The problem of language education from the perspective of the Russian linguacultural tradition and Russian linguists of the late 19th–early 20th centuries

This paper aims to analyze views of Russian linguists of the late 19th–early 20th centuries on the issue of language education and find out whether they agree or disagree on the methods of teaching lan- guages. We also aim to identify correlations that their views have with methodological theories of foreign scholars of different epochs. To fulfil the aim, the following methods were used: general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, comparison), the descriptive-analytical method and the comparative-contrastive meth- od. The scope of the findings includes such aspects as the connection between language and thinking in educational contexts; the role of textbooks in teaching young learners; the role of children in the evolution of language; positive and negative sides of learning foreign languages, ancient languages, the history of language, regional and local dialects; theoretical and practical, internal and external aspects of learning languages, the problems of bilingualism; national and individual languages; social and cognitive functions of language, and other issues. The results obtained lead to the conclusion that in the majority of cases the three Russian scholars (I. I. Sreznevsky, F. F. Fortunatov, I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay) share each other’s points of view despite the fact that they belong to different research schools. The ideas they developed in the late 19th–early 20th centuries are further discussed and revised by other linguists and methodologists. All quotations analyzed in the paper show some mainstream ideas and convictions characteristic of the Russian linguistic tradition and fundamentals of Russian culture at the turn of the century.