PhD Completion Seminar - Natasha Kabiak

You are warmly invited to join Natasha Kabiak at her PhD completion seminar:

Title: ‘Winged phrases’ from Soviet cinema: the usage and dynamics of high-frequency film quotations in modern Russian

Soviet cinema is one of the most popular sources of quotations in contemporary Russian (Kozhevnikov 2001, Kudriavtseva 2008, Elistratov 2010).  Despite an ongoing scholarly interest in this phenomenon, only a limited number of studies have been dedicated to tracing the specific trajectories of ‘winged phrases’ from Soviet films – that is, phrases from films, as they make their way into spoken and written Russian.  This research examined the contexts, as well as how and why, popular winged phrases from Soviet films have been incorporated into contemporary Russian language practice.  Drawing on theoretical insights based on the concept of ‘dialogism’ (Bakhtin), the field of semiotics (Lotman, Clark) and Coulson’s space structuring model, this study examines online communication within the ‘Quotations from Soviet Cinema’ group on the VKontakte social network, as well as from online questionnaire responses, posts on the Yaplakal online discussion forum and headlines of the prominent Russian newspapers Komsomolskaya pravda – Moskva, Izvestiya and Literaturnaya gazeta.  Data analysis provides the first detailed description of the use and dynamics of winged phrases from Soviet films in contemporary spoken and written Russian.  The study points to winged phrases from Soviet cinema taking on a role as a new folklore genre; new contexts of usage and transformation types of such phrases are also evident.  The study also demonstrates that there is value in including winged phrases from Soviet films into the curriculum of Russian taught as a foreign language and suggests some likely worthwhile directions for further research.

Date: Wednesday, April 17
Time: 1.30 pm
Location: Room 506 Babel building (139)