Analysis of Cultural Texts in Russian as a Foreign Language Classes

The article examines the unprecedented phenomenon of cultural text and its potential application in the educational process. Referring to the works of Russian and foreign researchers, the authors derive a definition of cultural text – a set of cultural value meanings expressed in a symbolic form. A detailed analysis of verbal and non-verbal texts and their key characteristics is carried out. In particular, the primary features of such texts is the correlation of their content with the cultural space of the time when they were created, thanks to which they make it feasible to vividly present those tendencies that have already disappeared from the picture of the world of modern man, but gave rise to many concepts that continue to exist up to this day. From the authors’ point of view, the existence of cultural texts is the key to formati0on of a person’s cultural, intellectual and value potential. Considering the text-centric approach as one of the main ones used in classes of Russian as a foreign language, the authors give an example of the analysis of English and Russian texts and an algorithm for studying such works. It may prove interesting to characterize culture through a genre intrinsic to a certain era. The practical tasks explicated in the article also represent forms of work with various genres: songs, parables, author’s short stories-parables, proverbs, poems.