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.

Este trabalho propõe um estudo da poética e da vida literária de Marina Tsvetáieva com base em uma seleção de suas obras em prosa consideradas representativas de seu pensamento artístico, bem como de seus principais procedimentos compositivos. Para tanto, foi empreendida uma análise de forma e conteúdo dessas obras, integrada ao contexto histórico e literário em que foram produzidas, à luz dos recursos teóricos e interpretativos oferecidos por Tzvetan Todorov, Véronique Lossky, Joseph Brodsky e Walter Benjamin, entre outros. / This work proposes a study of Marina Tsvetaevas poetry and literary life based in a selection of her prose works considered representatives of her artistic thought as well as her main compositional principles. Therefore, it was done an analytic study of these works integrating them into historic and literary context that they were produced, in light of the theoretical and interpretative resources of Tzvetan Todorov, Véronique Lossky, Joseph Brodsky and Walter Benjamin, among others.

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As a reassessment of the southern grotesque, this dissertation places Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, and William Faulkner in context and conversation with the fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky. While many southern artists and intellectuals have testified to his importance as a creative model and personal inspiration, Dostoevsky’s relationship to southern writers has rarely been the focus of sustained analysis. Drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin’s deeply positive understanding of grotesque realism, I see the grotesque as an empowering aesthetic strategy that, for O’Connor, McCullers, and Faulkner, captured their characters’ unfinished struggles to achieve renewal despite alienation and pain. My project suggests that the preponderance of a specific type of character in their fiction—a physically or mentally deformed outsider—accounts for both the distinctiveness of the southern grotesque and its affinity with Dostoevsky’s artistic approach. His grotesque characters, consequently, can fruitfully illuminate the misfits, mystics, and madmen who stand at the heart—and the margins—of modern southern fiction. By locating one source of the southern grotesque in Dostoevsky’s fiction, I assume that the southern literary imagination is not directed incestuously inward toward its southern past but also outward beyond the nation or even the hemisphere. This study thus offers one of the first evaluations of Dostoevsky’s impact on southern writers as a group.

The increasing use of toxic substances is one of the most serious problems in today’s society. Recent tendencies such as widening of the variety of drugs available, intensity of drug circulation, and the decrease in age for first time users indicates that drug abuse is becoming one of the most alarming problems globally. Marijuana use remains the most widely used drug among the world population, and the number of cannabis users is increasing every year. The major focus of this research is on the young adolescents’ social environment and the risk factors for marijuana use that it produces. The influence of such elements of social environment as family, school, and peers is examined in this study. Evaluating the applicability of some theories, such as social control theory (Hirschi, 1969) and peer cluster theory (Oetting and Beauvais, 1986), to marijuana use of Russian and Canadian samples of adolescents between the ages of 14-16, this research employs the risk-focused approach. This approach requires the identification of risk factors for marijuana use for its prevention. The study involves making a comparative analysis of risk factors for marijuana use produced by social environment of the Canadian and Russian adolescents. The analysis is based on the data obtained within a World Health Organization Cross-National Study “Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children” in 2001/02. The method of logistic regression modeling is applied in order to examine which aspects of social environment of adolescents produce greater risks for marijuana use. The results shows that in spite of the differences between countries, peers have the strongest influence on adolescent marijuana use, which supports peer cluster theory. In addition, the study shows that young people’s own use of licit drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco, significantly increase risks of getting involved in marijuana use, which supports the major gateway hypothesis. Although these variables are not in the major research interest, they have strong predictive power, which can be discussed and examined in detail in future research.

A recent genre study by Erika Gottlieb (2001) divides dystopian literature into two temporal categories, which she calls West and East. Within this framework, Gottlieb places Evgenii Zamiatin’s We (1921) within her Western framework comprised of authors primarily concerned with envisaging future totalitarian societies. Conversely, she places Andrei Platonov’s The Foundation Pit (1930) within her Eastern framework of authors concerned with providing descriptive works of those totalitarian societies come to pass in the present. It is with these classifications that this thesis takes issue. It is my contention that in We Zamiatin was actually centrally concerned with providing a description and critical account of both the volatile, repressive socialist system of contemporary Leninist Russia and the claim that post-revolutionary Russia now inhabited a post-historical epoch. I further argue that in The Foundation Pit Platonov was as concerned with questions of the future as he was with the society of the present: in his implied criticism of Stalin’s Five-Year Plans, he engages not merely with the political policies of a particular moment in time, but with the larger view of how the present relates to the future which underlies them.

This thesis is a the comparative analysis of the motifs of advertising concepts as found in the German novel <em>Viktor Vogel</em>, by Alexandra Raumer, and the Russian novel <em>Generation P. </em>, by Viktor Pelevin. For reasons of readability, the work utilized is the German translation of <em>Generation P. </em> However, both the original Russian text and the German language film (which was produced prior to the German novel) have been used, and chapters regarding their interpretation are included. <br ><br /> The analysis of both novels contains discussion of the topic, function, and task of advertising in the text, as well as the manner in which marketing theory has influenced its literary manifestation. Additionally the relationships between advertising executives and clients are explored. <br ><br /> While the aspects aforementioned form the basis of the comparative analysis of <em>Viktor Vogel</em> and <em>Generation P. </em>, the thesis also includes work-specific researches. Regarding <em>Viktor Vogel</em>, the motifs of advertising found in the novel are compared to those which are present in the film. Likewise, concerning <em>Generation P. </em>, the advertisements in the Russian original are examined in comparison to its German language translation, and its interpretation is completed by a summary of the Russian advertising culture. <br ><br /> The results of this analysis concluded that in the work <em>Viktor Vogel</em> a strong measure of realistic and real-word advertising is maintained. Additionally, it is revealed that the focus of advertising in this work is primarily concerned with the internal processes of the marketing agency as opposed to actual advertisements, whose inclusion is solely for decorative purposes. The original movie, however, puts more emphasis on the depiction of the motif of advertising, providing more information than mere visual icons. <br ><br /> In contrast to these findings, the advertising found in <em>Generation P. </em> is in keeping with the absurd literary reality as created by Viktor Pelevin. The portrayal of advertisement activity is here strongly influenced by the economic changes that have taken place after the collapse of the former system. The advertising concepts in <em>Generation P. </em> complete three main tasks: the description of the environment, the development of the protagonists, and the representation of irony and satire. Advertising for foreign products concentrates on items, which enchance the prestige of the user (such as textiles, alcohol and cigarettes) and emphasize the actual product, whereas advertising dealing with genuine Russian items focus primarly on the service sector. Looking at the original text reveals significant differences between the German and the Russian edition which cannot to be put down to the high quality of the translation itself but are rather the result of later changes by Pelevin. It has become evident, that advertisements such as those found in the Russian novel encompass phenomena, which would be contrary to those which are used in the West.

The increasing use of toxic substances is one of the most serious problems in today’s society. Recent tendencies such as widening of the variety of drugs available, intensity of drug circulation, and the decrease in age for first time users indicates that drug abuse is becoming one of the most alarming problems globally. Marijuana use remains the most widely used drug among the world population, and the number of cannabis users is increasing every year. The major focus of this research is on the young adolescents’ social environment and the risk factors for marijuana use that it produces. The influence of such elements of social environment as family, school, and peers is examined in this study. Evaluating the applicability of some theories, such as social control theory (Hirschi, 1969) and peer cluster theory (Oetting and Beauvais, 1986), to marijuana use of Russian and Canadian samples of adolescents between the ages of 14-16, this research employs the risk-focused approach. This approach requires the identification of risk factors for marijuana use for its prevention. The study involves making a comparative analysis of risk factors for marijuana use produced by social environment of the Canadian and Russian adolescents. The analysis is based on the data obtained within a World Health Organization Cross-National Study “Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children” in 2001/02. The method of logistic regression modeling is applied in order to examine which aspects of social environment of adolescents produce greater risks for marijuana use. The results shows that in spite of the differences between countries, peers have the strongest influence on adolescent marijuana use, which supports peer cluster theory. In addition, the study shows that young people’s own use of licit drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco, significantly increase risks of getting involved in marijuana use, which supports the major gateway hypothesis. Although these variables are not in the major research interest, they have strong predictive power, which can be discussed and examined in detail in future research.

A recent genre study by Erika Gottlieb (2001) divides dystopian literature into two temporal categories, which she calls West and East. Within this framework, Gottlieb places Evgenii Zamiatin’s We (1921) within her Western framework comprised of authors primarily concerned with envisaging future totalitarian societies. Conversely, she places Andrei Platonov’s The Foundation Pit (1930) within her Eastern framework of authors concerned with providing descriptive works of those totalitarian societies come to pass in the present. It is with these classifications that this thesis takes issue. It is my contention that in We Zamiatin was actually centrally concerned with providing a description and critical account of both the volatile, repressive socialist system of contemporary Leninist Russia and the claim that post-revolutionary Russia now inhabited a post-historical epoch. I further argue that in The Foundation Pit Platonov was as concerned with questions of the future as he was with the society of the present: in his implied criticism of Stalin’s Five-Year Plans, he engages not merely with the political policies of a particular moment in time, but with the larger view of how the present relates to the future which underlies them.