In 2017, the research team of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language of AltSTU began work on the project «Linguistic and cultural approaches in the context of cross-border cooperation development of Grand Altai», which was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research within the framework of the regional contest «Russia’s Potential to Grow is Siberia and the Arctic Ocean».
The project of the department is aimed at studying the language picture of the world of the peoples of Grand Altai. The selected research topic has both theoretical and applied significance. For the first time, the cultural concepts of the Mongolian, Chinese, Kazakh, Uighur and Russian peoples are studied in a contrastive-comparative manner. The results of the research will be applied in the practice of teaching the Russian language to the students of Grand Altai. The project implemented by the team of the department has a socio-political significance: it creates the basis for an effective dialogue between representatives of neighboring countries. During the first year, the participants have carried out an extensive work on the project: they singled out the basic concepts in the language and culture of the studied peoples, developed a methodology for a comparative description of concepts and successfully tested it on the collected empirical material, and published results in leading scientific publications. Currently, a report on the work done for the year is being prepared. Next year the work on the project will be continued, the scientific team plans further study of the language and culture of the cross-border region, develops methodological recommendations for teaching the Russian language to the students of Grand Altai and introduces the results of the research into the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language.
