My research project focuses on the phenomena of so-called precedential texts (прецедентный текст; [pretsedentnyi tekst]) and precedential phrases in the Russian language. This conception was introduced by the linguist Yu.N. Karaulov in 1987, it has become a prominent part of Russian linguistics.

The term “precedential text” usually refers to texts that native speakers refer to or re-use in their speech as they consider significant and valuable for their culture. The most famous and widely used expressions from such texts are precedential phrases. However, the theory of precedential texts does not have clear equivalents or analogs in other European studies on language. In my research, the term “allusive expressions/phrases” will be used for expressions of speakers which refer to precedential texts.

The perception of allusive phrases includes not only the understating of their literal meaning but (and that is a priority) the knowledge of the extralinguistic aspects behind them. So, language learners may (and they usually do) face difficulties when they meet allusive phrases in real speech. So, the main objective of my research is to examine the effectiveness of learning Russian as a second language by building and using a corpus of examples of allusive (precedential) phrases.