Presentations on business topics in L3 Russian: What should we learn from the evaluation by natives?

Abstract

The paper focuses on oral presentations for business purposes in a foreign language (Russian). As an audio-visual discourse type, presentations require general communicative skills, presentation techniques, language proficiency, and the knowledge of culturally embedded, pragmatic practices which meet the expectations of the auditory. Against this background, this paper examines how native speakers of Russian perceive presentations by Russian speaking foreigners. This perceptual approach allows us to analyze a large complex of linguistic and non-linguistic features of presentations and to shed light on the expectations built up towards the realization of this discourse type within a certain language culture. Special attention is paid to linguistic characteristics of spoken communication that lead to the perception of a non-native accent, and towards the qualitative and quantitative impact of different types of linguistic errors on the evaluations by a native auditory.