Educational implications of Russian grammar as a mechanism of social assessment: adverbialization of case forms

Abstract

This study examines the phenomenon of Russian noun adverbialization in prepositionless case forms as both a grammatical process and an educationally significant phenomenon. The objective is to demonstrate how the dynamics of transposition, whereby nominal forms acquire adverbial meaning, can be integrated into the teaching of Russian grammar and discourse, contributing to the development of learners’ communicative and cultural competence. The methodological framework combines corpus-based linguistic analysis with theoretical perspectives from educational linguistics, including communicative competence theory, systemic-functional grammar, and socio-cultural approaches to learning. The results show that adverbialized forms function not only as intensifiers and emotional markers in discourse but also as cognitive challenges for learners, who must navigate shifting category boundaries. Their ambiguous status highlights the importance of teaching grammar in close connection with pragmatics and discourse, ensuring that students understand both structural features and socio-evaluative meanings. The study concludes that adverbialization should be systematically included in Russian language curricula as an example of functional-semantic transposition, enabling students to grasp the fluidity of grammatical categories and their role in meaning-making.