Shamil Khairov (Glasgow University)
Abstract
What is a polithematic dictionary? How to dissect real life in a dictionary ‘for all occasions’? What is ‘a communicative fragment’ and why is it so important when learning a foreign language? These are the main questions discussed in the lecture.
Admitting that for effective communication one should possess a repertoire of ready-to-use collocations and phrases the authors found a theoretical support in Boris Gasparov’s concept of ‘communicative fragment’ – a linguistic unit which speakers are able to reproduce spontaneously as part of the process of language production, and which at the same time, can undergo an infinite variety of modifications and fusions.
The second part discusses treating expressivity and contractions like мухосранск or старпёры (старые пердуны) in Russian for All Occasions.
The ways the dictionary can be used in class, in independent language learning or in translation practices are considered in the conclusion
Biografie
Dr Shamil Khairov is Slavist by training (Ph.D. from St. Petersburg State University) and has taught Russian, Polish and Slovak languages in Britain, Ireland, Slovakia and other parts of Europe. He also speaks Bulgarian, Czech, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Slovene.
From 2005 he works as lecturer in Russian at the University of Glasgow. He is a designer and convener of the Russian for Social Scientists postgraduate programme. Shamil Khairov is a co-author (with J. Dunn) of Modern Russian Grammar (Routledge, 2009) and Russian For All Occasions. A Russian-English Dictionary of Collocations and Expressions (Routledge, 2019). His other publications deal with Slavonic lexicography, phraseology, and inter-cultural reception of different strata of Slavonic languages.
One of his most popular courses for undergraduate students is Russian 20th Century Visual Culture: he delivered it as guest lecturer, partly or in full, in several European universities.
Shamil Khairov is a keen black-and-white photographer and has had solo exhibitions in Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Belgium, Scotland and Russia.