Shcherba Lev Vladimirovich - an outstanding Russian linguist, considered the founder of the St. Petersburg phonological school. Every philologist knows his name. This scientist was interested not only in the Russian literary language, but also in many others, as well as their relationship. His work contributed to the active development of linguistics. All this is an occasion to get to know such an outstanding scientist as Lev Shcherba. His biography is presented in this article.
Studying at the gymnasium and university
In 1898 he graduated from the Kyiv gymnasium with a gold medal, and then entered the Kyiv University, the natural faculty. The following year, Lev Vladimirovich moved to St. Petersburg University, to the department of history and philology. Here he worked mainly in psychology. In his 3rd year, he attended lectures on introduction to linguistics by Professor Baudouin de Courtenay. He became interested in his approach to scientific issues and began to study under the guidance of this professor. Shcherba Lev Vladimirovich in his senior year wrote an essay awarded a gold medal. It is called "Psychic Element in Phonetics". In 1903 he completed his studies atUniversity, and Baudouin de Courtenay left Shcherba at the Department of Sanskrit and Comparative Grammar.
Business trips abroad
St. Petersburg University in 1906 sent Lev Vladimirovich abroad. He spent a year in Northern Italy, learning Tuscan dialects on his own. Then, in 1907, Shcherba moved to Paris. He got acquainted with the equipment in the laboratory of experimental phonetics, studied French and English pronunciation by the phonetic method and worked independently on the experimental material.
Studying the Lusatian dialect
In Germany, Lev Vladimirovich spent the autumn holidays of 1907 and 1908. He studied the dialect of the Lusatian language in the vicinity of Muskau. Interest in this Slavic language of the peasants aroused in him Baudouin de Courtenay. Studying it was necessary to develop a theory of mixing languages. Lev Vladimirovich settled in the vicinity of the city of Muskau, in the countryside, not understanding a single word in the dialect being studied. Shcherba learned the language while living with an adoptive family, participating in field work with her, sharing Sunday entertainment. Lev Vladimirovich designed the collected materials into a book, which was submitted by Shcherba for a doctoral degree. In Prague, he spent the end of his trip abroad learning the Czech language.
Experimental Phonetics Room
Shcherba Lev Vladimirovich, having returned to St. Petersburg, began to work in the laboratory of experimental phonetics, which was founded in 1899 at the university, but was in a state of disrepair for a long time. This office is Shcherba's favorite brainchild. Having achieved subsidies, he ordered and built special equipment, constantly replenished the library. For more than 30 years, under his leadership, research has been continuously conducted here on the phonological systems and phonetics of the languages of various peoples of the Soviet Union. For the first time in Russia, in his laboratory, Lev Shcherba organized training in the pronunciation of the languages of Western Europe. Lev Vladimirovich in the early 1920s created a project for the Linguistic Institute with the involvement of various specialists. For him, the connections of phonetics with many other disciplines, such as physics, psychology, physiology, neurology, psychiatry, etc. were always clear.
Lectures, presentations
Starting from 1910, Lev Shcherba gave lectures on introduction to such a subject as linguistics (linguistics) at the Psychoneurological Institute, and also taught phonetics classes at special courses designed for teachers of the deaf and dumb. In 1929, a seminar on experimental phonetics was organized in the laboratory for a group of speech therapists and doctors.
Shcherba Lev Vladimirovich made presentations at the Society of Otolaryngologists several times. His connections with voice and diction specialists, with singing theorists and with the artistic world were no less lively. In the early 1920s, the Soviet linguist Shcherba worked at the Living Word Institute. In the 1930s, he lectured on the Russian language and phonetics at the Russian Theater Society, and also read a report at the Leningrad State Conservatory, at the vocal department.
Lab Development
In the 1920s and 1930s, his laboratory became a first-class research institution. New equipment was installed in it, the composition of its employees gradually increased, and the range of its work expanded. Researchers from all over the country began to come here, mainly from the national republics.
The period from 1909 to 1916
From 1909 to 1916 - a very fruitful period in the life of Shcherba in scientific terms. He wrote 2 books during these 6 years and defended them, becoming first a master and then a doctor. In addition, Lev Vladimirovich led seminars on linguistics, Old Church Slavonic and Russian, and on experimental phonetics. He taught classes in comparative grammar of Indo-European languages, each year building his course on the material of a new language.
Doctor of Philology Lev Shcherba since 1914 led a student circle, which studied the living Russian language. Its active participants were: S. G. Barkhudarov, S. A. Eremin, S. M. Bondi, Yu. N. Tynyanov.
At the same time, Lev Vladimirovich began to perform administrative duties in several educational institutions. Shcherba was looking for opportunities to change the organization of teaching, to raise it to the level of the latest achievements of science. Lev Vladimirovich steadily struggled with routine and formalism in his pedagogical activity, and never compromised his ideals. For example, in 1913 he left the St. Petersburg Teacher's Institute, since now the mainfor the teacher, it was not the communication of knowledge, but the implementation of bureaucratic rules that supplanted science and hindered the initiative of students.
1920s
In the 1920s, his most important achievement was the development of the phonetic method of teaching a foreign language, as well as the spread of this method. Shcherba paid special attention to the correctness and purity of pronunciation. At the same time, all the phonetic phenomena of the language had scientific coverage and were assimilated by students consciously. An important place in Shcherba's teaching activities is played by listening to records with foreign texts. All training, ideally, should be built on this method, as Shcherba believed. It is necessary to select plates in a certain system. It is no coincidence that Lev Vladimirovich paid so much attention to the sound side of the language. He believed that a complete understanding of speech in a foreign language is closely related to the correct reproduction of the sound form, up to intonations. This idea is part of the general linguistic concept of Shcherba, who believed that the oral form of the language is the most essential for him as a means of communication.
Lev Vladimirovich in 1924 was elected to the All-Union Academy of Sciences as its corresponding member. Then he began work in the Dictionary Commission. Its task was to publish a dictionary of the Russian language, an attempt to create which was made by A. A. Shakhmatov. As a result of this work, Lev Vladimirovich had his own ideas in the field of lexicography. He carried out work on compiling a dictionary in the second half of the 1920s, strivingapply theoretical constructions in practice.
French Tutorials
Lev Shcherba in 1930 also began to compile a Russian-French dictionary. He created the theory of differential lexicography, which was summarized in the preface to the 2nd edition of the book, which was the result of Shcherba's work over a period of ten years. This is not only one of the best French textbooks from the Soviet Union. The system and principles of this book were the basis for the work on such dictionaries.
However, Lev Vladimirovich did not stop there. In the mid-1930s, he published another manual on the French language - "French Phonetics". This is the result of his twenty years of teaching and research work on pronunciation. The book is based on a comparison with the Russian pronunciation of French.
Reorganization of foreign language teaching
Lev Vladimirovich in 1937 headed the general university department of foreign languages. Shcherba reorganized their teaching, introducing his own method of reading and understanding texts in other languages. To this end, Shcherba led a special methodological seminar for teachers, demonstrating his techniques on Latin material. The brochure, which reflected his ideas, is called "How to learn foreign languages." Lev Vladimirovich for 2 years in charge of the department has significantly raised the level of their students' skills.
Shcherba was also interested in the Russian literary language. Lev Vladimirovich participated inwidely developed at that time, work on the settlement and standardization of spelling and grammar of the Russian language. He became a member of the board that edited Barkhudarov's school textbook.
Last years of life
Lev Vladimirovich in October 1941 was evacuated to the Kirov region, in the city of Molotovsk. He moved to Moscow in the summer of 1943, where he returned to his usual way of life, immersing himself in pedagogical, scientific and organizational activities. From August 1944, Shcherba was seriously ill, and on December 26, 1944, Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba died.
The contribution to the Russian language of this man was enormous, and his work is relevant to this day. They are considered classics. Russian linguistics, phonology, lexicography, psycholinguistics are still based on his works.
