Search

The purpose of this study is to determine the destination and typological features of “Remarques sur la langue russienne et sur son alphabet” (Notes on the Russian language and its alphabet) by Fyodor Karzhavin (1791) which is one of the most uncommon linguistic works of the 18th century. Research methods are the following: linguistic analysis of this work, its comparison with linguistic works published in Russia in the 18th century, consideration of the author’s biography helping understand the features of the work, consideration of this work in the context of Catherine II's philological interests. The results of the study are the following: 1. The work by Fyodor Karzhavin is a reference tool applied to transliterate Russian names in Latin letters in different European languages. However, it could also be used as a self-study book of Russian letters and sounds for European scientists. 2. The originality of this work consists in the modernization of the Russian civil alphabet for transliteration of Russian words by Latin letters. The second feature is the introduction of new names for Russian letters. The third one is the comparative approach to describing their pronunciation. 3. The work by Fyodor Karzhavin could have been addressed not only to French geographers and historians who needed the transliteration of Russian proper names, but also to European scientists who had to use “Comparative Dictionaries of all languages and dialects”. The study shows how the practice of Russian words transliteration by Latin letters in the 18th century was developed. Also, it shows that the Karzhavin’s work is culturally and historically associated with the grandiose linguistic project of Catherine II “Comparative Dictionaries of all languages and dialects”. This association has never been noticed by previous researchers of this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to colour naming study of medicinal herbaceous plants in Russian and Kazakh languages. The fundamental principles of Russian and Kazakh scientists, dedicated to studying this issue, are presented in this work. Similarities and differences in color naming of the compared languages are revealed according to analysis, which indicate the importance of color naming in linguistic world view of two nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study makes a case for purposely elaborated text entry arrangement criteria in THREAT-corpus. THREAT-corpus (Russian language, 10.4 m words) was built in 2018 to investigate “sociocultural challenges/threats” in fiction, non-fiction and internet news texts. Various types of sociocultural threats and challenges, spread around the Internet and literature, strongly influence modern culture and ideology. The aim of the study is to substantiate the approach to text entry arrangement in the corpus. For the purpose linguists analyzed the conceptual domain “sociocultural challenges/ threats” and built a frame of the domain. So, frame “sociocultural threats” was by design implemented as a cognitive foundation for the corpus. The set of methods used included conceptual analysis, framing, representative sampling, cognitive modeling. The methods applied made it possible to collect texts, detect and describe sociocultural threats in diverse types of discourse and, consequently, to analyze cognitive aspects of frame-based corpus elaboration. With the objective to optimise analytical processing, all text entries were grouped by the following criteria: 1) discursive characteristics and strategies; 2) types of threats represented; 3) types of cognitive mechanisms for text arrangement. The first criterion groups texts as representative samples of different types of discourse. The second criterion allows for categorizing texts by content. The third criterion creates a cognitive foundation for text entry arrangements. Combining corpus elaboration with linguistic frame analysis resulted in more precise configurations of cognitive models in the conceptual domain “sociocultural threats/challenges”. Word frequency for lexemes, manifesting sociocultural challenges appeared to be an important factor of conceptual structures representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes functioning of phraseological units of the Russian and English languages in scientific and artistic discourses. Scientific and artistic types of discourse manifest almost diametrically opposed features. The research shows that stylistically neutral phraseological units and praseologisms-euphemisms prevail in scientific discourse. Emotional phraseologisms occur, but seldom. In general, occurrence of phraseological units in scientific discourse is not as frequent as in artistic one. To the contrary, artistic discourse, as opposed to scientific discourse, employs units of different classes, mostly with marked connotation which is more often pejorative, rather than ameliorative. In the course of the research some universal and specific characteristics in the functioning of phraseological units of Russian and English in scientific and artistic discourse have been singled out. The analysis of usage of phraseological units of the Russian and the English languages in similar types of discourse is the basis for the comparison of phraseological units, identification of meaningful patterns and peculiarities of usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Axiological worldview reflects the most important part of the linguistic worldview, i.e. values and their antipodes –disvalues. Linguistic axiology sees fictional text as a source of information about the values of the language speakers. Comparative linguistic axiology is a promising trend of research, as it doesn’t only help to understand mentality of a language speaker but also reflects values of different communities. Studying language in an axiological aspect involves dyad method. Axiological dyad means unity of values and disvalues which are expressed by language means: lexical units, phraseological units, morphemes, word order in a sentence, punctuation, artistic means (epithets, metaphors, similes.) The article looks into the values and disvalues expressed in the novels and the ways of their representation. Having analysed Galina Tscherbakova’s and Nick Hornby’s artistic texts we have singled out the value and disvalue that go through their works, i.e. happiness/unhappiness. Galina Tscherbakova and Nick Hornby are the writers that help the reader determine genuine values of life. Characters of their works are mostly young people in pursue of happiness or in the anticipation of it. A reader sees a seeking character of N. Hornby’s novels while the character of G. Tscherbakova’s books has already found him/herself, has perceived the meaning of life. The article studies common and specific features of the novels of both writers, making the point that the categories of happiness/ unhappiness are moral constants, which appear in various epochs almost unaltered. In the novels of the above mentioned authors these categories retain their specific traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to identify and describe the main aspects of the sociocultural analysis of a foreign language textbook. The material of the study was 5 Russian language textbooks for foreigners of the Beginner level, and 5 textbooks on Russian phraseology for foreigners of the Intermediate level. The following research methods were used: critical analysis of the scientific literature on the textbook expertise; content analysis of Russian language textbooks for foreigners on the following aspects: analysis of topics and situations, analysis of sociocultural units, analysis of forms of sociocultural units presentation, analysis of the author’s attitude to the textbook sociocultural context (the image of the target language country); systematization of data obtained as a result of the analysis. As a result of the study, the main aspects of the sociocultural analysis of a foreign language textbook (choice of topics and situations, selection of sociocultural units, forms of the sociocultural units presentation, author's attitude) and criteria for their expertise were highlighted. The criteria for the choice of topics and situations are the following: their presence or absence in the textbook, their conformity or discrepancy to the standards and requirements for each level of Russian as a foreign language. The selection of sociocultural units is carried out according to their presence or absence in the textbook, degree of representation of these units, presence or absence of parallels with other cultures. The criterion for analyzing the forms of sociocultural units representation is the presence or absence of sociocultural units in texts, exercises, as well as techniques ensuring their acquisition. The author's attitude to the sociocultural context can be defined by the image of the target language country which is created in the textbook, as well as by the form and emotional coloring (negative or positive) of the sociocultural units used by the author. The results of the study can be used by foreign language teachers, authors and reviewers of textbooks, and specialists on applied linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is aimed on the research of individual style of Vladimir Nabokov writing through the analysis of colour collocations with component “grey” functioning in the novel Lolita and in the author’s translation of it into Russian. The problem is reviewed by the researchers from the positions of Combinatorial Linguistics and Semantics of Colour. The methodological base of the study is “Harmonious Translation space” conception developed by Prof. L.V. Kushnina (Russia, Perm). As for the result we can assume that in Lolita and its translation Nabokov used different collocations to define colour. Analyzing them we can better understand his individual style and what was the most important to him as the author and translator. For example, in Russian translation the colour pallette is much wider and there are allusions that only language speaker can understand. Nabokov didn't translate one word the same way throughout the book. He also could explain some things which he thought didn't exist in the reader's worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the present time the need to learn a foreign language is not in doubt as foreign language learning (FLL) can significantly expand cognitive abilities like memory, perception, thinking and personal enrichment, similarly, it contributes to promotion in career, advancement of communication skills and travelling opportunities, just to name a few. The main issue today concerns the organization of teaching and learning that can ensure a higher level of language acquisition. In this respect there comes up a question: how to organize this process to make it faster, productive and more efficient. Recently foreign language online courses (FLOCs) have become increasingly popular. The reason is their availability and convenience for learners of all ages, education and employment. In addition, the World Wide Web has become actively involved in the dissemination of foreign languages around the world – now even the most inexperienced user can easily find a convenient resource for learning a new foreign language online. However, like any formats of learning it has strengths and weaknesses. As English is widely promoted on social networks, all sorts of groups are massively being created striking the potential users with countless methodological programs. Besides, the Internet offers a huge selection of various textbooks, multimedia and other technical means, both paid and free. There is no doubt that in this connection a person is lost when choosing a program, method or resource of learning. The objective of the presented research study is to assess the relevance of introducing online foreign language courses for adult learners. For this study, we used modern marketing methods such as SWOT analysis and the Hofstede model for the study of cultures. The results demonstrate intricacies of the Russian culture for online learning including foreign languages. The practical significance of the study is to provide the results of research on the introduction of modern techniques in traditional education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The real situation of linguistic variation is extremely complicated, as far as not only dialects and literary language, but also all other forms of language existence are included into the processes of territorial variation. Thus, language variation is the result of the simultaneous influence of both territorial and social factors. The subject of the research is variation of the frequency of phonetic and lexical regional-specific speech features under the influence of such social factors as gender, age, place of birth and education. The research focuses on the Perm regiolect of the Russian language. The research method is statistical analysis of regional peculiarities of pronunciation and use of regional lexis in spontaneous monologues of the native speakers. The sample of informants (56 people) is balanced according to the gender, age (3 age groups), place of birth (the capital of the region, other settlements) and education (secondary, higher). The research material demonstrates that phonetic and lexical regional features depend on the same social factors – “place of birth” and “age”. Therefore, it can be assumed that territorial and social factors make up specific clusters within a regiolect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results of a linguistic associative experiment with 144 Russian informants with given social characteristics on the naming of the words characterizing men and women for a research of a problem of studying of formation of gender stereotypes in language consciousness of native speakers of Russian are presented in the article. The research showed that the gender stereotypes of masculinity and feminity created in language consciousness of Russians depend on a sex, age, education level and specialty of native speakers. The found sociolinguistic variability of gender stereotypes confirmed a hypothesis that the structure of this cognitive formation is mobile. The original author's technique of the analysis and modeling of structures of gender stereotypes is offered. On the one hand, group gender stereotypes have a certain stability as representatives of all social groups of society mark out similar signs of a masculinity and feminity (the core of the stereotype). On the other hand, the ratio of zones of group gender stereotypes shows trends of stereotyping of signs of a masculinity and a feminity in group language consciousness what the discrepancy of stereotypes in various social groups testifies to: the signs important for some social groups can’t coincide with the signs significant for other social groups. The gender stereotypes created in language consciousness of various social groups show in general changes in linguocultural Russian community (feminization, change of valuable stereotypes or ideas for social roles of the man and woman, etc.). All these changes are reflected in the use of certain words by native speakers of Russian for characteristic of men and women and also in stereotypic representations and ideas of men and women about each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current theory of multilingual mental lexicon interprets it as a multidimensional network that exists in human brain and integrates units of different languages into a complex holistic structure. The network is put into operation by the spreading activation mechanism that determines retrieval of the necessary information during speech activity. It is assumed that activation in multilingual mental lexicon is non-selective: nodes of all the languages known to an individual can receive the activation impulse simultaneously and compete for retrieval. In the present paper the authors describe an experimental research modeling activation routes in mental lexicon of trilingual speakers: native speakers of the Komi-Permyak and Russian languages who are learning English as their third language. The method of chained associative test with the equivalent stimuli words in the three languages was applied. The research results prove that, though the activation impulses sent by words of three different languages can vary in certain aspects (their direction, length of the activated word chain and the type of nodes it includes), they eventually provide access to the identical lexical-semantic network that exists in trilingual mental lexicon. The occurrence of non-selective activation within this network is ensured by a variety of inter-nodal connections that join words of different languages together and form a multitude of diverse spreading activation routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modern Russian language is characterized by the increase in the use of invectives in speech. Invectives are a socially significant phenomenon; therefore their study is relevant for both linguists and the society. The increase in the use of invectives deserves a special consideration taking for the study the dialect material extracted from one dialect system, since it can provide an insight into the functioning of invectives in a separate social stratum. Research material: the whole corpus of invectives recorded by the authors in Latgale (the south-eastern part of Latvia) consists of more than 3,000 units. All of them have been recorded by Jelena Korolova in the period 1977-2019 from the Old Believers of Latgale (they appeared in Latgale after the Church Schism of 1666). The Old Believers’ most important prohibitions regulating their everyday behaviour are prohibitions on foul language and smoking. Research approach and methods: we analyse invectives that serve to express “strong negative emotions by strong means of language” (Vladimir Zhel’vis), but only those that have never been tabooed and have always been rather acceptable in the given society as they have never been considered to be obscene in character (in a broad sense). Offensive words, abusive language, and curses occupy a special place in the language of any culture. Expressions of negative emotions in a language are more diverse and numerous than expressions of positive emotions. The linguistic peculiarities of the expression of negative emotions by means of invectives, their structure, motivation and functional valency are considered within the framework of the ethno-linguistic approach to the study of linguistic material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fairy-tale describes the events that are impossible in real life; it often combines fantastic, invented and real layers. But the most important purpose of a fairy-tale is not only to make a reader or a listener imagine fabulous actions and characters but also to teach a lesson of kindness and justice, to speak about important things in life in a vibrant and bright manner. Both a fairy-tale and a fable convey moral values, but the difference between them is that a fable moral is expressed explicitly while in a fairy-tale it is an implicit one. One can understand a fabulous moral only by understanding the underlying meaning of a fairy-tale. Implications can be revealed on various levels. Firstly, it can be perceived at the object level, i.e. through the description of certain aspect of reality and certain characters and animals. Secondly, implications can be disclosed by analyzing expressive language of a fairy-tale. Analysis of metaphorical level of a fairy-tale involves revealing the double nature of the plot, assessing the events and characters. And third, the final stage of decoding implications of a fairy tale is studying an ideological level of a text, disclosing its conceptual idea and narrator's thoughts. Generally speaking, it is the structure of a fairy-tale that allows us to perceive "moral" of a fairy-tale and the message conveyed. Fairy-tales existing in different languages have both similar, universal meanings and different, unique. Thus, animal fairy-tales of Russian and English languages in general sympathize with the weak and claims victory of the good over the evil. English fairytale, as well Russian one bears philosophical principle. Difference in implication is determined by the different moral values of the speakers. Thus, English fairy-tales tend to pay more attention to the material things; they are more edificatory and moralistic than Russian ones. Therefore, studying implications and decoding messages of fairy-tales in different languages clarifies moral values of the speakers of these languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is devoted to the description of the ethnopsycholinguistic features of Vietnamese students, the study of their national and cultural specifics and language consciousness. Vietnamese language, like any other language, is associated with various forms of public consciousness that contain a large ethnic component. The authors study Vietnamese culture through the Vietnamese language consciousness, through the prism of the Vietnamese language, which, in turn, is considered as a form of fixing the culture and describe the verbal and non-verbal ways that the ethnocultural information is transmitted (language - consciousness - ethnos). The main task of the work was to describe the structure of the linguistic consciousness of Vietnamese students using the method of associative experiment, as it allows making the linguistic consciousness of native speakers visible. A large number of Vietnamese students at our university allowed us to conduct the associative experiment. For an associative experiment, words denoting emotions such as joy, sadness, anger, love, hate, fear, envy, jealousy and hope were taken. According to the ethics of the study, the principle of anonymity was observed during the experiment. As a result of the analysis of the questionnaires, some psycholinguistic features of the mentality of Vietnamese students were identified, which were confirmed by Vietnamese proverbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study focuses on the intersection of ethnic identity in the political discourse in ethnically binary post-conflictual (post-Soviet) territories, exploring it through the postcolonial approach to performativity, Judith Butler's theory on performativity and its certain concepts in further performativity research. Jana Egle's book "Strangers or Milenkij Ti Moj" 1 (Svešie jeb miļeņkij ti moj, 2018) projects a specific interpretation of Russians, i.e. as a complex concept represented through speakers' ethnic, political, social and language performativity. A collection of stories that virtually forms a plot-united composition focuses specifically on the determination of Russians as "strangers" simultaneously deconstructing many stereotypical markers of the concept "Russians" in Latvia. By frequently using the elements of the Russian language in Latvian, the stories of the book argue that both the use of "Russianness": Russian words and Russian cultural signs, are a common and widespread practice in the Latvian everyday language and household culture and that the image of Russians is an integral component of Latvian social and political discourse which faces clichés and different attitudes to Russians among Latvians in Latvia. Just like identity forms the foundation for the discursive significance of the performativity, the book by Egle dwells upon the question of what the inclusive or exclusive tactics of the definitions of the Latvian social identity and the ethnicity of "Russians" is in the process of construction of the Latvian identity. Rather than providing a political reading of a character "Russian" and concept of Russianness, determined by the events and consequences of the Baltic annexation by the Soviet Union and the resulting colonial instrument - Soviet hegemony, the essay offers a critique of the representation of the stereotypical perception of Russians in Latvia and distinguishes different alternative cases that can be viewed through the lens of the concept of performativity. In this article, I investigate the linguistic performativity of everyday practices - doings and sayings - that work to constitute identities through different affective intensities. Examples of body performativity show body modifications of particular ethnicity representatives by which the power of action on the body is increased or diminished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is devoted to the empirical confirmation or refutation of an intuitively obvious assumption that more frequent words retain the inflectional type well, while less frequent words tend to change under the influence of analogy. This situation was confirmed in similar works during the study of verb unification process with an irregular declension in English and German: it was proved that the more frequent an irregular verb is, the more time it takes for it to transform into a regular one. However, the Russian language is arranged somewhat differently: there are several types of inflection in the verbal system of Russian language, each of which has its own peculiarities. The object of this study was the variability of forms in Secondary Imperfectives, and the goal was to reveal the patterns of evolution for the variation forms of a Verbal Paradigm Center. Specific tasks to be solved: highlighting the cases of norm change for 2 centuries; the obtaining of change of numerical characteristics for the most 'conservative' members of a paradigm, the suffix selection patterns. Based on the data from the Google Books, the frequency of the conservative form use concerning the so-called 'redundant' verbs was performed. Thus, the following hypothesis established: if the variability is observed in the compositional structure (according to Frege), then the main cognitive mechanism of evolution is the 'regularization versus stability'; if a structure is non-compositional one, then the mechanism of a word semantic meaning delimitation is added, accompanied by the change in the frequencies of competing forms separately under the influence of a particular meaning relevance in society. A classification draft of a set of Secondary Imperfectives with the affix variation is given at the end of the article, depending on the nature of affix change and the factors affecting it (alternation of vowels in a root and l-epenteticum before an affix). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores functional and semantic peculiarities of the lexico-semantic field "power" in the Old Russian language of the XI-XIV century. The most commonly used and succinct in the above mentioned field are the lexemes vlast' / volost' ("power") which were originally synonyms but later they acquired specialized meanings. Gradually, the originally undivided meaning of the lexeme "power" including the following senses: possession, tenancy, land and territory was divided into separate meanings acquired by specialized social terms. The conceptual sphere connected with realization of the concept of power was constantly enriched with new language units: both derived and underived. This group included both terms meaning exercising of power and the names of territories under some power, social status of people and abstract notions. The main research methods include the following: method of conceptual analysis allowing to reveal the main characteristics of the cultural content inherent to the corresponding terms, method of vocabulary contextual and semantic cognitive analysis. Method of etymological analysis allows to reconstruct the most ancient Slavic ways of understanding the term "power". The authors conclude that the Old Russian developed a well structured terminological system allowing to name different aspects of power, it is this system which still exists in the language. The semantics of the language units of the lexico-semantic field "power" is closely connected with social, political and economic changes. The research materials are important for understanding the social evolution in Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of the research is the comparative study of French and Russian idiomatic phrases. The study of idiomatic phrases in the process of learning a foreign language is an important element in learning this language. Idioms are one of the ways not just to learn foreign languages, particularly French, but to understand samples of expressive speech that contributes to broaden the mind. The article presents the lexical-semantic analysis of idioms of French and Russian and explores the similarities and differences in the structure and semantics of idiomatic phrases in Russian and French. The authors discuss the expressiveness of idioms and cross-language equivalence, as well as international and national origin in the semantics of idiomatic phrases and their component structure. The study of idioms, especially comparative study helps to understand culture and life of different peoples, to learn effectively a foreign language and to translate them correctly. They present one type of the familiarizations for people who learn foreign languages, particularly French, to samples of expressive speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a part of a research project which is aimed at the creation of corpusdriven semantic field of the concept of "empire" in Russian, English and Czech languages. The result will be a lexical semantic net (thesaurus) with frequency characteristics and usage examples for lexical units. This paper presents results of automatic creation of the semantic field in Russian. Achievement of the goal is provided with the solution of a number of tasks, in particular, the corpus research of semantic relations of the word "empire" with other words based on distributional and statistical methods. The main tool of the study is Sketch Engine system. Text material is represented by corpora of Russian texts of XVIII-XX centuries. The major thematic content is history, literature, journalism, and philosophy. Results obtained show that usage of text corpora and corpus tools makes it possible to detect syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations in the automated mode and to create broader and more adequate filling of the lexical-semantic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of a study into communicative failures typical of a foreigner's written speech are presented in this paper. Among numerous barriers hindering the process of communication in a foreign language (in our case the Russian language), those barriers which impede further development of communicative exchange and sometimes render it almost impossible, are of particular interest in this study. The goal of a specialist in teaching methods is developing a technology for the identification of communicative failures in accordance with a certain criterion. The clarification of its character is the purpose of this article. By a communicative failure we intend such a failure, where a communicative act does not perform its function. Written texts in a learned language received as a result of a psycholinguistic experiment were used as language material for the research. During the experiment a corpus of extracted written texts with specification of respondents' gender, age, and social status was gathered. For the purposes of analysis a task implying filling in a questionnaire in a non-mother tongue, which requires quite short and unambiguous answers from a respondent, was chosen. Nevertheless, in some cases, because of substitution of basic information for secondary (clarifying) information the answers could be variously interpreted and, consequently, applied to different communicative situations. On this basis we made the following conclusion: a speech act associated with more than one context provides a high degree of freedom for interpretation of its goal and, hence, allows for different ways of responding to its contents. Just such a speech act can be qualified as a failed act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Locative constructions describe various aspects of event's positioning in the threedimensional space according to the concrete place of its accomplishment, in particular Earth. This type of location is usually considered to be weekly connected with the characteristics of the event in question. However, this specification is highly important for the semantic interpretation of the text as well as understanding the whole structure of the situation. In the prepositional system of Russian there are many items oriented to the spatial or plane localization, which may have several levels of positional accuracy, sometimes overlapping or embracing each other. Combination of original prepositions with nominal endings provides a continuum of partly similar types for the positioning of the event. We collect a number of locative uses for original prepositions as well as derivative ones and arrange them according to the frequencies of specified meanings in the collection of modern Russian texts. Different semantic aspects of locative constructions organize the complex semantic domain "Locative". We present its structure divided into several intersecting sub-domains: (1) positioning of a single object in a spatial world and its surfaces; (2) positioning of two or more objects in relation to each other; (3) trajectory specification for a moving object by means of relations to objects localized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is devoted to the study of the novel by Vladimir Nabokov "The Luzhin Defence" as a reflection of the sensual picture of the world of the writer himself. The scope of the study is limited by the verbs of perceptual vocabulary of the novel. Notable, this work has brought the writer world fame, in addition of interest is the sensual world of the protagonist, which is very similar to the worldview of Nabokov, which allows the analysis of perceptive sensations of the main character to form an idea of the specifics of the perception of the world of the author of the work. In the field of the study were lexical units and lexical combinations, verbalizing the three leading modes of perception: vision, hearing, touch. The conclusion about the hierarchy of perceptual information channels was obtained using the statistical methods while analyzing the text. The analysis showed that sensory vocabulary is an integral part of the artistic system of Vladimir Nabokov. In many respects we can say the individual patterns of the perception worldview, characterized by high degree of aesthetic and emotional impact of the author's works on the reader, are important. Nabokov's ethics is based on the realization of the greatness of man; the only way to resist the cold hostile world is the ability to aesthetic perception and fixation of reality. Thus, in the first place in the frequency of use marked verbs of vision, the second - the verbs of hearing, and the third - the verbs of touch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to analyze the normativity of syntactic constructions with preposition "po" - one of the most frequently used prepositions in modern Russian business language. To achieve the purpose it is essential to accomplish the following objectives: firstly, to determine the directions and reasons of semantic extension of this preposition; secondly, to systematize the criteria of normativity developed for these constructions in Russian linguistics; thirdly, to estimate various types of constructions with "по" according to these criteria. The research has been conducted on the materials of the National Corpus of the Russian Language, using descriptive linguistic methods (context and transformational analysis of language units) and the regulatory and stylistic method. It is stated that the basic semantic function of such constructions in Russian business language is to indicate relations and the extension of their sphere of application is connected with ellipticity that corresponds to the principle of linguistic economy, as well as with their tellingly official nature. The following criteria of normativity have been specified for constructions with "po": functioning within the semantic field of purposeful activity; absence of vernacular or slangy connotation; easiness of interpretation; absence of pleonasticity; idiomatic nature of the expressed semantics. A "normativity scale" of constructions with "po" has been suggested: both grammatically and stylistically wrong variants; variants belonging to the area of administrative slang, grammatically abnormal but stylistically feasible; grammatically correct variants belonging to the official style of the literary Russian language including official clichés; stylistically neutral variants conveying "subject" semantics. The research systematizes the existing data on application of constructions with preposition "po" in Russian and suggests the basis for estimating normativity of every individual utterance. The results of the research can be used in compiling dictionaries and reference books on Russian grammar as well as in lectures on Russian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, we provide the results of a corpus-based study aimed to formulate hypotheses on how a listener manages to restore essential grammatical information missing in a spoken signal due to the reduction of endings in Russian noun phrases. We checked whether there are any reduced elements in the endings of all noun phrases with adjectives, participles, possessive pronouns or ordinal numerals as dependent elements in the Corpus of Transcribed Russian Oral Texts (http://narusco.ru/search/trnsearch. php; overall duration - 115 min.). We regarded an ending of a word form as reduced if there was at least one omitted sound or at least one consonant or stressed vowel substituted for another sound compared to the canonical pronunciation of the word form. In 595 (73.5%) out of 809 noun phrases analyzed, the reduction of endings occurred in one or more words. Most often (334 cases; 41.3%) the reduction affected only dependent element(s) in a noun phrase the noun ending remaining intact. The reduction only in the ending of the noun occurred in 11.4% of all phrases. We also found 169 phrases (20.9%) where the endings of all elements suffered from reduction. In the paper, we look through the latter cases in order to show that the left grammatical context helps in choosing the correct interpretation in the majority of them. We also show what case forms of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals are more likely to be reduced according to our data. We argue that the results we obtained are crucial for the development of the functional model of spoken word recognition as they show how often a listener has to solve grammatical ambiguity while recognizing spontaneous speech and how contextual factors can contribute to the process. The quantitative data we got can be also referred as a comparison base while studying the acquisition of spontaneous speech both by native Russian children and students learning Russian as a foreign language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to analyze change of emotive value in lexical units of Russian language in modern discourse. To describe the studied material (lexical units) 1) componential analysis (the analysis of value of lexical units), 2) questionnaire method 3) the method of observing of functioning of emotive lexical units in the texts extracted from The Russian National Corpus are used. The description in aspect of emotivity of twenty four lexical units was carried out step by step. The conclusion on attribution of a lexical unit to a word, expressing positive or negative value, was based on the results of the analysis of semantic data of given units in various linguistic dictionaries. This analysis shows that the selected lexical units can be estimated as emotive, showing positive attitude towards a subject of the speech in more than 50% of all cases. The questioning we have carried out allows understanding the way the native speakers understand emotivity of analyzed lexical units. The result of the questioning shows that the native speakers perceive more than 70% of the lexical units presented for the analysis as words with positive value. A semantic shift in understanding of emotive lexical units by the native speakers of Russian language can be observed. The reasons of semantic shift in meaning of some lexical units are connected with "stylistic enhancement" [1:183], which is shown in texts of The Russian National Corpus. Some lexical units possessing approving emotive value (by results of the analysis of dictionaries and questionnaires) are losing it in modern discourse, in the other lexical units change in the meaning of the word occurs under the influence on non-linguistic factors: a lexical unit obtains new cultural meaning. The steadiest against changes are words in which the emotivity in the same time is the basic meaning of the word. As the use of lexical units having positive or neutral value promotes effective speech interaction, and use of lexical units having negative connotation leads to inefficiency of communication, our research allows solving a range of problems of communication studies, linguocriminalistics and method of teaching Russian language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vocabulary of any language is enriched not only at the expense of its own resources, but also through borrowing. The current activation of the borrowing process in the Russian language, mainly from the English language, is a natural consequence of globalization, language contacts in various areas of life, and, therefore, the language interactions. The English-originated borrowings have a great linguistic potential to create a plenty of derivatives. Being borrowed in the Russian language, anglicisms continue developing on the internal laws of the language, become a motivating basis for derivative motivated words, and in some cases can give branched families of words. The main sign of borrowed words is not just the penetration of them into the borrowing language, but the fact of their fixation in the vocabulary and complete submission to the norms of the language. The process of adapting borrowed words at each linguistic level is characterized by specific features and has different potentials for the full mastery of borrowed words. Intensively borrowed vocabulary from the English language is fixed not only in the literary standard of the Russian language, but also forms a certain part of non-standard vocabulary, especially slang and jargon, which is characterized by bright expressiveness and evaluation of colloquial style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the pragmatic function of intonation in the context of intercultural business communication. The author deploys Speech Analyzer software to consider intonation contours produced by native English speakers (British, American, Canadian) and Russian businesspeople within the lecture register. The lecture register produced in native English speaking public discourse commonly features the following four contours: (1) High + Fall-Rise, (2) Low + Low-Rise, (3) Low + Fall+Rise, (4) Low + Low-Fall. In the Russian language, the basic intonation contours produced in business discourse are defined by pitch trajectory in the central position and its level in the post-central part. The choice of intonation contours produced in public discourse reflects both neutral and subjective attitude of the speaker towards the content of the utterance, as well as his or her various emotions. In the framework of the pragmatic line of research, the study aims to identify the intentions defining the choice of specific intonation structures, which, in turn, helps register the differences between both speaker-specific intonation peculiarities, and those intrinsic to language in general. Intonation is a key language tool used to convey communicative intentions and achieve a planned pragmatic effect. Non-native speakers commonly struggle to choose adequate intonation contours, which is due to lack of experience and skills required to produce correct utterances in terms of linguistic, situational and pragmatic contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes complex cognitive mechanisms which underlie multiple changes that have affected value systems of English and Russian speaking communities throughout the centuries. It is assumed that values permeate conceptual world view at all its levels and changes in axiological system are bound to have far-reaching consequences - sometimes even posing a threat to the viability of a community. In the present paper changes in axiological underpinnings of Anglo-American and Russian world views are examined building on the example of socio-temporal concept of "everyday life". The method employed is that of conceptual analysis, which is still viewed as quite authoritative and reliable. Drawing on diverse empirical data from the English and Russian languages the authors argue that general vector of everyday life perception dynamics is that of successive devaluation. The latter is thought to be caused by the shift of the concept's basic reference value that might be prompted by universal cognitive mechanisms of metaphoric, metonymic and metaphtonymic mapping. Leading to a common result - elimination of some or all of the conceptual value features - the process of devaluation in each language has a number of unique characteristics. These culture-specific features reflect a direct correlation between main tendencies in temporal experience categorization and various non-linguistic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the study of the creative potential of the Russian wordformation system. The aim of the research is to determine the functional and pragmatic significance of the word-forming resources of the Russian language by studying wordbuilding neonominations as expressive signs, which are vivid expressive means in advertising texts. The object of this study is word-building occasionalisms as a reflection of creative word-making activity in the communicative space of advertising. The material of the research is the advertising discourse, in which the creative potential of Russian word formation is most clearly realized, due to the relationship "language system" - "language capability". The study was based on the approach of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay ("language in potentia, and speech in praesentia"), which involves a sequential study of two dialectically related objects - the language system and speaking. In this paper, we also relied on the ideas and methods of word-formation analysis developed in the Kazan Linguistic School by V.M. Markov, G.A. Nikolaev and its other representatives. The research has shown that newly coined words created by usual and non-usual ways are found in Russian advertising discourse. The greatest degree of creativity and expressiveness is possessed by words created by substitutional derivation, contamination, graphical derivation, suffixation with a change in the type of derivational stem, semantic derivation based on metaphoric word relations, affixoid word formation. It is established that these word-forming occasionalisms have a special significance in terms of achieving brightness, extravagance, attractiveness, memorability of the advertisement. They are a text-based stimulant and a catalyst for creating an advertising image in consumers' minds. By causing bewilderment and, later, - the interest in the recipient, occasional formations are able to effectively attract and most importantly - to keep the attention of the audience, thereby enhancing the economic effectiveness of advertisement. The significance of the study is determined by its contribution into the development of the dynamic description of Russian word formation. The description of nontrivial ways and methods of word formation, functional and pragmatic potential of word-building means could in the long run facilitate predicting the future development of codified word formation. The research work on the topic has good future prospects. Activation of the advertising market in the near future will require further research on the word-forming aspects of advertising, which allow to reveal the functional and pragmatic potential of the wordforming resources of the modern Russian language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the brief review of the long term English-Russian relations identifying the first target audience of the Russian language learning, the purpose of it, the methods of learning being used and the tools of the Russian language promotion. The attention is focused on the role of commercial and economic relations of Russia and England / Great Britain in promotion of the Russian language on the territory of Great Britain which are regarded as one of leading motivational drivers for the Russian language studying by the British. As the proof to this theory the article offers the analysis of some professionally focused Russian textbooks, created in England / Great Britain, for English-speaking audience since XVI century. The analysis of more than 200 scientific courses (including the Russian language lexicons, dictionaries, manuals, grammars, reading textbooks) reveals the gradually changers in structure and content of the Russian language literature from the XVI century up to the first half of the XX century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, some Russian scientific journals have noted that the interest in texts and literature written in the language of the metropolis is becoming more and more topical in foreign (i.e., English-language) linguistics, and the scientific interest in the so-called 'Contact Literature' is growing as well. A well-known American scientist of Indian origin, the author of the term 'contact literature' Braj B. Kachru writes: "Language changes as a result of the contact of languages are not limited to grammar, vocabulary, style, and discourse. They go beyond these levels of the system of language and affect the literary creativity of representatives of different cultures" [1]. So, in outer sheath - English - many other cultures acquire new life (?) We can guess that the literature created by non-English personalities in English gives a new impulse to this language. Can the Russian-language Literature (alternative term - "Russophone Literature") - the totality of artistic texts (prose, poetry, and drama, including - autotranslation), created by non-Russian (ethnically) authors in Russian fall under the definition of "National literature?" Until now, post-Soviet scholars, writers and critics have not come to a single, satisfying view of this object. Russian literature after 1991 is quite often defined in the works of philologists as 'bilingual' or 'translingual'. A similar situation with Russian-language literature by non-Russian writers, which has been giving a new impetus to the Russian language for about two centuries. Can this Literature be considered as a special parameter for measuring the vitality of the Russian language? With this article, we attempt to understand the vitality / viability of the Russian language through the prism of Russian-language literature created by non-Russian origin authors. By vitality, we mean the language's ability to survive, develop, and maintain its systemic-typological properties. According to sociolinguists, the vitality of any language is measurable. There is a number of parameters. The present article is focused on a special parameter for measuring the vitality of the Russian language. In our opinion, Russian-language literature (alternative definition - translingual literature) is a complex interaction of at least two language systems and cultures, producing a semantically and structurally enriched literary field. The corpus of translingual art texts (works of fiction) is a database that accumulates and develops the potencies of the Russian language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with prepositional constructions with numerical actants and circumstants in the Russian language. Statistical corpus-based characteristics of prepositional constructions are provided, the regular types of categories of dependent numerical groups are described. Prepositions are one of the key subsystems in the language system, and without its formalization, it is impossible to implement meaningful technologies for automatic text analysis. Prepositions in Russian have not been getting much attention by the specialists in procedures of natural language processing for a long time. Here, we should consider and describe such a special, but very important for professional texts function of prepositions as a modification of numerical groups. The formalization of such constructions should be based on information which aspects of numerical values are specified with the help of prepositions. For these and other meanings of prepositions in numerical group constructions, quantitative data were obtained on the basis of the corpora of the Russian language, mainly, Russian corpora of the Aranea corpus family formed at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to reveal, describe and systematize boundary phenomena on the suprasegmental level in different regional variants of literary German on the boundaries of linguistic units. The paper reveals general and specific features related to the functioning of phonetic system in literary German on the level of auditory perception with regard to syntagmatic and positional factors. The author uses a set of experimental phonetic methods, which includes linguistic, phonological, perceptual, statistical, and acoustic analyses. The auditory analysis involved two groups: native speakers using regional variants of the German language, and Russian listeners. This helped determine general and specific tendencies in the character of the auditory identification of suprasegmental features as positive or negative boundary signals. The results of the study reveal how the system of boundary signals functions in regional variants of modern German with regard to various factors, including positional, syntagmatic, and regional factors. This is of major importance, since this helps develop the theory of typology, variantology, and delimitation devices not only for German-focused studies, but also for linguistics as a whole. The findings will encourage efforts to achieve purely practical goals related to the creation of systems for automatic speech recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to describe the nature of accommodation (coarticulation) of Russian and Japanese vowels based on a comparative typological study, and to characterize the manifestations of Russian-Japanese interference at the level of speech perception. The main research methods are the comparative-typological method, empirical method, method of observation, method of auditory analysis, instrumental methods, and generalization of obtained results in order to reveal phonetic interference. The analysis of the problem showed the following results: 1) At the theoretical level, it was revealed that the phenomenon of accommodation in the Japanese language is manifested in a different way than it is done in the Russian language. In Russian, accommodation of vowels in the speech flow as a result of coarticulation is always twosided (progressive, regressive, progressive-regressive) while, in Japanese, it is one-sided (only progressive accommodation is observed). 2) At the practical level, consideration was given to positions of combinatorial changes in Russian and Japanese vowels depending on the hard-soft consonant environment as well as phonetic errors that Japanese students make when pronouncing sounds in these positions. In addition, the predicted accent of Japanese speaking Russian was confirmed. These findings may help in solving theoretical problems of general, specific, comparative linguistics and general phonetic interference problems as well as contribute to solving practical problems of overcoming a foreign (Japanese) accent by arranging educational materials in textbooks and developing effective methods for overcoming phonetic interference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caucasus is a land of various languages, but the Republic of Dagestan often called a 'mountain of languages' is especially endowed with them. This 'mountain' consists, first of all, of languages spoken by the indigenous population. Among them is the language under the present research, Avar. It is an ancient language which has not been studied deep enough (as well as the history of Avars) and needs a detailed linguistic characterization. In contrast, the French language which has a larger number of speakers has been studied much deeper. Its development can be traced through several centuries. The object of this research is represented by principal parts of sentences in the Avar language compared to similar structures in the French and Russian languages. Therefore, this article describes a structure of simple sentences in Avar as one of the least studied Caucasian languages. Firstly, general characteristics of a predicate in the Avar language are presented. Secondly, a nature of its structure is compared to the French and Russian languages. Thirdly, this paper discusses specific features of an Avar sentence which contribute to faster language learning and help to avoid interference as one of popular language phenomena leading to mistakes. The research method applied to the present study is a comparative analysis. It has been chosen to show explicit differences and similarities of syntactical patterns in the languages under research. In addition, the method of comparative analysis is especially applicable in linguistics when research involves two or more languages which belong to different language families, as in the present research. To some extent, one of the reasons for choosing French which genealogically, geographically, typologically and statistically differs from the Avar language is the intensive development of socio-political and economic processes in the Caucasus. Another reason is a growing need for foreign language acquisition in our modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is devoted to an important problem of teaching foreign students an independent reading on basis of development of contextual guess. The relevance of the article is explained by the fact that foreign students who come to Russia, should speak Russian at a high level, involving not only the understanding of lectures and study material, but also an independent study of scientific literature for writing term papers and dissertations. This article is concerned with basic methods of developing language contextual guess in foreign students through reading Russian texts based on the word formation analysis. We suggest that the methodological formation of contextual guess should rely on the theory of mental actions when foreign students create a project of their independent activity consisting of successive operations to better understand unfamiliar words in the course of reading. The article presents the system of special exercises aimed to develop foreign student's contextual guess though Russian text reading. The authors propose a system of lexical-grammatical and communicativeoriented exercises aimed at the development of contextual guess when teaching foreign students to read Russian texts on the basis of step-by-step formation of the necessary skills of understanding unfamiliar words. The main objective of the developed system was to form the students' tentative basis for actions and ability to distinguish word formation reference points in the understanding of unfamiliar words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper touches upon problems of liguocultural adaptation of Chinese students to training at a Russian higher school in terms of learning Russian as a foreign language (RFL) at a preparatory stage. Chinese students are known as one of the most difficult contingents of Russian universities, which is largely explained by fact that they speak not only a different language, but also have other culture, other pedagogical tradition, family, school and university training. Against the background of an increase of the number of students from Greater China at Russian higher schools, the issues of their linguocultural adaptation are particularly topical in scientific and methodological and practical terms. The research is based on creation of favourable academic conditions aimed at minimization of difficulties in adaptation of Chinese students in the process of the Russian language learning. The developed ethnomethodical system demonstrates positive influence on the effectiveness of academic performance of Chinese students and helps them to overcome sociocultural shock. The article has practical importance for the teacher of Russian as a foreign language who works with Chinese students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intercultural competence is undoubtedly one of the most talked about elements of language teaching process, but the assessment of it isn't without a problem. The range of tools and mechanisms of intercultural competence evaluation is wide, but the interactional and procedural character of this phenomenon makes it difficult to use them in real communication. Distance learning where virtual instruction replaces the face-to-face communication with a teacher creates a new educational arena. New educational scene requires new methods of evaluating intercultural communication. The paper aims at (1) review of some intercultural competence assessment methods; (2) discussion of intercultural virtual test perspectives, (3) examination of pilot project results. A pilot project lasted for half a year and was conducted as a part of experimental Russian language distance learning course. The primary aim of the course was learning language and culture in cluster. The participants in the focus group were international students of Russian language of diverse origins (Ecuador, Afganistan, Bulgaria, China, etc.). In the initial stage the participants' intercultural competence was tested using several assessment tools. The research participants were asked to take part in an online Russian language course with elements of intercultural communication study. Intercultural elements (background information about the culture, video clips illustrating nonverbal language and communicative strategies, etc.) were then incorporated into the e-learning Russian language course. The study was followed by a survey questionnaire and personal interviews with the students. The aim of the assessment was to test all elements of intercultural competence: knowledge, attitudes, skills and cultural awareness of the students. Qualitative analysis was used to examine the data collected from the participants (surveys and interviews). The course was delivered through the Moodle VLE (Virtual learning environment). There were limitations of the project connected with the materials used for language and culture learning. The uniform e-learning course was used for the students of all origins, though their learning styles varied. Further research should focus on adapting and creating e-learning material to suit particular cultural groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to design the new method called by authors "mobile video" within the existing technique of blended learning. Creating an educational product on the basis of popular modern technology, we understand what needs to be defined, for what purpose it is possible to use "mobile video", what is its place in the system of teaching, in particular when studying Russian language by foreign students. We consider that "mobile video" as a teaching method well fits into the technique of blended learning which allows using the "mobile video" method in various situations: for the organization of educational process, for the organization of independent work, etc. The subject of the article is the description of "mobile video" as a new method which is used within the technique of blended learning in method of teaching Russian as a foreign language. In the article we have described a creative method "mobile video", the variants of applying it within the submodel "flipped classroom" to enrich the word stock of foreign students at lessons of Russian language and at organization of out-of-class self-work. Also the types of "mobile video" such as video review, video monologue, video dialogue and video polylogue are described. To determine efficiency and reliability of this method as a way to enrich students' speech with lexical units and include them into communicative practice with the help of modern technology, especially the technique of blended learning in the educational process the experiment in two groups of students was conducted. The first group used experimental materials at lessons, and the second group learned Russian with the help of traditional methods. As a result the final test which objective was determining of level of communicative competence of students was carried out. Assessment included subtests on listening and oral speech. The comparative analysis of test results of control and experimental group allows drawing a conclusion that use of some submodels of blended learning including the mobile video method in the educational process is much higher (for 30-40%) in experimental group. Thus, use of the mobile video method within the technique of blended learning promotes to 1) effective mastering of lexical units of Russian language, 2) their usage in oral speech, 3) ability to allocate known lexical units in oral speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of independent Kazakhstan after the collapse of the USSR (1991) led to a change in the language situation, the formation of language policy and language construction. The most urgent topics in society were the questions of the revival of the vitality of the state - Kazakh language, the narrowing of the spheres of functioning of the Russian language, the transition from Cyrillic to Latin. A large number of scientific articles analyzing the language situation of Soviet Kazakhstan and post-Soviet Kazakhstan appeared. Many articles are devoted to the asymmetric interaction of the two languages (Russian and Kazakh in the XXth century) and the formation of asymmetric Kazakh-Russian bilingualism, but very few publications highlighting the emergence of this kind of bilingualism in the XIX century. It was in the second half of the XXth century that the Kazakh-Russian bilingualism was formed. One of the main goals of this article is to fill this gap so important for a deeper understanding of the object. The authors analyze the primary sources about the formation of Kazakh-Russian bilingualism and bilingual education. That why our article is based on the study of the fundamental work of the Russian orientalist, historian, ethnographer, educator, member of the Society of Archeology, History and Ethnography in the Imperial Kazan University (in present - Kazan, Tatarstan, Russian Federation) member of the Orenburg and Astrakhan provincial scholars of archival commissions Alexander Efimovich Alektorov (1861-1918). This is about "Index of books, magazine and newspaper articles and notes on the Kirghiz", 2013 [1]. Here, it's important to note that under the ethnonym "Kirghiz" in the studies of Russian scientists before the beginning of the twentieth century, both modern ethnic Kazakhs and ethnic Kyrgyz were implied. This book is devoted to the Kazakhs, the formation of Kazakh-Russian bilingualism and bilingual education. Despite the fact that this "Index" was published in 2013, it managed to turn into a bibliographic rarity. Modern linguists investigating Kazakh-Russian bilingualism, practically do not turn to this fundamental work. It collected over 3,000 articles of geographical, historical and economic, ethnographic nature, folklore, etc. with an exact indication of the place of their publication. It is the richest material carefully selected from books, magazines and newspapers of the time. The primary sources have their enduring value for various branches of knowledge: History, Anthropology, Pedagogy, Ethnography, Linguistics, Ethnolinguistics, Geography, Economics, Jurisprudence, Culturology, Literary criticism, Translation studies, etc. The article aims to draw researchers' attention to this understudied research, hence it relies on primary sources, and not on their transposition and criticism, so that the reader can get acquainted with the original sources and comprehend the present language policy in sovereign Kazakhstan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper dwells upon the historical process of introducing multilingual dictionaries into the Russian linguistics and its influence upon the Russian lexicography development. In the article two first Russian multilingual dictionaries of P.S. Pallas (1787-1789) and of T. Yankovich de Mirievo (1790-1791) were examined. It is noted that this type of dictionaries marked the qualitative shift from pure language facts collecting to comparative-historical and typological linguistics beginning, as multilingual dictionary introduction reflected the processes in the material and spiritual spheres of the Russian society life that determined the prospective development of the Russian and world linguistics. It is pointed out that the idea of creating this type of dictionaries belonged to Empress Catherine II. The work on creating dictionaries contributed to the development of scientific contacts of the Russian Empire and Russian scholars and international research centers. Their concepts, structure, wordstock organization principles are analyzed and discussed. The main principles ruling the dictionaries development during the time were universalism, rationalism, systematization. The role of the first Russian dictionaries and their importance for the history of science and the development of linguistics are significantly higher than those flaws, errors and miscalculations that are present in them. We believe the rich material collected during the work on the dictionary formed the basis for further linguistic research. To sum up, dictionaries embodied and retained many of the linguistic, lexicographical achievements of the world science of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the research of woman names in the phrasicon of Russian linguoculture. The topicality of the study is determined by the effort to bring into sharp focus the specific features of the analyzed phraseological semantic group in Russian phrasicon. The scientific novelty lies in consideration of the Russian phraseological woman names in different aspects - structural-semantic, functional-stylistic and linguocultural. In the article a classification of the phraseological group units is presented. It is found out that the phraseological unities with figurativeness and evaluativity in their semantics as well as phraseological units characterized by adjectives with phraseologically bound meaning dominate within the phraseological woman names corpus. The semantics of studied names is investigated at length. The structure of most phraseological units is the word-combination 'adjective + noun' where the noun component contains woman's feature in its semantics and the adjective component characterizes her age, filiation, taste etc. or points out her mystic, timeframe and spatial peculiarities. Studied phraseological units are brought into correlation with text reminiscences among which literature and Biblical mythological reminiscences prevail. That allows us to speak of the text as their main source of them. A negative connotation of the phraseological woman names is revealed, though this fact is to be connected with the general character of Russian phrasicon where across the phraseological field there are units carrying a negative connotation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensified by poly-cultural space of translation, specific nature of scientific discourse, which increasingly invokes the phenomenon of intertextuality, precondition special relevance of cognitive text forming mechanisms aimed at ensuring scientific text perception and comprehension in what concerns semiotic and functional potential thereof. The aim of this study is to consider the intercorrelations between cognitive and linguistic structures of the medical concept "BoNTA naïve injections" within scientific information processing in the mediated communication. Methods of semantic and conceptual analyses are used in this research, along with translation and native speaker's questionnaire methods. Ph.D. students (n 89) of RUDN-University from different countries learning the English, the Spanish, and the Russian languages as a second foreign language are involved in the study. We conclude that particular significance for translation process as a speech act is acquired by cognitive aspects of sense interaction based on presuppositions and implications rooted in background knowledge when structuring and shaping up a part of professional experience that encode frames of reference to the cognitive perception of both reality and the ways of its conceptualization in scientific communication in the source and target languages. This article has practical value for comparative study of languages, cognitive semantics, linguistics, language and translation teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the influence of the national-cultural specificity of speech behavior on the formation of expressive forms of address in the Russian language as well as in the Colombian and Costa Rican variants of the Spanish language. Groups of expressive addresses are distinguished depending on their semantic load, ways of transferring evaluativity and expressiveness; pragmatic factors affecting their formation and functioning are described, namely: evaluative-characterizing and emotivecharacterizing ones. The evaluative-characterizing factors include forms of address regarding moral and intellectual qualities, temperamental and physical traits as well as professional, social, political and territorial-ethnic affiliations, including nicknames and anthropomasias. The emotive-characterizing factors are represented by emotive-proper forms as well as forms regarding communicants' gender, age, acquaintance and kinship, including proper names and expressive forms of address. Particular attention is paid to the group of expressive addresses regarding moral and intellectual qualities, temperamental and physical attributes. The materials of the article are necessary for indepth study of the Russian and Spanish languages as well as for lecturing students of linguistic specialties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a contribution to the discussion and analysis of the law-students' Englishlanguage writing skills necessary for effective legal analysis. This paper covers some linguistic issues of lawyer's writing skills developed at law-students studying English at the Institute of Law, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University). The actuality and relevance of this paper is based on the need for adequately prepared lawyers competent to write a speech and various types of legal documents. The goal of the current study is to determine that lawyer's well-developed writing skills contribute to grammatical, lexical, stylistic correctness and effectiveness of legal analysis. To achieve this primary purpose, a descriptive analysis is proposed as a means of presenting key ideas. The methodological bases of the paper are the conceptual provisions of Russian and foreign researchers in the field of applied aspects of linguistics, theory and methodology of teaching foreign languages, intercultural interaction, and English for special purposes. The practical value of the current research is in deepening law-students' knowledge of the English, Russian languages using the rules of morphology, syntax, stylistics adequately and in mastering their writing skills and abilities of the legal opinions' argumentation and justification, the norms of law competent elucidation in these languages. The results of the study may be useful and implemented by the faculty members teaching foreign languages to law-students at nonlinguistic universities, because RUDN University law-students' writing skills became stronger and more advanced, students' personal achievements, legal analysis awareness and interdisciplinary subject matter understanding deepened during the period of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores lexical-semantic and functional aspects of intercultural professional communication from the perspective of opposing identities exposed in the context of professional communicative exchange effectuated by people of various national backgrounds. In an age of multiculturalism, peoples' linguistic identity goes hand in hand with their mentality, which is why the study also considers professional language as a component of both general linguistic system and a type of social dialect. For the purposes of professional communication analysis, the linguistic-semantic approach can be productively applied to investigate terms (codified vocabulary) and professional jargon (uncodified vocabulary) as topical research agendas. Methodological base of the current research is a complex methodology that combines the following methods of scientific research: linguopragmatic analysis, method of complex analysis of vocabulary units, the method of mass text analysis, the method of componential analysis, and the study material is research and information articles as well as commentaries published in modern specialised magazines, newspapers and their online versions. This paper aims to review specific codified and uncodified vocabulary featured in dictionary entries and functioning as language units synonymous to the corresponding terms found in social texts. The research material is represented by official printed media materials, as well as transcripts of public speeches and press conference reports delivered by the representatives of the business community. Pursuing the set objective implies addressing the following tasks: • defining the factors of professional jargon functional diversity; • identifying the role of linguacultural identity in determining why codified and uncodified vocabulary is being used by English- and Russian-speaking interlocutors in various professional communicative settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses advertising discourse with an emphasis on the pragmatic properties of Russian language units belonging to different levels of the language system. The author focuses on the rhetoric impacts made by advertisements on the potential customer. To this end methods of functional linguistics are applied to advertising samples in Russian (given in transliteration and translated into English). Within this framework units of the phonetic, lexical and syntactic levels of the Russian language are under analysis in the process of functioning as means of pragmatic impact on the recipient. The author comes to the following conclusions: • the Russian advertising discourse makes a holistic open subsystem of language; if used appropriately, its discursive features are revealed in a highly efficient impact on customers, especially in complex synergistic combinations of language units of different levels, beginning with sounds and up to minitexts; • the close connection of advertising communication with social issues proceeds from the fact that purchase not only helps people to settle some practical issues, but also gives them a sense of psychological conjunction with something significant or prestigious; • for advertisers taking advantage of these factors cannot go beyond control, for society to be protected against unacceptable brainwashing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cognitive model of elections is formed in the consciousness of a potential voter under the influence of an electoral media discourse. It is actualized in election narratives. Based on the idea of combating chaos and maintaining stability, a special narrative was formed in the Russian-language electoral media discourse. The cognitive model represents elections as a confrontation between legitimate forces and external rivals, new and incomprehensible institutions. This model was adopted to the particular case, which is the elections at the regional level. Candidates reproduce the model of struggle, that is, they use a ready-made speech pattern that appeals to the authority of the central government. On the basis of discourse analysis, we have revealed that the war metaphor is widely used to eliminate social problems in the region, the order/rationalization metaphor is used in descriptions of the candidates' activities, the narrative is about traditional and symbolic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today the definition 'Transnational Literature' is used by some Russian philologists to determine the layer of Literature that can not be unequivocally attributed to a particular national literature. If, for example, the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are directly connected with Russian Literature and culture, then there are still difficulties with regard to Literature created by non-Russian writers in Russian. During the Soviet period, Russian-language Literature (Russophone Literature - alternative term) was studied mainly in the framework of the theory of 'Multilinational Soviet Literature' and the 'theory of the accelerated development of national literatures'. The collapse of the USSR caused a drop in interest in these theories. Some specialists began to consider this Literature within the framework of the postcolonial theory (copying the experience of Western European researchers). Studying the works of fiction's features created by non-Russian authors in Russian, we came to some preliminary conclusions. One of them is the fact that consideration of this kind of Literature from the position of the postcolonial theory is erroneous. The fact is that the Russian Empire was not an Empire of the classical type. The so-called 'Postcolonial Literature' as a part of the theoretical literature course or a separate subject has taken a strong position in the curricula of many higher education institutions abroad. The division of institutions into two groups is carried out on the basis of a methodological approach. The first group is the leading universities of the countries in the area of development of postcolonial literature. The second group is the leading universities that consider this literature as part of the world. An example of the first group is the University of Newcastle, Australia. The study of Russophone Literature of non-Russian authors did not take firm positions either in higher education in Russia or in post-Soviet studies of specialists from post-Soviet countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Proclamation of Independence of Latvia by the People's Council of Latvia on November 18, 1918 called Proclamation Day of the Republic of Latvia became the most important date in self-awareness of the Latvian people. In the interwar period, the 18th of November became a public holiday uniting all nations and ethnical groups inhabiting Latvia. The establishment of the independent country also caused reflection on this event - gradually increased a necessity to study historical circumstances, preconditions and regularities of the establishment, to define its peculiarities and aims, to create national identity - also with the help of literary and journalistic texts. In the Latvian language texts were published which demonstrated either an aim of intentional propaganda and patriotism of Latvia or were more neutral evaluating the situation in a contradictory way. Among the most active authors of that time who in fiction, literary memoirs and journalistic and historical texts reflected on the fact of the establishment of the country the names of Līgotņu Jēkabs, Kārlis Skalbe, Edvards Virza and some others can be mentioned. During the interwar period, the literature written in the Russian language is also an integral part of the cultural space of Latvia. From the very first days of Latvian Independence Russian newspapers of heroic and patriotic kind started to eulogize Latvia, Riga and other towns as well as brave fighters for the independence: both military and civil people. It is especially well seen in the creative work of two Riga's authors - Mikhail Argunov and Mikhail Rodionov who in 1919 and 1920 contributed much to the newspaper "Utro". The idea to create the independent Republic of Latvia was not and obviously could not be dominant in the Russian society of the country. The character of publications, as well as M. Argunov and M. Rodionov's poetical works prove clearly that it is only an attempt or the way to create the general public mood of a specific kind with a simultaneous transfer of the propagandistic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]