The Teaching and Mastery of Language. by A. K. Markova; Beatrice Beach Szekely; Michael
Cole
Review by: Clayton L. Dawson
Slavic Review, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Spring, 1981), pp. 154-155
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Slavic Review
154
Thus, whiletheabove analysisforSerbowhichthedata can be analyzedsynchronically.
Croatian is implicitin the data of the contemporarylanguage,it is much more easily
discoveredand motivatedby theplace of accentin thecognateRussianwords.In addition,
is oftenfacilitated
ofan alternation
bytracingitsevolutionthrough
thecorrectinterpretation
timeand space.
featureof Stankiewicz'sworkis thesharpdistinctionhe
Perhapsthe mostsignificant
and theaccompanying
drawsbetweenphonologicalv. morphologicalaspectsofalternations
claim thatthe latterare oftenrecruitedto expressgrammaticaland semanticoppositions
concatenationofstems
insteadofbeingmerephonologicalepiphenomenaoftheunderlying
and affixalelements.To illustratewithone briefexample,in thepast couple of centuriesa
stressfromtheendingto the stem-final
syllablein the
rulehas enteredRussian retracting
plural of oxytoneneuterand femininenouns: *kolesa > kolesa, *sela > sela. But mobile
nounssuchas zerkaldand deld neverundergotherule.Whynot?Ifsoundchangeis purely
betweenoxytonev. mobileis anomolous.The answer
phoneticin nature,thisdiscrimination
lies in Stankiewicz'sobservation(The Declensionand Gradationof Russian Substantives
[p. 66]) thatstressalternationsin Russiannounssupporttheoppositionbetweensingularv.
inthesingular
plural(as wellas directv. obliquecases). Thus,kolesa and sela haveend-stress
in thesingular(ze'rkalo,delo). Ifwe
(koleso',seki'>,whilezerkaldand deld haveinitial-stress
opposition,theretractions
supportthesingular-plural
accepttheviewthatstressalternations
mani*kolesa> kolesa and *sela> sela makeperfectsensein thattheyare simplya further
On theotherhand,extensionoftheruleto zerkald
festationoftheunderlying
generalization.
and deld would actuallyunderminethe singular-plural
opposition,sincethesenounshave
in the singular.
stem-stress
alternations
to be foundin
These data thussuggestthatmanyofthemorphophonemic
of theSlavic languagesare partof a network.To treatthemin isolationis to
theinflections
theirhistorical
evolution.
ofdiscovering
theprinciples
governing
denyoneselftheopportunity
MICHAEL KENSTOWICZ
University
of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign
THE TEACHING AND MASTERY OF LANGUAGE. By A. K. Markova. Edited by
BeatriceBeach Szekely.Forewordby Michael Cole. New York and London: M. E.
Sharpe and Croom Helm, 1979 [Moscow: "Pedagogika" Publishers,1974,underthe
titlePsikhologiiausvoeniiaiazykakak sredstvaobshcheniia].xii, 281 pp. $22.50.
The book is dividedintothreemajorsections:partone,Approachesand Guidelinesto StudyinLanguageas
ingtheAcquisitionand DevelopmentofSpeech;parttwo,School Instruction
Communicative
of
the
Children's
Learning
three,
and
part
of
Communication;
a Means
dialogues
Function(ExperimentalStudies). It also containsa longappendixwithillustrative
of bothSovietand
betweenteacherand pupils(pp. 237-68) and an extensivebibliography
works.
non-Sovietreference
The firstsectionof thebook focuseson theacquisitionof languageduringthevarious
school syllabusdesigned
stagesof infancyand childhoodand on theauthor'sexperimental
forgradesfourthrougheight.
of theutterance,exploringthe
The second sectiondeals withthe theoryand structure
relationshipsbetweenfunctionand formand betweenformand meaning.It also considers
problemsof teachinga systemof concepts,startingwiththe abstractand leadingto the
and earlysecondaryschool years.
specific,to pupilsduringtheelementary
The thirdsectiontreatsthe experimentalwork of the authorand her colleaguesin
ideas into practice,that is, teachingpupils (1) to master"the
puttingthe aforementioned
generalrelationbetweenlinguisticdevicesand thegoals and conditionsofcommunication,"
ofspeechstyle,and (3) to construct
(2) to developan awarenessof individualcharacteristics
varioustypesof textsin Russian.
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Reviews
155
Althoughthisbook purportsto be an importantcontribution
to theunderstanding
of
whatis involvedin languagelearning,it is veryhard reading.This is partlybecause of the
author'spenchantforjargon and tendencyto interchangetermsand partlydue to a bad
translation
for"review"in thecharton page 91).
(forexample,use of theword"repetition"
Indeed,thetitleThe Teachingand MasteryofLanguage is scarcelyan accuraterendering
of
theoriginalPsikhologiiausvoeniiaiazykakaksredstvaobshcheniia(literally,
thepsychology
of themasteryof languageas a means of communication),althoughit is possiblethatthe
publishers
mighthavefeltthattheoriginaltitlewas notjazzy enough.In addition,theauthor
overworkscertainwords,such as "control,""correct,"and "correctly."
The book's overriding
principleis thatone muststartwiththeabstractbeforegoingto
theconcrete.Ironically,in readingthisbook one would do wellto beginwiththelastthird,
whichtreatsclassroom proceduresusing specificexamples,oftenverbatim,in orderto
understandbetterthefirsttwo sectionswiththeirabstractdiscussionof thesubjectmatter.
CLAYTON L. DAWSON
University
of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign
PROKOFIEV BY PROKOFIEV: A COMPOSER'S MEMOIR. By Sergei Prokofiev.
Editedby David H. Appel.Translatedby GuyDaniels. GardenCity,N.Y.: Doubleday
& Company,1979. xii, 375 pp. + 56 pp. illustrations.$14.00.
SERGEI PROKOFIEV, A SOVIET TRAGEDY: THE CASE OF SERGEI PROKOFIEV,
HIS LIFE AND WORK, HIS CRITICS, AND HIS EXECUTIONERS. By Victor
Seroff.New York: TaplingerPublishingCompany,1979[New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968]. xiv, 339 pp. + 10 pp. photographs.$14.95, cloth. $7.95, paper.
The major disappointment
in thepublicationof SergeiProkofiev'smemoirs,Prokofievby
Prokofiev,cannotbe blamedon 'editor,translator,or publisher.The storysimplyendstoo
soon. It is a perfectly
charmingand at thesame timeexpertmix of memories,documents,
musiccriticism,
and evocationsof Russianlifeat theturnofthecentury.But
commentary,
the author managed to completeit only throughmid-1909.At that point,the whole of
Prokofiev'sprofessionallifestilllies ahead. He is onlyeighteen,just halfwaythroughten
yearsof studyat theSt. PetersburgConservatory,
whenthestoryends.Whata disappointment,especiallyafterthethoroughly
absorbing,richlyinformative,
and engagingly
written
accountup to then.
Prokofievsayshe begankeepingnotesfora "biographyofmyself"as earlyas 1919,but
he startedwritingitonlyin 1937.He optedfora leisurely,
detailednarrative,
completing
only
a draftof the sectioncalled "Childhood" and part of the one called "The Conservatory"
beforehe laid themanuscriptaside in 1939to takeup a "brief"autobiographyrequestedby
the editorsof the journal Sovetskaia Muzyka, in which he harnessedhis penchantfor
elaboratingdetail and carriedhis lifestoryall the way up to 1936,the year he resettled
in SovietRussia. Workon thebriefautobiography
permanently
in 1941.Two of
was finished
itsfourchaptersthenappeared,albeitwithcuts,in theApril 1941and April1946 issuesof
SovetskaiaMuzyka.Butthetextin itsentirety
(all fourchaptersfullyrestored,accordingto
theeditor)reachedthepubliconlyafterthecomposer'sdeath,whenitwas publishedin the
miscellanyS. S. Prokof'ev:Materialy,dokumenty,
vospominaniia,compiledand editedby
S. I. Shlifshtein
(Moscow, 1956;2nded., rev.and enl.,1961). Selectionsfromthismiscellany,
includingthe briefautobiography,appeared in Englishas S. Prokofiev:Autobiography,
Articles,Reminiscences(Moscow, 1961). It mustbe emphasized,however,thatthisbrief
has littlein commonwiththeexpansivememoirspublishedhereas Prokofiev
autobiography
by Prokofiev.
Prokofievreturnedto thedetailedmemoirsin 1945and workedon themsporadically
untilsome timeafterAugust28, 1950.The textendsfollowinga quotationfroma letterof
forty
yearsbeforeto hisconservatory
classmate,composerNikolaiMiaskovskii-a poignant
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