What happens to the Russian language in the Internet? Will we learn to read books soon? Is it only illiteracy is behind epidemics of distortion of words? And is it so good to return to the practice of examinations? One of the leading Russian philologists, Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Higher School of Economics Hasan Huseynov tells about this and much more about this and much more.

Psychologies: Today a lot is said about the danger of the influence of the Internet on our language. Do you agree with these fears?

Hasan Huseynov: Any technology affects the language. For example, philologist Roman Timenchik wrote at one time a wonderful article “To the symbols of a phone in Russian poetry”. And there are described some features of speech and behavior acquired by a person with the appearance of a phone. Say, the phone – an ordinary old stationary apparatus – was usually put under a mirror. And people, talking, often looked at him. Our great-great-great-grandfathers at the sight of our grandfathers at the phone could probably say that they behave the way people behaved at the altar before. In this sense, the phone has changed a person a little as an anthropological type. In general, normal technological development occurs. It is always fraught with fears, but the photograph at one time did not kill painting, a movie – a photograph, and television – cinema.

But what to do, for example, with epidemics of intentional distortion of words that roll from the Internet?

G. G.: All this was before, long before every Internet. It seems that Dovlatov has a funny story about how Brodsky walked at night along Leningrad with Anatoly Naiman and suddenly asked where the southern cross is in the sky – which, as you know, in our hemisphere is not visible. Naiman, laughing, advised Brodsky to find in the encyclopedia to the letter “A” the article “Astronomy”. And Brodsky in response suggested that Naiman himself look for the letter “A” “Astroumium” in the same place. This is a violation of the rules, the game with words is a trait of a creative person, on all sides of the fences and barbed wire made from the tongue. And of course, such a person tries to distort all this, break. This is a normal phenomenon, the desire for freedom. I think such a game has existed since there is writing, although not – probably also before.

But the scale of the spread of all these “Afftar Zhzhot” and “Noyosny” today is not comparable with the previous times.

G. G.: Of course, but after all, the number of these “fences” in our language is already close to critical. The Internet just made it possible to bypass them. It seems to me that the main problem is the fact that the Russian language is in principle considered in society belonging, on the one hand, to the state-to all ministries, deputies and other authorities, and on the other hand, linguistic professionals. Therefore, ordinary people always feel the language in which they say, a little not their own. In competent people, it is not a creative attitude to the language, but a wary: “I have not crossed what borders”. Prescribing attitudes with us dominate the describing. And even a researcher of the language is considered a person who does not describe what language, but authoritatively indicating what he should be. After all, we have all the dictionaries – normative. So right, so wrong, and with mandatory notes: outdated, spacious. Already a dictionary marginalizes options and shapes. And as a result, normativism and conductism are obtained – trouble that was brought up in native speakers of the Russian

language throughout almost the entire last century. One thing is right, the other is not, one norm, the other is distortion. This slows down the language, it loses its flexibility, and just against this ultimately all the erratizes are directed – intentional distortions that you are talking about.

To make the language a little more?

G. G.: Exactly. And languages in which there is a tradition of inclusion in the dictionaries simply what is, in which attention is paid to the practice of use – these languages gain a huge advantage.

For example, English, willingly including the same words born on the Internet?

G. G.: Yes! English constantly incorporates new words, completely not bothering where they came from. The main criterion is that they are used by people, native speakers. There, the entire French dictionary can be found, a huge number of Greek words, Latin – through French mediation or directly – German, Russians. This language constantly takes everything, masters and adapts everything. And returns, and completely not imposed on anyone. Therefore, I think, English will continue to rise, intensify as an international language.

Hasan Huseynov was born in 1953 in Baku. In 1975 he graduated from the classical department of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, in 1979 he defended his thesis in the same place. A student of the outstanding philosopher and philologist Alexei Losev. In 1992-1997 he taught at universities in Denmark, Germany and the USA. In 2002 he defended his doctoral dissertation. Since 2007 – Professor of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, since 2012 – Professor NIU High. The author of several books and more than a hundred scientific works, in 2004 and 2012 he was a member of the short list of the literary prize Andrei Bely.

Back to the influence of the Internet. It turns out that you do not see anything negative in it?

G. G.: Of course, I see, and a lot, but this is not quite what you are talking about. In my opinion, one of the main ones – and, of course, frightening – the influences of the Internet is that with its appearance the word ceased to disappear and forget. There was a horror, which Socrates was afraid, who said that writing would lead to the fact that people would stop working for people, they will not be able to distinguish between important and not important, will record all nonsense, which will once fill in all human existence. It is clear that he defended the hierarchical function of the language: when only a small group of the initiates knew what to teach people, and what should be forgotten about. Humanity has long been from this, but the problem is now this particular property. Words, texts, once appearing on the network, do not go anywhere, a person drags them along. And if you still need to find the book, and then find something in the book itself, then Google will do everything instantly on the Internet. If you compare the volume of the current “unforgettable” words with the past, then the difference is huge. At the same time, the meanings of many of these words are no longer very good for himself. People have always used agnonyms-words whose meanings they do not understand, some kind of share in our dictionary these agnonyms formed earlier. But imagine a situation when most of our dictionary makes up a huge massif of not understood, unrelated words and expressions that are at the same time in constant everyday life. After all, many use the word “idiosyncrazia” or, say, “homeopathy”, even having no idea what it is. And there are already hundreds of such words – pronounced without any meaning, just like that! I do not want to look like an Alarmist and exclaim “what a horror!”, But this is already a noticeable phenomenon. We found ourselves in a very interesting world, where the characters of Platonov and Zoshchenko suddenly found the flesh and lead lively conversations.

You can probably say that the Internet is changing our consciousness?

G. G.: It is better to contact specialists with this question. I can advise, for example, the well -known book of Nicholas Carr The Shallows, translated into Russian as “Dummies”, is just about the cognitive threats of the Internet. But, in principle, you are right: the influence of the network language and behavior in general on the consciousness is evident. Consciousness is weakened. The cognitive and communicative functions of the language are oppressed, and expressive and manipulative are enhanced. Hence – sharp judgments, screaming alologism, contempt for rationality. Working a lot with students, I observe rapidly dispersion of memory, fatigue from the perception of large text. At the same time, a person reads it today, maybe even more than before – more characters pass before his eyes. But he reads them to a very small depth. Give students compact texts – they are perfectly absorbed, they are easy to operate with them. But these are the texts are really small, in one screen of a computer without scrolling. And you just have to take a longer text – and it turns out that some logical connections in the heads of yesterday’s schoolchildren are no longer restrained for a long time. Why did a certain event happen and to which point to return to understand it? Identification of keywords, reference points in a large text – all this becomes a serious problem.

G. G.: Change the learning procedure itself. Young people need to give difficult tasks for growth. They must write a lot themselves. Develop written speech and accumulate written in order to return to the texts read after some time. Parents want their children to read? Then we must realize that it is now not enough to read: to learn how to love to read, you must first learn to write.

In this regard, you must welcome the return to the practice of works in exams?

G. G.: No. The composition is not at all right. Unfortunately, such a thing as a presentation is completely knocked out of our education. In those almost primitive times, when I studied, first taught to write expositions, and only then works. Sorry, but the composition, in general, can write any fool. As a form of narrative, an essay is much easier. Because the presentation sets a certain framework, requires knowledge of the text – sufficient to retell this text in his own words. This is thus a more difficult task: the text first needs to be understood – and the text is usually written by a good writer. And it was necessary to return to school a presentation, and not at all an essay. And the second thing that the idea of returning to the composition does not take into account is the game. In general, the main influence of the Internet on a person is a game influence. Especially for young people, among whom are played in certain games. And the element of the game in learning is absolutely necessary. Schoolchildren and students need to teach to write texts in which they would do some operations on intentional distortion, if you want, already read text. That is, that very gaming erratic practice, a parody must be put into the case.