aspectual Knowledge of Second Language Learners of Russian   Russian aspect is often reported as difficult for the acquisition by L2Ls (Menlove 1993; Rifkin 1995:480; Robin 2011:169; Mikhaylova 2011). Yet aspectual knowledge constitutes a basis for appropriate imperative usage. It is not only the correct verbal choice in lexical terms that is important for the usage in verbal commands, but it is also the correct choice of a verbal aspect that guarantees a contextually appropriate linguistic behavior. Thus, it is important to address this area of difficulty regarding verbal acquisition by learners. Researchers approach this phenomenon from different perspectives, attempting to understand what exactly poses difficulty for L2Ls (Slabakova 2005, Nossalik 2008; Boots-Ebenfield 1995; Mikhaylova 2011, forthcoming). In this attempt, scholars have looked at (1) the acquisition of complex verbal morphology (Boots-Ebenfield 1995; Slabakova 2005; Mikhaylova 2011, forthcoming), (2) the acquisition of the meaning of the perfective and imperfective aspect (Slabakova 2005; Robin 2012; Mikhaylova 2011, forthcoming); (3) and, finally, the acquisition of some subtle nuances in the meaning of aspect that can be understood only through context (Slabakova 2005; Mikhaylova 2011). In the attempt to understand what represents difficulty in aspectual acquisition, Slabakova (2005:74) has concluded that some of the types of aspectual knowledge develop faster than others. Namely, it is easier to learn the rules of aspectual usage than aspectual morphology. For example, it is not enough to learn the verbal root of the verb ‘write’ pis-(a-t’). A variety of meanings of each prefix should be acquired, as well (for example, do-pis-a-t’, pere-pis-at’, pod-pis-a-t’). Learners       15   often use the wrong prefix or suffix with a verbal root to denote a perfective meaning in a situation calling for a perfective verb. However, by using a suffix, they demonstrate their knowledge that prefixation can turn an unprefixed verb into a perfective one (Slabakova 2005). Boots-Ebenfield (1995) studied the acquisition of aspect by L2Ls of Russian and concluded that the least derived the verbal form the easier it is for acquisition. Thus, perfective verbs are easier for acquisition than their derived imperfective variants (perečitat’ – perečityvat’) and imperfective verbs can be easier acquired more easily than their derived perfective forms (čitat –pročitat’). In contrast to Boots-Ebenfield (1995), Robin (2012), having examined oral proficiency interviews, did not mention morphological complexity of verbs as an obstacle for acquisition. It was concluded that L2Ls simply treat verbs as lexicalized items, frozen patterns, which they use under any circumstances, ignoring other aspectual forms (Robin 2012:37). This lexicalization is considered to be the result of the influence of the most frequent verbal forms in textbooks and in the speech of Russian monolinguals, according to Robin’s corpus research. Learners choose more noticeable high-frequency forms and seem to forget that Russian verbs have aspectual pairs. Consider the following examples:   18. Oni budut *skazat’.PRF ‘They will say’.   Baseline Russian: Oni skažut.PRF (Robin 2012:39).   Skazat’ appears here as a lexicalized form in the meaning 'to say', and is used with an auxiliary 'to be' to make future reference, instead of the appropriate perfective form skažut or imperfective budut govorit’. In Russian, the verb 'to be' should be accompanied by an imperfective verb if it denotes a future action or event.         16   19. Moja sosedka po komnate obyčno *vernulas’.PRF_PAST domoj v dva-v dvuh ili trjox. '*My roommate usually will return home at two-in two or three.’   Baseline Russian: Moja sosedka po komnate obyčno vozvraščaetsja.IMP_NonPast domoj v dva ili tri časa (Robin 2012:41).   Vernut’sja is lexicalized here as ‘to return’ and is used instead of a more appropriate form vozvraščaetsja.IMP_NonPast, which should be used with the tense marker obyčno ‘usually’.   Random use of perfective and imperfective forms, which also has been mentioned by researchers, (Rifkin 1995:480; Robin 2012:45) can also be explained by lexicalization, when more frequent verbal forms substitute for the appropriate ones. For example:   20. Ja *budu okančivat’.IMP.INF universitet čerez dva goda. ‘I will graduate from the university in two years.’   Baseline Russian: Ja okonču.PRF.Non-Past5universitet čerez dva goda (Rifkin 1995:480).   Although, grammatically the verbal structure in example 4 is correct (the verb 'to be' is used with the imperfective form), pragmatically it sounds inappropriate since the perfective form of the verb is required. L2Ls may have discourse pragmatic triggers in a sentence to help them with the choice of aspect, but they do not seem to pay attention to them at the initial levels of their language development (Robin, 2012:46). Conversely, it                                                                                                                5For consistency, I am following Slavic Linguistics conventions for glossing (for example, choosing Non-Past instead of Present) and transliteration, even if it is different from the way authors gloss their examples.         17   has been noticed that intermediate- to high-proficiency speakers of Russian monitor the use of aspect, paying attention to contextual triggers (Robin, 2012:45). For example:   21. Vy by *dumali.IMP, eto Kejp Kod, no my uže delali.IMP, sdelali.PRF nekotorye izmenenija v etom godu (Robin 2012:45). ‘You might have been thinking it was Cape Cod, but we were already doing, have done some changes this year’.   Baseline Russian: Vy mogli by podumat'.PRF, eto Kejp Kod, no my uže sdelali.PRF nekotorye izmenenija v etom godu.   The speaker switches from imperfective to perfective, probably, under the influence of the perfectivizing marker uže 'already'. Thus, L2Ls become more competent in perceiving verbs as having aspectual pairs on more advanced levels (Robin 2012:45).   Nevertheless, intermediate or high-proficiency L2Ls, after developing the understanding of the basic aspectual meanings, now encounter another problem. They have to deal with a variety of less salient additional meanings of the imperfective aspect. They need to match an appropriate verbal form with the context of the sentence. In order to do this, L2Ls need to process the following information: whether or not the verbal morphology encodes the presence/absence of an inherent limit; whether or not an action expressed by a verb reaches its endpoint; and whether or not temporal sentence markers match the verbal form. Consider the following examples:   22. Ves' večer Vladimir *zakazyval/zakazal bilety v Moskvu. 'Vladimir was booking the tickets to Moscow, the whole evening.'         18   23. Ves' večer Vladimir dočityval/*dočital/čital detektiv. 'The whole evening, Vladimir was reading a detective story.'   24. Dva časa Vladimir pisal/*dopisal/dopisyval detektiv. 'Vladimir has been writing a detective story for two hours.' (examples from Mikhaylova 2011)   Mikhaylova (2011, forthcoming) and Nossalik (2008, 2009) studied these nuances in aspectual acquisition, where L2Ls have to combine the knowledge of verbal morphology with the knowledge of aspectual meaning, and uniformly concluded that high-proficiency L2Ls are less sensitive to some nuanced aspectual meanings than to more salient meaning of verbal aspect, for example, in sentences, in which imperfective verbs are used, although the action has been completed. These works did not study imperatives, but since HLs experience difficulties with aspectual acquisition in the indicative mood, they are likely to have similar patterns in the imperative mood, contrary to an assumption that high-proficiency HLs’ language behavior aligns with the monolingual behavior.   In sum, few studies have concentrated on the comprehension of aspectual choice by high-proficiency L2Ls in a variety of different conditions. Also, the literature review shows that the acquisition of verbal aspect is still of great interest to researchers, and there are three problematic zones in the acquisition of Russian aspect by L2Ls: (1) the acquisition of complex verbal morphology; (2) the acquisition of meaning of the perfective and imperfective aspect; and (3) the acquisition of nuanced contextual meaning of imperfective verbs.           19   3.3 Aspectual Knowledge of Heritage Learners of Russian   In general, the following patterns in heritage aspectual acquisition can be distinguished. First, at the low proficiency level, their verbal system has a tendency for simplification. For example, Polinsky (2008a) reported empirical data from oral narratives of illiterate HSs and revealed the following patterns. HSs in her study tended to say (он) 25. zabyvyvajet, (они) 26. otmen’ivajut, instead of the baseline Russian form zabyvajet, otmen’ajut (Polinsky 2008a:270). Heritage speakers overgeneralize the imperfectivizing suffix –yvaj-/-ivaj- and apply it for the verbs which are not supposed to have it in the baseline Russian. They seem to forget about the less productive imperfectivizing suffix –a. Second, heritage speakers are inconsistent in their aspectual and tense choice in production (Polinsky 2008a; Isurin & Ivanova-Sullivan 2008) and comprehension (Mikhaylova 2012, forthcoming). For example:   27. Potom mal'čik odevaetsja.IMP.Non-Past i sobaka nazad na beregu prišla.PRF_PAST. ‘Then the boy is getting dressed and the dog came back to the shore.’   Baseline Russian: Potom mal’čik odelsja.PRF.PAST I sobaka prišla.PRF.PAST nazad (Isurin & Ivanova-Sullivan 2008:75)   As seen from sentence 27, the speaker uses different aspectual and tense forms within one sentence, where the baseline Russian requires the agreement in tense and aspect in both parts of the sentence.   The third pattern that can be distinguished is uniqueness. Heritage speakers are unique in the case of aspect acquisition. For instance, it has been observed by Polinsky       20   (2008a) that heritage speakers will randomly choose one or the other aspectual form in their language, but it is not clear why a particular form survives and the other goes away. In examples (28) and (29) below, heritage speakers use the imperfective form where baseline Russian requires perfective and the perfective form where baseline Russian requires imperfective.   28. Gde ty? Ja uže gotovila.IMP tebe obed   Where you? I already prepared. IMP you dinner   ‘Where are you? I have already cooked a dinner for you.’   Baseline Russian: приготовила. PRF (Polinsky 2008a:271)   Sentence 28, containing the word uže ‘already’, requires a verb in the perfective aspect in English (I have already cooked) and in the baseline Russian. Therefore, transfer from English seems to be impossible. The verb gotovila is not grammatically correct here and cannot be used when speaking about completed actions in the past. Therefore, the usage of the aspect can be considered unique in the heritage Russian language system.   29. Moj deduška často porugal.PRF. ego 'My grandfather often scold.PRF him’   ‘My grandfather often scolded him’   Baseline Russian: ругал.IMP (Polinsky 2008a:271)   Conversely, in sentence 29, English and Russian baseline require the usage of the imperfective verb that is usually used with the adverb často ‘often’ in both languages. The heritage speaker uses the perfective verb, which cannot be explained by the transfer from either language.         21   Despite the fact that heritage speakers may lose morphological markers of the aspectual opposition, they demonstrate another unique feature. They preserve the unique means to express perfectivity in their speech. For instance:   30. On načinaet deržit olen’ roga   He begins.IMP holds. IMP deer horns.   ‘He grabbed the deer by the antlers.’   Baseline Russian: On sxvatil/xvataet olenja za roga (Polinsky 2008a:278)   Example (30) illustrates that in order to demonstrate a perfective action, heritage Russian speakers tend to use light verbs stat’ ‘become’ or načat’ ‘begin’ in combination with the conjugated form of a content verb.   It has been also observed that high-proficiency HLs, if compared to monolinguals in aspectual acquisition, do not have the full command of subtle nuances of aspectual usage, but outperform L2Ls of the same proficiency level in a comprehension task (Mikhaylova 2011, 2012).   Similar patterns are found in other areas of HLs’ aspectual knowledge. For example, it has been noticed that they exhibit reduction in the pragmatic functions of verbal aspect, lack the understanding of subtle nuances of pragmatic features (Laleko 2010), and transfer pragmatic strategies from a more dominant language - English.               22   3.4 Pragmatics in Second And Heritage Language Acquisition   Imperative structures are verbal commands that may sound polite or impolite, appropriate or inappropriate, depending not only on their directness or a lexical choice of a speaker, but also on a speaker’s aspectual verbal choice. Pragmatics is an area of linguistics that concentrates on communicative appropriateness of the language choice (different speech acts) in certain situations. Often a verbal aspect is the only marker of appropriateness in a certain context. The usage of an appropriate aspectual form ensures appropriate linguistic behavior of Russian learners. Thus, it is important to look at the imperatives in terms of interlanguage pragmatics, which happens to pose difficulty on both groups of learners, as does the aspectual knowledge itself.     3.5 Interlanguage Pragmatics of L2Ls   Sociopragmatic competence, which is an important part of communicative competence, can be defined as the ability to use language appropriately to the communicative situation. The basis for studying pragmatics in the field of SLA is a speech act theory (Searle 1969). Speech acts can be direct and indirect, and they are ‘the ways in which people carry out specific social functions in speaking, such as apologizing, complaining, making requests, refusing things/invitations, complementing, or thanking’ (Cohen 2010:6). A number of socio-cultural variables guide speakers in the selection of their linguistic behavior, namely in their choice of direct and indirect speech acts. Predominantly these variables are: the degree of social distance; power hierarchy       23   between participants (both dependent on age, race, gender, and class); and the degree of the imposition created by the speech act on the listener (Brown and Levinson 1987).   The topic of interlanguage pragmatics among L2Ls of Russian has been mostly studied in terms of production of the speech act of requests (Mills 1993; Owen 2001; Frank 2002; Shardakova 2005). Studies in this area reveal that L2Ls diverge from baseline of monolinguals in the use of (in)direct requests strategies, where monolinguals prefer direct speech acts to indirect ones (Mills 1993:100). Conversely, L2Ls tend to transfer indirect request strategies from their first language6, using pre-requests, supportive moves and grounders (Mills 1993:110). However, the research also shows that those L2Ls, who had spent between 6-18 months in Russia, performed more target-like and preferred more direct strategies. Similarly, the study of the production of apologies (Shardakova 2005) revealed that exposure to the target culture resulted in more pragmatically appropriate behavior, regardless the level of proficiency of L2Ls. Conversely, the absence of such exposure resulted in diversion from the target-like performance and overgeneralization of apologetic strategies even among high-proficiency L2Ls.   L2Ls at different proficiency levels are claimed to perform appropriately when it comes to socio-pragmatic rules, meaning they are able to combine grammatically appropriate linguistic forms with the socio-cultural factors of the target language. However, their performance is less appropriate when it comes to pragmalinguistic language behavior, which refers to the ability to use grammatically correct linguistic                                                                                                                6 Language, which is first in the sequence of acquisition.         24   forms for expressing communicative intent (Dubinina 2012:38). Thus, one of the goals of this study is to investigate pragmalinguistic performance of L2Ls of Russian.   In sum, the literature review demonstrates that although L2Ls diverge from target- like pragmatic performance, the combination of exposure to the target language and increase in proficiency can be a stimulating factor for L2 pragmatic development.     3.6 Interlanguage Pragmatics of HLs   There is a smaller but increasing body of research on Russian heritage speakers’ pragmatic performance (Laleko 2010, 2011; Dubinina 2011, 2012). However, none of them specifically addressed imperative speech acts. Laleko (2010, 2011) who studied the interaction between pragmatic function of perfective/imperfective aspectual pairs among Russian HSs and Russian monolinguals concluded that some of the functions of the imperfective aspect in baseline Russian are associated with the perfective aspect in heritage Russian and that high proficiency HSs are less sensitive to the contextual imperfectizing markers than Russian monolinguals.   Besides, heritage speakers are claimed to be close to L2Ls in terms of transferring pragmatic knowledge from their more dominant language to their heritage language. For example, Dubinina (2011, 2012) focused on the communicative competence of heritage speakers, namely on the ability to adequately and grammatically correctly ask for a favor, with the communicative competence of Russian speakers. The subjects were asked to formulate a polite request in two contexts: the informal context – interlocutors have equal social status; the formal context - hierarchical relationships. The results of the study in       25   the informal context revealed that heritage speakers restructured Russian and combined two phrases that do not go together in target-like performance. In the formal situation, heritage speakers used the direct transfer from the English language to ask for a favor. Nevertheless, all but one heritage speaker achieved the communicative goal of making a request.   In sum, few empirical studies of Russian heritage speakers’ control of pragmatic features have thus far been conducted. High proficiency heritage speakers are often excluded from linguistic research, as they are generally known for making few grammatical errors (Laleko 2010:250). Thus, they are considered to be target-like in production and comprehension. However, closer look at high proficiency HLs may reveal the fact that they are not quite target-like in their performance pragmatics-wise, as compared with native speakers of the target language.     3.7 Summary and Research Questions   The literature review revealed that the areas of aspectual acquisition and pragmatic performance of Russian learners have been of interest to many researchers. A few studies have compared L2Ls and HLs of Russian in terms of their comprehension of some facets of the aspectual category and concluded that both groups of learners have difficulties in the acquisition of some subtle nuances in this category. However, the researchers admitted that exposure to the target language and culture in the immersion context positively influences the acquisition of grammatical and pragmatic competences on any level.         26   Yet an empirical study on comparing interlanguage pragmatics of Russian L2Ls and HLs has never before been conducted. Moreover, the literature reviewed in this chapter suggests that scholars have been uninterested in advanced HLs because of their assumed knowledge of Russian grammar. In reality, high proficiency HLs deviate from the baseline of native speakers (Dubinina 2011; Laleko 2010; Mikhaylova 2011), and it is quite noticeable when communicating with them. Admittedly, it is difficult to articulate the exact peculiarity of their speech.   Also, the literature review suggests that researchers have been more interested in the learners’ production than comprehension. Yet judgments of appropriateness of imperative structures may provide evidence of how settled are the pragmatic norms of advanced L2Ls and HLs, and whether or not their perception of imperative structures are more closely aligned to each other or to native speakers of Russian.   In particular, no research has investigated the intersection of pragmalinguistic competence and the knowledge of the aspectual system in the comprehension of imperative mood. To bridge this gap, this empirical study explores how similarly high- proficiency L2Ls and HLs of Russian perform to the baseline of native speakers7. Specifically, the study addresses the following questions:   (1) How close to the baseline of Russian native speakers do heritage and second language learners of Russian recognize the subtle nuances of the imperative usage across the four groups of imperatives: (im)perfective positive and (im)perfective negative?                                                                                                                  7 All the participants in both learning groups had more than three years of classroom instruction, according to their self-report in the background questionnaire.         27   (2) Do heritage speakers demonstrate greater pragmalinguistic awareness across all four groups of imperatives when compared to second language learners of Russian?   I hypothesized that the HLs’ performance will be closer to the monolingual baseline across all four imperative categories, if not in term of accuracy, then at least in terms of their preferences of a certain aspectual form. Likewise, I hypothesize that the HLs will demonstrate greater pragmalinguistic awareness across the four categories that L2Ls. The reason behind this prediction is that often HLs have a more diverse linguistic input and a higher level of exposure to the target language than L2Ls. Thus, they should be more familier with the speach acts expressed by the imperative structures - especially if they carry their aspectual knowledge from their childhood, when parents use many verbal commands to control childrens’ behavior.   Additionally, I hypothesized that the L2Ls will be close to the baseline in the most frequent imperative structures, namely (IM)PRF positive categories, since they may be more exposed to them through classroom instruction and through communication with native speakers. However, I do not expect L2Ls to be close to the monolinguals in terms of accuracy, I expect them to follow the monolingual patterns at least in the most frequent verbal forms. The review of the literature demonstrates that L2Ls of high intermediate level produce aspectually adequate forms in 86.91% of the time in (Robin 2012:34). Yet, since L2Ls may have a low linguistic input of negative imperative structures for the reason of limited classroom instruction and the low frequency of such structures in the       28   native speakers’ discourse (linguistic input they are exposed to), it may influence their perception of nuances of aspectual usage.                                               29   CHAPTER IV     THE PERCEPTION OF IMPERATIVES BY L2LS AND HLS OF RUSSIAN8   Chapter IV empirically investigates the perception of Russian imperatives by L2Ls and HLs and compares their performance with the monolingually raised control group of Russian speakers. The chapter begins with the outline of the study objectives and methodology, and describes the participants in the study. Then, it details the information on the data collection for the main task. Furthermore, it presents the results of the data analysis, answering the research questions formulated in Chapter III. The first part of the data analysis represents the quantitative results of the perception of subtle nuances of imperative usage by the two groups of learners and compares them with the groups of the monolingual speakers across the four groups of imperative commands. The second part of the chapter looks at the comparison of the overall tendency of the HLs and L2Ls to follow the patterns of the monolinguals in the four imperative categories. This section also provides the description of the results of each group of the participants, in order to reveal individual differences and patterns within and across the groups. Finally, a brief summary of the research questions concludes the chapter.                                                                                                                        8 The study received IRB approval from the University of Oregon. Protocol number is #04082016.011.           30   4.1 Study Objectives   In general, this research project tests the following: (1) pragmalinguistic sensitivity of second and heritage language Russian learners to the appropriate use of imperative structures compared to the baseline of Russian native speakers, and (2) the learners’ sensitivity to salient patterns of use of the appropriate aspectual forms in the imperative mood.   The experiment consists of an online test in which high proficiency second language learners of Russian, high proficiency heritage learners of Russian and native Russian speakers (control group) were asked to interpret the (un)acceptability of verbal commands in 32 scenarios. The study was administered online using the Qualtrics survey software and consisted of a discourse completion (un)acceptability judgment task, a proficiency test (adopted from Slabakova 2005) and a linguistic background questionnaire (adopted from Mikhaylova 2011; 2012).   The proficiency test was administered in order to score the participants on how close in percentage they were to the control group of native speakers. The background questionnaire was applied to elicit relevant biographical information, since various socio- linguistic and socio-economic factors have been linked to dynamics of language acquisition and use (Mikhaylova 2011, 2012; Laleko 2010). The participants received an individual link to the survey along with an invitation letter and were able to complete it at their own convenience. The three tasks took learners up to 45 minutes to complete them.       31   The participants were not given a time limit, were not compensated with money, and were not monitored by anyone9.     4.2 Methodology   4.2.1Recruitment   The student participants were recruited with the help of Russian language instructors at Portland State University and at the University of Oregon, who distributed the recruitment letter among their students via email, which contained information about the study and the link to the study page. As for the recruitment of native Russian speakers for the survey, recruitment email was distributed through friends and colleagues who lived in the in Russia at the time of the survey, asking them to help in collecting data for the project.     4.2.2 Participants   The participants of the study are second and heritage language students with advanced skills in the Russian language. Their advanced skills were determined by a combination of data obtained via a proficiency test (adopted from Slabakova (2005), and by analysis of the linguistic background questionnaire (adapted from Mikhaylova 2011, 2012) Table 2 offers a summary of some relative points.                                                                                                                  9 Of course, we cannot be sure that the learners did not consult with others. However, the participants were specifically asked not to consult any resources and rely on their own knowledge or intuition.         32   Table2. Background characteristics of the participants:     N   Age,  Mean (range)   Proficiency Test  (% correct)   Cumulative Self-Rating in English  (out of 2010)   Cumulative Self-Rating in Russian  (out of 2011)   HLs   10   24 (21-29)   94.33   19.8   15.9   L2Ls   10   29.2 (21-53)   82.67   20   14   Monolingually   Raised Controls   20   26.8 (20-59)   98.13   15.6   N/A     Both groups of learners were dominant in English, according to their cumulative self-rating. The participants rated their proficiency in English and Russian on the scale from 1 (none) to 5 (fluent) in the four types of their language behavior (reading, listening, speaking, and writing) and Table 2 presents a sum of all four scores for each language. However, all the participants were literate in Russian and had been exposed to formal instruction (were or had been enrolled in courses of Russian at a college level). The group of HLs consisted of 10 high-proficiency heritage speakers of Russian, age range from 21 to 29. Four of them had studied Russian in a Russian-speaking country on a study-abroad program from 3 months to 3 years. Three of them were born in a Russian-speaking country and went to the elementary school there. The other three reported that they had studied Russian at home with their parents prior to taking university classes. Also 8 out of 10 HLs reported that they spoke Russian every day with their parents and relatives, sometimes with their siblings, colleagues, clients and children. Only 2 stated that they did                                                                                                                10  The participants rated their proficiency in English on the scale from 1 (none) to 5 (fluent) in the four types of their language behavior (reading, listening, speaking, and writing). 11 The participants rated their proficiency in Russian on the scale from 1 (none) to 5 (fluent) in the four types of their language behavior (reading, listening, speaking, and writing).         33   less often, with a fewer number of people. The group of learners of Russian as a foreign language (L2Ls) consisted of 10 high-proficiency students, age range from 21 to 53. Seven of them had lived and studied in a Russian-speaking country from 3 months to 6 years. The L2Ls’ input was less diverse in comparison to that of HLs’, and they had fewer opportunities to use the target language, according to their self-report. However, 6 of them reported that they spoke Russian every day, 2 sometimes, and 2 never or rarely. They mostly spoke it with their colleagues or friends.   The control group consisted of 20 monolingual native speakers of Russian, residing in Russia at the time of the study. For simplicity, this study uses the term ‘monolinguals’ to refer to speakers of Full Russian (as defined by Polinsky 2007:167). In fact, the monolinguals in this study are sequential bilinguals but who were raised monolingually and learned English at school. These speakers are fairly fluent in English, according to their self-rating. The monolinguals were not asked to self-rate their Russian, because it was assumed that their score would be high.   Slabakova’s (2005) cloze-test, replicated as an independent proficiency measure, was a continuous text (a story about seasons) with 30 blank spaces substituting single words. The participants, including the monolingual group, had to choose the only correct option out of the three options offered. The mean score of the correct answers in the monolingual group was 98.13%. The HLs scored 94.33%, and the L2Ls scored 82.67% on the proficiency test.           34   4.2.3 The Main Task12   The first task the participants were asked to complete was a discourse completion (un)acceptability judgment task, which was used to examine second language learners’ and heritage speakers’ comprehension of verbal commands. The basis for the task was the 20 most frequent imperative forms derived from the Russian National Corpus (RNC). The results of the corpus analysis can be observed in Appendix 1.13   The spoken subcorpus of the RNC was used for analysis. This subcorpus consists of mini-dialogues (at a pharmacy, library, resort, shop, market, post office, transport, work, elevator, home, kitchen); conversations (at home, business, leisure, telephone, at a hospital, beach, casual meeting); retellings (a dream, a conversation, a movie, a TV program); narrations and arguments. This subcorpora were selected because they represented the kinds of conversations Russian language learners would likely encounter in a Russian-speaking community outside the classroom.   In 32 scenarios, 10 of the most frequent verbs from each positive imperative category were used to form 20 positive commands with perfective and imperfective verbal forms. Five most frequent verbs from each negative category were used to form 12 negative commands with perfective and imperfective imperative verbal forms. Most situations described informal conversations either between friends or relatives or co- workers. The full list of situations in the main task is in Appendix 2.                                                                                                                  12 The study was piloted in winter 2015. After the pilot study was run, some of the situations were changed or edited in order to control for morphological variables in verbal forms and ensure that learners would not have any difficulties with the understanding of the situations or verbal forms.  13 A few situations were based on Rassudova’s (1968) examples, even if the verbs did not fall into the 20 most frequent imperative forms, according to RNC (i.e. situation 4 with vstavaj/vstan’).         35   The description of the situations in the first task was given in English and in Russian for the learners, and in Russian only for the monolinguals. The target imperative structures were only given in Russian. The participants had to evaluate the appropriateness of each option. The participants were able to use a sliding scale and move the slider from 1 to 6, with 1 being absolutely inappropriate in the specifically described situation, and 6 being absolutely appropriate in the specifically described situation, or somewhere in between.   Excerpt from the instruction section to Task 1:   Russian:   Оцените насколько уместны фразы, приведенные ниже в ситуации, которая описана. Передвигая курсор по горизонтали, вы можете двигаться по шкале от 1 до 6, от "абсолютно неуместно" до "абсолютно уместно".   Ситуация 1: Ваш друг стоит рядом с окном. В комнате очень душно. Вы просите вашего друга:   English:   Rate how appropriate the two options are, for the specific situation. Slide the cursor from 1 to 6, with 1 being absolutely inappropriate in the specifically described situation, and 6 being absolutely appropriate in the specifically described situation, or somewhere in between.   Situation 1: Your friend is standing near the window. It is very hot in the room. You ask your friend:         36     In the present research, the socio-cultural variables that influence a speaker’s linguistic behavior were significantly limited and controlled, because this study was restricted to the analysis of a variety of direct imperative speech acts. Learners were not asked to choose between direct and indirect speech acts, and thus, they were not tested on the level of politeness (socio-linguistic level). The only variable that they had to rely on was the appropriateness of the verbal aspect to the speech act (pragmalinguistic level). Moreover, the politeness marker požalujsta ‘please’ was intentionally removed from the designed situations, as it could have influenced the degree of politeness, which was beyond the scope of this research. Overall, the socio-cultural variables of speech acts in the study have been controlled in the following way.   Almost all of the characters in the described situations are of minimal social distance, either friends or relatives. The task with the choice of two options, in a few situations that involve strangers, does not allow the learners to go out of the limits of direct strategies and use indirect ones. Therefore, the social distance is of less importance       37   here than the intention of the speaker to realize a certain speech act through the appropriate aspectual form of the imperative.   The participants of the situations are speakers who have relatively equal power/social status (friends, family members, equal status co-workers). Thus, hierarchical relationships are also controlled.   The situations described are of moderate degree of imposition upon a listener. Everything that is expressed by an imperative command does not go out of the limits of everyday routine situations and thus, does not represent extreme face-threatening acts.   Direct imperative structures are observed as appropriate in everyday speech rituals in Russian-speaking countries (Mills 1991:560). Thus, it is appropriate to say to a sales person in a shoe department: Tufli pokažite.PRF tam sinie! ‘Show me the blue shoes over there!’ (Mills 1991:561). This utterance neither contains a politeness marker nor a conditional mood structure (Could you? Would you?) to make it sound softer. Yet, it still sounds proper in this situation, provided the imperative is used with a proper aspectual form.     4.3 Data Analysis, Results and Discussion   Five studies of the data were conducted. First, the data were analyzed based upon the average judgments of the three groups of participants in the four categories: (im)perfective positive (Charts 1 and 2) and (im)perfective negative (Charts 3 and 4). Second, the preference of one aspectual form over the other was compared across all of the situations among the three groups. Third, the preference of the participants to a       38   certain aspectual form in the positive imperatives was examined. Fourth, the inclination of the participants towards a certain aspectual form in the negative imperatives was also explored. Fifth, the participants’ patterns in the communicative act of a request were investigated. The data in the tasks were analyzed not only for accuracy, but also for patterns within groups and tendencies to prefer a particular aspectual form.   The following sections discuss the results of the analysis and interpret the findings.     4.3.1 Analysis 1   A quantitative analysis was conducted on the average value of appropriateness among the three groups of the participants (see Table 3 for combined results). Based on the total means of each of the three groups of participants for the appropriateness task, in the Imperfective Positive Imperative category the performance of HLs was in line with the control group for 100% of instances, or in 20 out of 20 situations. The L2Ls were close in their judgments to the control group for 60% of the imperfective positive imperatives, or in 12 out of the 20 situations in this category. In the category Perfective Positive Imperatives, the HLs’s performance was target-like in 95%, or in 19 out of 20 situations. The L2Ls behaved like native speakers in 80%, or in 16 out of 20 situations.               39   Table 3. The percentage of learners’ judgments matching those of monolingual controls across the four imperative categories   Imperative Category   HLs   L2Ls   PRF+   95%   80%   IMP+   100%   60%   PRF-   67%   58%   IMP-   67%   58%     In two negative categories, Imperfective Negative and Perfective Negative Imperatives, the HLs made similar judgments to those of monolinguals in 67%, or in 8 out of 12 situations. The L2Ls performed in line with the control group in 58% of sets, or in 7 out of 12 situations.     4.3.2 Analysis 2   Russian learners are claimed to have preferences in selecting a certain aspectual form at different stages of their interlanguage development (Robin, 2012). Thus, this analysis was conducted in order to assess how the two aspectual forms operated in the language system of the learners, and how closely they matched the monolingual patterns. In order to analyze the overall tendencies of the learners’ preference to select a certain aspectual form in the suggested contexts (Chart 5), the data were also examined considering the number of times each group of the participants preferred one form over the other across all of situations.             40   Chart 5. Participants’ tendencies to prefer a particular aspectual form.     The results revealed that the monolingual group preferred an imperfective form of the verb over a perfective form in 39% of the situations. The HLs favored imperfective over perfective in 40% of the instances, and the L2Ls in 43% of the instances. The perfective form was preferred in 50% of instances by the monolinguals, in 46% by the HLs, and in 54% of the L2Ls. The aspectual forms were treated as equal by the monolinguals, the HLs, and the L2Ls in 11%, 15%, and 3% of the situations, respectfully. A similar pattern is also observed in charts 5-7. The HLs, when juxtaposed against the results from the L2Ls, exhibit a higher degree of indeterminate judgments. This can be defined as a subconscious ruling for equality, rather than a preference for one aspectual form. Such distribution may be based on the fact that L2Ls are trained to think of aspect as an opposition and HLs are sensitive to the fact that there is certain optionality. This       41   may also explain a more target-like performance of the L2Ls than the HLs in terms of the aspectual choice in the negative categories. Their tendency to consider aspect as an opposition may have simply correlated with the monolingual pattern.   Insignificant deviations from the monolingual baseline between the three groups of the participants in the perfective and imperfective categories suggest that the learners have acquired the overall tendencies to use the aspect in the imperatives. However, L2Ls may not feel sufficiently confident to regard aspectual forms as equal in situations with high aspectual competition.     4.3.3 Analysis 3   The analysis of participants’ preferences to a certain aspectual form across the imperative positive (Chart 6) and negative categories (Chart 7) revealed the following patterns.                           42   Chart 6. Participants’ preferences of a certain aspectual form across the imperative positive category.     The L2Ls expressed a higher preference of the perfective positive form than the other two groups of the participants (monolinguals - 49%, HLs - 50%, L2Ls - 59%). However, the L2Ls were aligned with the monolinguals in their preference for the imperfective positive category (monolinguals – 39%, HLs-36%, L2Ls - 38%). Also, just as in the previous analysis, the L2Ls deviated from the performance of the monolinguals and the HLs in considering the aspectual forms as equals in the positive imperatives (monolinguals – 12%, HLs – 15%, L2Ls – 4%).     4.3.4 Analysis 4   Interestingly, the analysis of the aspectual preference in the negative imperatives showed that the two learner groups did not follow the pattern of the monolinguals. The       43   monolingual group favored the imperfective forms in the negative category in only 40% of the situations, while the HLs and the L2Ls preferred it in 70% and 62% of the situations, accordingly (Chart 7).   Chart 7. Participants’ preferences to a certain aspectual form across the imperative negative category.     The perfective form in the negative imperatives was favored by the monolinguals in 52%, by the HLs in 14%, and by the L2Ls in 36% of the instances. Thus, the HLs exhibit a contradictory tendency when selecting aspectual forms in the negative category, when compared to monolingual and L2L groups.                 44   4.3.5 Analysis 5   Lastly, the data were analyzed for the tendencies of the HLs and the L2Ls to follow the pattern of the monolinguals in the subset of situations corresponding to the speech acts of request (Chart 8).   Chart 8. Distribution of preference of aspectual forms only in items containing requests.     The learners made judgments very similar to the monolinguals in their preference for an appropriate aspectual form in the requests, regardless of a request to perform an action or a request not to perform an action. The monolinguals preferred the imperfective form in this category in 29% of the instances. The HLs and the L2Ls preferred the imperfective form in 27% and 29% of the situations, accordingly. The perfective form was preferred in 64%, 62%, and 68% of the instances by the monolinguals, the HLs, and the L2Ls, respectfully.         45   The following sections review the research questions, discuss the results of each group individually, and similarities and differences between the two groups of learners.     4.4 Summary of the Research questions   The first research question was how closely the HLs and the L2Ls recognized the subtle nuances of the imperative usage across the four groups of imperatives, when compared to the baseline of the monolinguals. Overall, the HLs were very close to the monolingual patterns in the two positive categories and did not converge with them in the negative. Moreover, the HLs did not sense the competition of the aspectual forms for a particular function in the negative imperatives. Similarly, the L2Ls showed better sensitivity in the perception of the perfective positive category but did not converge with the monolingual patterns in the imperfective positive. Yet, the L2Ls showed the same preference to the aspectual form in the positive imperfective structures as the monolingual in terms of their tendency to choose an appropriate form, even though they had a lower accuracy rate. The same tendency to choose the aspectual form, preferred by the monolinguals, was observed in the L2Ls’ perception of the negative imperatives where they outperformed the HLs in this regard.   The second research question was whether or not the HLs demonstrated greater pragmalinguistic awareness across the four groups of imperatives in comparison to the L2Ls. Overall, the HLs confirmed my expectations by their performance in the positive categories, and demonstrated high accuracy in choosing the aspectual forms. In fact, the mean scores of the HLs were equally high on two positive categories and were in line       46   with the monolinguals. Surprisingly, the negative imperative structures represented a difficulty for the HLs. They were not able to sense the competition of the aspectual forms in order to express a particular speech function.     4.4.1 The Monolinguals   Theoretical grounds of aspectual usage in imperative by Russian monolinguals have rarely been investigated empirically. In terms of comprehension of imperative structures, it was claimed by Tyurikova (2008) that Russian native speakers varied in the perception of imperative structures and did not follow the prescribed patterns. She investigated the politeness issue in the context of meaning that was assigned to isolated aspectual forms among adult Russian speakers. Specifically, in her study, native Russian speakers evaluated imperative utterances as being polite or impolite from a famous Soviet movie ‘Služebnyj roman’. She concluded that that if the aspectual forms had a certain potential, it did not mean that these forms were inherently “polite”, “impolite”, “rude”, “strict”, “distant”, “inappropriate”, etc. Their content changed to different degrees from one interaction to another, from one part of the same interaction to another, and from one individual to another (Tyurikova 2008:128). A comparative analysis of the individual differences of the monolingual participants did not show any individual difference in their perception of the appropriateness of the aspectual forms in the given contexts. These results were in contrast to Tyurikova (2008). Even though the scopes of our studies are different and the current study is not interested in the issue of politeness, the appropriateness focus of this paper parallels the politeness focus of Tyurikova (2008).       47   Thus, it was interesting to investigate whether or not the monolinguals would individually vary in the way they perceive the aspectual forms in this research. However, such patterns were not readily prevalent among the monolinguals, but did exist to a minor extent.   Moreover, no substantial difference was found between the monolinguals who had lived in the US for a long period of time, and those who resided in Russia at the moment of the study. The analysis of the individual patterns of the Russians living in the US revealed minor differences across the four categories when compared to the other group14. However, the decision was made to concentrate only on the monolinguals living in Russia for the accuracy of the results. Admittedly, a larger group of participants may shed more light on this question. However, it can be concluded that pragmalinguistic knowledge of imperative structures has not undergone the process of attrition among the monolingual participants residing in the US at the moment of the study.     4.4.2 The HLs   The analysis of the average performance of all of the HLs revealed that they not only outperformed the L2Ls in the sensitivity to the positive imperative categories, but also almost coincided with the performance of the monolinguals, as was predicted. In fact, the selected verbs from the two positive imperative categories were close to one other in terms of frequency, according to the required analysis of the Russian National                                                                                                                14 By minor differences, I mean that I found only 4 instances (across the four imperative categories) of patterns contradicting the patterns of the monolingual group residing in Russia, but it was difficult to say what exactly caused these deviations.         48   Corpus. Thus, it may be a reason why the learners had equal number of target-like answers. Additionally, 8 out of 10 of the HLs reported in the background questionnaire that they spoke Russian every day with their parents, relatives and friends, as well as with colleagues, siblings and clients. Thus, if the language of their communication partners is their linguistic input, it is not surprising that they are highly sensitive to the most frequently used imperative forms. Similarly, the frequency of the imperative usage can account for the fact that the nuances of the negative imperative usage were less noticeable for learners, as negative forms constitute less frequent imperatives, according to the analysis of the corpus. Thus, due to the learners’ limited linguistic input, they were less exposed to the negative forms. Therefore, the conclusion suggests that the frequency of verbal forms in the speech of native Russian speakers might play a significant role in the perception of imperatives. Additionally, the HLs had a greater tendency to accept certain aspectual forms and rated the appropriate level higher than the monolinguals. This is especially noticeable in the negative categories in which learners are less perceptive to the nuances. The analysis of the HLs’ preference to lean to the positive mode in their judgment revealed that the HLs evaluated the aspectual forms higher than the monolinguals on the scale of appropriateness in 63% of instances in the situations where they felt less secure. In the situations where they were closer to the performance of the monolinguals, they judged more positively than the monolinguals in 45% of instances.               49   4.4.3 The L2Ls   The L2Ls were closer to the performance of the monolinguals only in the perfective positive category. Similar to the HLs, the more target-like performance in the positive categories can be explained by the fact that the speech acts that are expressed by (im)perfective positive imperatives are more salient for learners, as they are more frequent in the speech of monolinguals. This is especially relevant, due to the fact that 7 out of 10 of the L2Ls spent 3 months to 6 years of their lives in Russian-speaking countries; thus, they could have received their linguistic input during this time period.   However, it is difficult to hypothesize why the L2Ls’ performance in the imperfective positive category considerably diverged from the performance of the control group. It may simply suggest that the aspectual forms that are used in the speech acts in this category were not fully acquired by the learners, since they were not close to the monolinguals in terms of accuracy of their judgment. Yet they definitely demonstrated the knowledge of the more appropriate aspectual form in positive speech acts.       4.4.4 The HLs and L2Ls compared   Both groups of learners equally diverged from the monolinguals in the two negative categories. They did not only perceive the degree, to which a certain aspectual form is preferable in the context of the negative imperatives, they also did not sense a preference to a certain aspectual form. In fact, the learners showed a contradictory pattern when juxtaposed against the control group. This deviation may be explained by the fact       50   that HLs still lack variability in their input. Negative imperatives represent less frequent speech acts, produced in Russian in their homes, than positive imperatives. Moreover, HLs are well known for switching to English when a structure in Russian seems too difficult to formulate. Similarly, parents switch to the dominant language of their children (English) when something urgent needs to be completed, or when they want their children to react quickly (for example, making warnings in the situations of danger)15. Thus, parents limit the input of negative commands, and children hear them less often. The performance of L2Ls can be also explained by the bias towards accepting both options, rather than rejecting one. Mikhaylova (2012) found a similar pattern among the L2Ls when they tended to accept sentences rather than judge them as incorrect. She similarly reported that it was likely due to their linguistic insecurity and feeling less authorized to criticize anything in the target language. This tendency to accept rather than to reject was especially noticeable in the situations with a higher deviation from the baseline.   Also, both groups of learners demonstrated a deviation from the performance of the monolinguals in the situations where there was no aspectual competition. Yet the L2Ls were less sensitive to the nuances of the aspectual usage in such situations. For example, in the situations in which the monolinguals treated the target imperative structures as absolutely inappropriate, the L2Ls rated them higher or treated them as absolutely appropriate. Consider the following situation.                                                                                                                  15 It was observed by the author, while communicating with the friends who raise bilingual children in the US.         51   Včera vaš drug poprosil vas razbudit' ego v 6 utra. Na časax 6. Vy zaxodite v komnatu druga i govorite emu:   Saša, vstan'.PRF. Uže 6 utra.   Saša, vstavaj.IMP. Uže 6 utra 16.   In this situation, the monolinguals uniformly agreed that the perfective form was absolutely inappropriate, and the imperfective form was absolutely appropriate. This can be explained by the fact that an imperfective form here carries old information. Both speaker and listener were aware of the situation ahead of time. The HLs were closely in line with the monolinguals. Conversely, the L2Ls rated both forms as appropriate ones and ranked them at 4 or higher on the appropriateness scale.   Also, another pattern that is the characteristic of both groups of learners is their target-like performance in the speech acts of request. Requests are the most studied speech acts among L2Ls and HLs in general (Dorodnych 1995; Dong 2009; Ogiermann 2009, et cetera), and among Russian L2Ls and HLs in particular (Mills 1993; Dubinina 2011). L2Ls are expected to have a good command of request forms not only because requests are the most frequent speech acts in everyday life, but also because they are taught in the L2 classroom. Thus, it is not surprising that the learners in this category acquired the nuances of the aspectual usage very well.   In sum, the learners’ tendency to follow the patterns of the monolinguals across positive categories and in the preference for the appropriate aspectual forms account for the fact that the learners had a good understanding of the situations with aspectual                                                                                                                16 The situation is based on Rassudova’s (1968:109) example.         52   competition. Yet they are less perceptive to the subtle nuances in the situations where the aspectual competition is absent. As a mere speculation, I question whether or not a random selection of appropriateness was utilized which revealed the recorded results. Also, the learners seem to be less perceptive for the aspectual choice in the negative imperatives, with the L2Ls outperforming the HLs in terms of the overall tendency to feel the preference to an aspectual form.                       53     CHAPTER V     LIMITATIONS, SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS   Chapter V presents the limitations of the study, briefly reviews the major findings, offers suggestions for future research of direct imperative commands in the discourse of advanced language learners. Finally, it discusses pedagogical implications of the findings.     5.1 Limitations of the Research   This research has limitations based upon several different factors. First, the study is not representative of all types of learners, where a greater number of participants might have revealed different results. Additionally, the number of the monolinguals was small, consisting of only 20 subjects. Second, only one context for the imperative usage was the focus of this study: comprehension. A production study compared with a comprehension study could have revealed different results. Third, the task consisted of a variety of speech acts (with 14 situations as requests), but specific numbers for each were not predetermined. An equal number of each category of the different speech acts could have more accurately reflected the performance of the learners and may have given a broader assessment of their pragmalinguistic knowledge. Finally, the execution of the task was not proctored or timed and it is not guaranteed that the learners did not consult anyone while making judgments. Also, the cloze test applied in this study rated the learners’       54   mostly grammatical proficiency in comparison to the monolinguals in the same multiple- choice task. However, due to the constraints of this study, the oral proficiency of the participants was not measured (e.g. with ACTFL Oral Proficieny Interview). The differences in the scores of the two groups of learners are another limitation. It is difficult to say whether the revealed results are due to the learners’ difference in proficiency or to the nature of their bilingual experience (L2 vs HL). However, it is difficult to find HLs and L2Ls with the matched proficiency, even if they are in the same classroom. Future research could benefit from improving these limitations.     5.2 Summary   The analysis of experimental data allowed for capturing of subtle nuances in the pragmalinguistic competence of L2Ls and HLs that were different form the competence of the monolinguals. More specifically, the study established a better understanding of L2Ls’ and HLs’ abilities to comprehend the pragmatic meaning of the aspectual forms in a variety of direct imperative speech acts. Although, HLs equaled the monolinguals, and L2Ls were close to the monolinguals in the judgment of appropriateness in the positive imperative structures, both groups lacked the ability to comprehend aspectual appropriateness in the negative structures. While the study has limitations, it also makes a scholarly contribution to our understanding of the interlanguage of L2Ls and HLs of Russian, and has future implications for language pedagogy.   This study is one of the few to address learners’ pragmalinguistic competence in speech acts and, together with Dubinina (2010), it adds to the research describing the       55   heritage interlanguage system. There is some research about the restructuring of the interlangauge system of heritage speakers (Polinsky 2008a, 2008b; Pereltsvaig 2008; Isurin & Ivanova 2008, among others). However, pragmatic knowledge of HLs is a less developed area of study. The studies of the interlanguage of high-proficiency HLs (Laleko 2011; Mikhaylova 2011) suggest evidence that even learners at this level may have not acquired subtle language nuances at the pragmatic-grammatical interface and are unstable when it comes to the pragmatic meaning of aspectual change.   In addition to producing empirically-based data on heritage and second language Russian pragmalinguistics, this study provided empirical evidence of the nature of monolingual patterns in the speech acts with direct imperative structures; thus, supporting some theoretical claims about the aspectual choice in imperatives (Rassudova 1967; Forsyth 1972; Comrie 1976; Lehmann 1989). Also, it supplements Mills’ (1992) qualitative production study about the politeness in Russian speech acts of request and Mills’ (1991) study of directness and indirectness in Russian colloquial speech acts with empirical data from the comprehensive study.   Moreover, it adds to the body of research on L2Ls’ pragmatic competence, in general, and their knowledge of aspectual distribution in direct speech acts, particularly, educing areas for improvement.     5.3 Further Research   For further research, it will be interesting to compare both production and perception of imperative structures among learners of these two groups. Many       56   researchers claim that production and comprehension activate different processing mechanisms (DeKeyser 2001; Izumi 2003). Likewise, further analysis could benefit from grouping the situations according to their speech functions. This would provide us with a better understanding of what kind of speech acts pose more or less difficulty to learners. Additionally, it would be worthy to focus on low-proficiency learners and compare them with those of high-proficiency learners. If the results from two groups of different proficiency levels coincide or follow the same patterns, it can be concluded that a random distribution of answers could have taken place in the current study. Further study could also benefit from follow up interviews with learners or additional test questions after each situation in order to know what motivates learners to choose a certain aspectual form or to accept both forms as appropriate. In addition, it would be interesting to examine appropriateness judgements in less controlled sociocultural conditions (i.e. increased distance between speakers, social status, degree of imposition). It would also be intriguing to investigate how the politeness marker požalujsta influences the appropriateness of verbal forms in similar situations, and whether or not learner judgements would coincide with those of monolinguals. Finally, it could be informative to compare heritage speakers of other dominant languages for potential similarities and differences with the current data. These findings are also relevant for future linguistic and pedagogical work with HLs and L2Ls at intermediate-high and high proficiency levels. Experimental studies that focus on the nuances of language acquisition can reveal similar deviations in other domains and enhance HLs’ and L2Ls’ language proficiency.           57     5.4 Pedagogical Implications   In addition to the implications to the fields of pragmatics of heritage and second language acquisition, this research has important contributions to heritage and second language pedagogy. Pragmatic competence is reported to be rarely studied in the classroom (Bardovi-Harlig 2001; Ishihara & Cohen 2010). The review of several Russian textbooks highlighted the fact that aspectual differences in speech acts seldom warrant much attention (Golosa; Modern Russian: An Advanced Grammar Course; Načalo; Mir Russkix; Making Progress in Russian). However, explicit instruction on the correlation of aspectual forms with speech acts can be very beneficial, not only for L2Ls, but also for HLs, who even at advanced levels may sound a little ‘off’ but do want to develop target- like competence. For example, one strategy that has been implemented in my classroom was an exercise on recognizing different speech acts in relation to the type of situation and the aspectual form. First, the second year students were introduced to preferable aspectual forms in the speech acts of request, instructions and invitations. Then, they had to explain why a particular verbal form was used in the offered context. They were also asked how the context could be changed to fit a different aspectual form. The final step of this set of classroom activities was pair work. The students were asked to make up dialogues of their own to present two speech acts: requests and instructions. This excise was part of the topic ‘Media and Internet Communication’; thus, the students were asked to think of a situation where one student directs and helps the other to upload pictures onto Facebook. This set of pragmalinguistic exercises is just one of many classroom       58   activities that can help guide students towards contextually appropriate aspectual choices. Hopefully, the results of this study will help language instructors at advanced levels to address the needs of their students and apply specific pedagogical practices to improve their pragma-linguistic knowledge.                 59   TABLE 3:   Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Translations   HLs   Heritage Learners   HSs   Heritage Speakers   IMP   Imperfective Aspect   INF   Infinitive   L2Ls   Second Language Learners   PAST   Past Tense   PRF   Perfective Aspect   PRES   Present Tense   RNC   Russian National Corpus         60   APPENDIX A:   20 MOST FREQUEST VERBS IN NIN-PUBLIC SPOKEN CORPUS OF RNC   REFERENCES CITED   Perfective Positive   Imperfective Positive   Perfective Negative   Imperfective Negative   подожди/170   давай/808   не забудь/38   не говори/94   дай/159   слушай/357   не дай (бог)/29   не переезжай/32   скажи/144   смотри/214   не скажи/7   не трогай/18   посмотри/116   иди/172   не упади/7   не волнуйся/18   возьми/60   говори/83   не подумай/4   не обижайся/17   расскажи/57   бери/43   не вздумай/4   не говори/17   попробуй/40   звони/27   не обессудь/3   не ходи/17   спроси/37   будь/24   не считай/3   не бойся/14   позвони/37   приходи/22   не замерзни/2   не мешай/14   подожди/35   рассказывай/21   не испачкайся/1   не парься/12   прости/30   держи/20   не потеряйся/1   не ешь/11   забудь/30   передавай (привет)/17   не нажми/1   не покупай/11   возьмите/29   приезжай/17   не порежься/1   не забывай/10   представь/27   приходите/16   не растолстей/1   не смотри/10   приезжай/26   стой/16   не опоздай/1   не ори/10   забей/26   сиди/16   не тронь/1   не бери/9   погоди/26   думай/14   не утони/1   не спеши/9   сделай/25   садись/13   не урони/1   не расстраивайся/9   подумай/25   сходи/13   не порвите/1   не думай/8   покажи/22   пиши/13   не потеряй/1   не лезь/8               61   APPENDIX B:     THE MAIN TASK         Dear participant,     Thank you for agreeing to help us in our research on some aspects in the acquisition of the Russian language! In the first task, you will need to read the description of various short situations. At the end of every situation, you will be given two options to complete the situation. I would like for you to evaluate the appropriateness of each option. You will be able to use a sliding scale and move the cursor from 1 to 6, with 1 being absolutely inappropriate in the specifically described situation, and 6 being absolutely appropriate in the specifically described situation, or somewhere in betweenRate how appropriate the two options are, for the specific situation. Slide the cursor from 1 to 6, with 1 being absolutely inappropriate in the specifically described situation, and 6 being absolutely appropriate in the specifically described situation, or somewhere in between.       Q1 Ваш друг навещает вас в городе, в котором он никогда до этого не был. Вы опаздываете и не успеваете к прибытию поезда. Ваш друг уже сошел с поезда и ждет вас на перроне. Вы не можете его найти, звоните ему, просите описать место, где он стоит. Поняв, где он находится, вы говорите:   Your friend is visiting you in the city, in which s/he has never been. You are late and the train has already arrived. Your friend has already on the train platform. You cannot find him/her. You call him/her over the phone and ask him/her to describe the place s/he is standing. Having understood where your friend is located you say to him/her:     ______ Подожди меня там, я сейчас приду.   ______ Жди меня там, я сейчас приду.     Q2 (R17) Вы хотите что-то посоветовать вашему приятелю, но не знаете, как он это воспримет. Вы боитесь, что он может обидеться, но считаете, что сказать нужно. На всякий случай вы начинаете так: You want to give some advice to your friend but you are not sure about his/her reaction. You are afraid that s/he might be offended by your advice. But you still think that it is necessary to say what you want. So, you begin by stating:   ______ Не обижайся, но я хочу тебе что-то сказать.                                                                                                                  17 ‘R’ refers to the speech acts of request. My choice of the situations with the speech acts of requests can be argued, as some of them are at the intersection of requests and other speech acts. However, I tried to focus on less ambiguous cases.         62   ______ Не обидься, но я хочу тебе что-то сказать.     Q3 (R) Вы идете по улице, и вдруг впереди себя вы видите вашего друга. Вы давно его не видели. Вы очень хотите с ним поздороваться и пытаетесь догнать его, но не можете. Он слишком быстро идет. Наконец, вы кричите: You are walking down the street. All of a sudden, you see your friend, who is walking in ahead of you. You have not seen your friend for quite a long time and want to say hi to him/her. You speed up, trying to reach your friend but you cannot. S/he is walking too fast. Finally, you shout:     ______ Юра, жди.   ______ Юра, подожди.     Q4 Вчера ваш друг попросил вас разбудить его в 6 утра. На часах 6. Вы заходите в комнату друга и говорите ему:   Yesterday your friend asked you to wake him up at 6 in the morning. It is 6 am, you come into your friend’s room and say:   ______ Саша, вставай. Уже 6 утра.   ______ Саша, встань. Уже 6 утра.     Q5 (R) Представьте, что сегодня вам позвонил директор школы, в которой учится ваш сын. Он сказал, что ваш сын разбил окно. Когда ваш сын приходит домой из школы, в какой-то момент вы говорите: Imagine that the principal from the school, where your son studies, has just called you. He said that your son had broken a window. When your son comes home, at some point, you say to him:     ______ Говори, что случилось в школе.   ______ Скажи, что случилось в школе.     Q6 (R) Вы обедаете в семейном кругу. Суп, который вы едите кажется вам не досоленым. Вы говорите вашей маме. You are having lunch with your family members. The soup, that your are eating, needs more salt.     ______ Мам, дай соль.   ______ Мам, давай соль.     Q7 В конце урока преподаватель задает домашнее задание студентам и говорит:   At the end of the lesson, the instructor is telling the students about their home assignment, and says:     ______ Читайте сегодня дома этот рассказ.   ______ Прочитайте сегодня дома этот рассказ.           63   Q8 (R) Вы не знаете, как добраться до ближайшего продуктового магазина в незнакомом районе города. Вы спрашиваете прохожего на улице:   You don't know how to get to the closest grocery store in an unfamiliar part of the city. You ask a random person on the street:     ______ Скажите, как добраться до ближайшего продуктового магазина.   ______ Говорите, как добраться до ближайшего продуктового магазина.     Q9 Вы говорите по телефону с подругой. Вас постоянно перебивает кто-то из домашних. Подруга на другом конце останавливается каждый раз, когда вы отвлекаетесь на кого-то другого. Однако вы подбадриваете ее, говоря: You are talking to your friend over the phone. You constantly get interrupted by someone in your house. Every time when your friend hears that you are directing your attention to someone else, she stops talking. However, you encourage her to continue talking by saying:     ______ Говори, я слушаю.   ______ Скажи, я слушаю.     Q10 (R) Вы копались в ящиках вашего стола и нашли очень старую школьную фотографию. Вы думаете, что эта фотография была бы интересна вашему/вашей супругу(е). Вы подходите к супругу(е) и говорите: You were looking for something in the drawers of your desk and found a very old picture. You think that your spouse would be interested in seeing this picture. You come up to your spouse and say:     ______ Посмотри, что я нашла.   ______ Смотри, что я нашла.     Q11 Вы пришлашаете друзей в гости и говорите:   You are inviting your friends to your place and say:     ______ Зайдите ко мне вечером.   ______ Заходите ко мне вечером.     Q12 Ваш близкий человек доверяет вам секрет и напоминает:   Your close friend is trusting you with a secret and reminds you:     ______ Только не скажи никому.   ______ Только не говори никому.     Q13 (R) Вы на лекции. Преподаватель хочет привлечь ваше внимание к написанному на доске и говорит:         64   You are in a lecture. The professor wants to draw your attention to something written on the board and says:     ______ Посмотрите на доску.   ______ Смотрите на доску.     Q14 Ваша подруга постоянно опаздывает. Завтра у вас состоиться очень важное событие, на которое нельзя опаздывать. Вы говорите ей:   Your friend is always late. Tomorrow you will have a very important event, and she cannot be late for it. You say to her:     ______ Смотри, не опоздай завтра.   ______ Смотри, не опаздывай завтра..     Q15 Вы футбольный фанат. Вы смотрите прямую трансляцию матча по телевизору со своим соседом по комнате. В самый ответственный момент кто-то стучится в дверь. Никто не хочет открывать ее и пропускать интересный момент в матче. Стук становится настойчивее. Наконец, вы встаете, чтобы открыть дверь и говорите вашему соседу:   You are a football fan. You and your roommate are watching a football game on TV. At a very pivotal moment in the game, someone is knocking on the door. Nobody wants to open it and miss the important moment. The knock on the door is becoming more persistent. Finally, you get up to open the door and say to your roommate:     ______ Ладно, я открою, а ты смотри игру.   ______ Ладно, я открою, а ты посмотри игру.     Q16 Вы знаете, что у вашего друга вчера был экзамен, но вы не знаете результата. Увидев его сегодня, вы говорите:   You know that your friend had an exam yesterday. However, you don't know how it went. You see your friend and say:     ______ Ну, как дела? Расскажи.   ______ Ну, как дела? Рассказывай.     Q17 Вы договорились со своим другом, что он позвонит на железнодорожную станцию и закажет билеты на поезд, которые не удается купить онлайн. Он забыл. Вы говорите ему:   You and your friend have agreed that s/he will call the train station and order the tickets, because they are not available online. He forgot. You say to him:     ______ Ну, как же ты забыл? Звони сейчас.   ______ Ну, как же ты забыл? Позвони сейчас.         65     Q18 Студент входит в аудиторию для сдачи экзамена. Билеты лежат на столе перед преподавателем. Преподаватель говорит:   A student enters a room and is prepared to take his/her exam. The exam is on the desk in front of the professor. The professor says:       ______ Берите билет.   ______ Возьмите билет.     Q19 (R) Вы провожаете близкого человека. Он(а) уезжает в другой город на машине на пару дней. Конечно, вы хотите знать, когда он(а) туда доберется, и говорите:   You are seeing off a close friend. S/he is leaving for another city for a couple of days. S/he is driving there. Of course, you want to know when s/he will get there, and you say:     ______ Звони, как доберешься.   ______ Позвони, как доберешься.     Q20 (R) Во время спора отец говорит сыну:   During the argument, the father says to his son:     ______ Сделай одолжение, не говори глупостей.   ______ Делай одолжение, не говори глупостей.     Q21 (R) Кто-то из ваших домашних уходит на работу. Вы говорите:   Someone from your house is leaving for work. You say:     ______ Приходи домой пораньше.   ______ Приди домой пораньше .     Q22 Вы видите, что ваш друг хочет подвинуть сковородку, которая стоит на плите и в которой вы только что что-то жарили. Вы знаете, что сковородка еще очень горячая. Вы говорите:   You see that your friend wants to move the frying pan, which is on the stove and was just used. You know, that the frying pan is still very hot. You say:     ______ Не трогай, она горячая.   ______ Не дотронься, она горячая.     Q23 У вас гости. Вы пьете чай и говорите:   You have guests and are drinking tea, then say:           66   ______ Возьмите еще печенье, не стесняетесь.   ______ Берите еще печенье, не стесняйтесь.     Q24 Представьте, что ваш друг не очень симпатизирует приятелю вашей коллеги, которых вы ждете на ужин сегодня. Также помня, что во время вашего последнего застолья между двумя мужчинами вышла небольшая словесная перепалка, вы говорите мужу в предверии ужина:   Imagine that you are expecting your colleague and her boyfriend for dinner tonight. You know that your friend doesn't like your co-worker's boyfriend. You also remember that during your last dinner, the two men had a small argument. Before dinner starts, you say to your husband:     ______ Смотри, не скажи чего-нибудь за ужином.   ______ Смотри, не говори чего-нибудь за ужином.     Q25 (R) Кто-то звонит по телефону и просит вашего/у супруга/у. Он(а) спит, и вы не хотите его/ее будить. Вы говорите:   Someone is calling your spouse over the phone. Your spouse is sleeping, and you don't want to wake him/her up. You say:     ______ Позвоните через час. Он(а) сейчас не может подойти.   ______ Звоните через час. Он(а) сейчас не может подойти..     Q26 C коллегой вы решаете, кто поедет в командировку. Вам не очень хочется ехать, но вы не хотите показаться грубым и пытаетесь найти причину для отказа. Вы начитаете так:   You and your co-worker are deciding who will go on a business trip. You don't really want to go, but you don't want to seem rude. You try to find a reason not to go, and then you say:     ______ Не подумай, что я не хочу ехать, но …   ______ Не думай, что я не хочу ехать, но…     Q27 (R) Мама провожает своего 12-ти летнего сына на каникулы к бабушке и говорит:   Mom is sending her 12-year-old son on vacation to his grandmother and says:     ______ И не забудь поцеловать бабушку, когда приедешь.   ______ И не забывай поцеловать бабушку, когда приедешь.     Q28 (R) У вас есть плохая привычка забывать закрывать окно, когда вы выходите из офиса. Зная, что вы из офиса уйдете последним, уходя, ваш коллега напоминает вам об этом и говорит:         67   You have a bad habit of not closing the window when you leave the office. Your colleague, knowing that you will be the last one to leave the office this time, reminds you about this and says:     ______ Не забывай про окно.   ______ Не забудь про окно.     Q29 Ваш друг полез на шкаф, чтобы достать какую-то коробку. Вы знаете, что у стула, на который он встал, треснута ножка. Вы говорите:   Your friend wants to get a box from the top of the cabinet. You know that the chair he is standing on right now has a broken leg. You say:     ______ Смотри, не упади.   ______ Смотри, не падай!     Q30 Ваш друг возвращается из долгой поездки, вы его встречаете, но сильно расстроены чем-то и не можете показать свою радость. Вы говорите:   Your friend is returning from a long trip. You go to meet him, but you are very upset about something and can't really show how happy your are to see him. You say:     ______ Ты не подумай, я рад(а) тебя видеть, просто у меня большие проблемы.   ______ Ты не думай, я рад(а) тебя видеть, просто у меня большие проблемы.     Q31 Между двумя сестрами вышла перепалка: одна без спросу надела платье другой и пролила на него стакан чая. Та сестра, чье платье было испорчено, находится в очень эмоциональном состоянии и говорит:   There was an argument between two sisters. One of them had put on a dress without asking and spilled a glass of tea on it. The sister, whose dress was stained, is now in a very emotional state, and says:     ______ Не вздумай брать мои вещи без спроса.   ______ Не думай брать мои вещи без спроса.     Q32 (R) Вы заболели, у вас высокая температура, но вам нужно идти на деловую встречу. Ваши домашни вам, конечно, сочувствуют и пытаются вас отговорить от поездки. Все как один, они говорят вам:   You have gotten sick, and you have a high temperature. But you need to go to a business meting. Of course, your family sympathizes with you and tries to talk you out of going. All together, they say to you:     ______ Не ходи.   ______ Не пойди.           68   REFERENCES CITED   Aleeva, D. (2012). Negative transfer in the writing of proficient students of Russian: A comparison of heritage language learners and second language learners.   Andrews, D. (2001). Teaching the Russian heritage learner: Socio-and psycholinguistic perspectives. 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