Language taboos and ways to overcome them: the practice of working in a foreign audience

Abstract

Foreign students who speak the language at an advanced level can and should master all layers of the vocabulary of the Russian language, including taboo words and expressions. However, the selection of language material and building a system of training exercises are of great importance here. Only such systematic preparatory work, from our point of view, can give a positive result in the process of studying RFL. The author emphasizes that the two most important theoretical concepts that need to be introduced to students are linguistic taboos and euphemisms, and it is also important to talk about the relationship of these terms with each other. The main reason for euphemization is the desire to soften the meaning of what was said, to avoid conflict of communication, communicative failures. Euphemism, therefore, is a turn of speech that is used to soften it. Choosing taboo topics for discussion in the audience, we should limit ourselves to topics that would be relevant to students, and a set of tokens that would be feasible for them. At the same time, it is important to use texts of different styles of speech, mainly colloquial and journalistic. Nevertheless, examples of euphemisms can also be found in literary texts. It also makes sense to use such exercises, especially when it comes to writers familiar to the audience. The article gives examples of the most diverse groups of euphemisms: there are everyday, professional, economic, political, diplomatic, social tokens. All of them are united by the increased frequency of use and relevance for modern young people. The author concludes that any systematic work with taboo vocabulary in RFL classes allows students to develop their communicative competence, integrate into the cultural environment of linguistic speakers, and understand the national and cultural features of a particular ethnic group. That is why working with language taboos and ways to overcome them is a promising direction in the process of teaching the Russian language to foreign applicants for higher education.