Normative aspects and adoption of orthographical content in Montenegrin higher education

Summary The development of literacy in Montenegrin society is a very reliable indicator of the state and level not only of the general culture and education, but also of the social culture. This lends immense significance to any work on improving the language culture in Montenegro in all of its diverse manifestations, as well as to the popularisation of the basic principles of good literacy. Orthography has an important place within the entire course of schooling in the Montenegrin language syllabus, and so it is very important to be developing and encouraging skills of linguistic expression among the student population, that is, perfecting their spoken and written use of language. In this paper we will deal with the normative aspect of students’ writing skills in the Montenegrin system of higher education. Our primary goal is to establish the quality of written expression and to highlight omissions in the application of orthographic knowledge of Montenegrin language to further contribute to the enhancement of functional knowledge associated with the orthographical culture of the student population in Montenegro. The sample consists of 100 first-year students from the Department for German Language and Literature of the Faculty of Philology and 100 students from the study programme for Translation (English/Russian and English/French group). Qualitative methodology was used to analyse the prevalence of certain types of mistakes in student tests, and comparative analysis of the tests was aimed at showing the degree of application of orthographical norms by students. It is nothing new that orthographical knowledge among students is not at a satisfactory level, and the results of this study confirm the hypothesis that the level of adoption of orthographical rules is not in line with the defined outcomes of the curriculum for Montenegrin language, as well as there being certain differences between students of different study programmes. Our analysis shows that one of the basic goals of the orthography of the Montenegrin language is not fully realised – the enabling of students to apply standard-level writing rules and the raising of students’ awareness of the importance of standard language norms. It is evident that students adopt orthographical rules that are fragmented and that orthographical principles are not viewed as a system, as evidenced by examples of the deviation from the norms.