"A Distant Land of Snow ...": Russian Language Learners' Representations of Russia

Extensive research has been done on language learners' perceptions and representations of the target language country, culture and speaking community. However, first of all, there is a lack of such studies in the context of Russian language teaching and learning. Secondly, no attempt has been made in the previous studies to quantitatively assess the favourabillity of the country images held by the language learners. The present study addresses these gaps in research literature. It employs an interdisciplinary approach to explore the content of Russian language learners' stereotypical representations of Russia and to assess favourability of these stereotypes. The findings indicate that the students' representations of Russia were predominantly positive though their knowledge about the country was limited. The study offers a discussion on pedagogical implications of its findings.