The Department of the Russian Language has a rich history (was founded in 1919); it initially consisted of prominent linguists and skilled professionals, devoted to the Russian language science. Currently the Department employs the Candidates and Doctors of Sciences who successfully combine teaching students with doing a lot of research work in linguistics (that is supported by the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation); the results of their scientific research is presented in their monographs, textbooks and scientific papers. Every year the Department publishes an interuniversity collection of scientific works, and carries out national and international conferences. The Department’s lecturers are recognized by the scientific community, they are invited to various scientific forums, conferences, congresses, and meetings both in our country and abroad.
The Department is in charge for the Laboratory for Extra-Linguistic Research there they study problems of describing and preserving Vyatka region dialect, as well as problems of a current state and development of a city language. Some rich linguistic data has been collected by several generations of teachers and students participating in numerous expeditions to various Kirov regions’ areas. A multi-volume edition of "Dictionary of Vyatka dialects" has been preparing, that is of huge cultural and scientific importance for our region. The Laboratory has created a phonetic fund named "Vyatka’s speech" that contains about 300 hours of recorded local speech belonging to different age, professional and social groups.
The Department follows the latest trends in science and education, develops new study courses, and provides textbooks and monographs reflecting both fundamental linguistic ideas and problems of contemporary language using.
Also the teachers of the Department carry out various educational events for locals: e.g. lectures on methods of the Russian language teaching and problems of speech culture. They prepare high school pupils for Olympiads and the Unified State Exam in the Russian language. They conduct seminars and round tables on linguistic issues. Some of the Department lecturers are involved into a social project of a newspaper "PROGOROD" named "The Russian language lessons" and prepare and carry out Literature Hours at the Academic Library named after Herzen; they held competitions and contests in the Russian language, etc.
Thus, the Department of the Russian language works in various spheres, but all their efforts aimed at the most important thing. That is keeping the Russian literary language as a whole in its richness, uniqueness and beauty.
