The Institute of Philology and Journalism, SSU, has hosted the international scientific conference entitled Modern Speech Communication in Various Spheres of Society, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of an outstanding linguist, Professor of the Department of Russian Language, Speech Communication, and Russian as a Foreign Language Olga Sirotinina.
The conference was opened by Chair of the Department of Russian Language, Speech Communication, and Russian as a Foreign Language Alla Baikulova. She noted that in June, at a scientific seminar in honour of the Prof. Sirotinina’s anniversary, it had been decided to hold a conference at which her friends and colleagues who had respected and appreciated the professor not only as an outstanding linguist, but also as an extraordinary person would gather. And now this significant event has taken place.
Vice-Rector for Research and Digital Development Aleksei Koronovskii addressed the conference participants. ‘Saratov State University holds about two hundred conferences a year, but it has never been more significant and large-scale. This is a unique event in the history of our university. It is remarkable that Olga Borisovna lectures to students, publishes research papers, and her contribution to the development of linguistics is invaluable. Professor Sirotinina laid the foundations of the scientific school related to the culture of speech and the theory of communication. Olga Borisovna continues to publish her works – a monography has recently been published, prepared jointly with Professor Anna Degaltseva. Olga Borisovna's articles and memoirs can be regarded as a book of life and an example of how to serve science and the university.’
Chair of the Department of Literary Studies and Journalism, Professor Valerii Prozorov marked that the speech communication is one of the most important issues today. ‘The very fact of the conference is historical. Historical on the scale of our institute, our university, and our national humanities education. The conference programme is structured in such a way that it gives an opportunity to feel the strength, power, and beauty of Professor Sirotinina's scientific school. Here are the reports of her students, the successors of her work, her colleagues of different generations, in which she has shared part of her soul. This conference is the students’ report to their professor. A report related to the school of extreme rigor, balance, clarity, intelligibility, which are found in Olga Borisovna’s creative handwriting,’ Valerii Prozorov said.
Head of Priority Projects and Programmes, Professor Elena Yelina shared her impressions of communication with Prof. Sirotinina. ‘Olga Borisovna has discovered the laws of the order of words in the Russian language, seen in colloquial speech a layer that lives by its own rules, and convinced the linguistic world that the culture of oral speech is not only a cultural phenomenon, but, first of all, the linguistic one. This means that it requires for itself purely linguistic methods of presentation and study. And Olga Borisovna herself is a phenomenon, and, therefore, requires a special, completely new language of description and scientific analysis. Phenomenal memory and efficiency, self-control and control over her nearest and dearest, discipline, and interest in all aspects of life – that is all about Olga Borisovna.’
Professor of Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, Chair of the Russian Association of Researchers and Teachers of Rhetoric Vladimir Annushkin joined online. He addressed Prof. Sirotinina. ‘We are thinking now about you, about your life, and about how much you have brought to the life of each of those present with your achievements as a scholar, teacher, as well as kind and warm-hearted person who pays us attention and shows us how to work.’
Olga Sirotinina is a member of the International Academy of Higher Education, Honoured Professor of SSU, Honoured Scientist of the Russian Federation, and Honourary Worker of Education. In her welcoming speech, she noted that the main role in her life was played by her mother, daughter, brother, and grandmother. She pointed out that, despite all the difficulties of life, one should not give up and continue going towards one's goal.
At the plenary session of the conference, the scholars considered the issues related to the history of linguistics, scientific literature, as well as Prof. Sirotinina's contribution to the study of linguistic ecology and the theory of speech culture. Its hosts became Alla Baikulova and Professor of the Department of Russian Language, Speech Communication, and Russian as a Foreign Language Margarita Kormilitsyna.
Professor Yurii Kadkalov introduced the audience to the history of linguistic science in Saratov. He spoke about the periodisation of the development of linguistics and about such scientists as Aleksei Shakhmatov, Nikolai Durnovo, Grigorii Ilinskii, Max Fasmer, Alexander Lukyanenko, Aleksei Yefremov. One of the students of Professor Lukyanenko was Lidia Barannikova, Olga Sirotinina’s scientific supervisor.
Alla Baikulova recalled Prof. Sirotinina's contribution to the study of linguistic ecology. She drew attention to the fact that Olga Sirotinina’s scientific life is connected with the struggle for the purity of the Russian language, its preservation, and development. Thanks to this struggle and the joint efforts of linguists, the Russian Language Federal Target Programme and the On the State Language of the Russian Federation Federal Law were published, more and more scholars are creating dictionaries, reference books, and monographies on this topic.
Professor of the Department of Language Theory and History and Applied Linguistics Andrei Romanenko spoke about the theory of speech culture by Valentin Goldin and Olga Sirotinina. Prof. Romanenko noted that the scientific concept developed by them has a global, synthetic character and describes not only the relations of language and culture, but also the unity of these phenomena.
Professor Vladimir Annushkin presented a report on modern scientific literature in tradition and computer-digital transformation. He commented on the genera and types of scientific speech and paid special attention to the genre of oral communication between a researcher-professor and a fellow student.
Professor of the Department of National History and Historiography Anatolii Myakshev focused on the birth of the Soviet human being as a social and cultural type. He quoted from Olga Sirotinina’s diaries and the writings of Young Guards, confirming the emergence of a new historical community in the Soviet Union – the Soviet people.
Professor of the Department of Russian Language, Speech Communication, and Russian as a Foreign Language Olga Myaksheva presented a report, prepared with Olga Sirotinina. It was dedicated to the diaries of Olya Brin-Sirotinina and comments on them. Prof. Myaksheva shared her work on the diary entries included in the And Life Will Fly by Like a Dream ... book and the Nevertheless, I Am a Happy Person book of memoirs. Professor of Belgorod State University Vera Kharchenko participated in the conference online and presented her view on Olga Sirotinina's memoirs as a textbook of life and read impressive fragments devoted to Prof. Sirotinina’s fate.
Professor Margarita Kormilitsyna presented the report on meta-text commentary as an effective property of modern media text – its functions and means of its representation. As a research material, the professor chose the A Week with Dmitrii Popov heading in the Moscow Young Communist newspaper. In her speech, she touched upon the joint scientific work with Prof. Sirotinina and the professor’s contribution to the professional development of her students.
The conference continued with the following sessions – Oral speech and its place in modern communication, Modern speech communication in the university and school educational environment, Institutional discourse, Media sphere and media language, Literary text and literary discourse: topical issues of correlation, Speech culture and its formation in modern communicative practices.
Linguists from different Russian cities took part in the conference, namely Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Penza, Perm, Samara, Saratov, Taganrog, and Elista, as well as researchers from Poland, Armenia, and Mongolia.
