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In 2021, there are reportedly 2,755 billionaires on Earth, with an estimated total net worth of $13.1 trillion. Every year the newspaper Forbes conducts the list of World Billionaires, but we need to acknowledge that, not all billionaires and their wealth gets reported. Usually, the net worth is reported by calculating the number of stocks with the number of shares that the person owns. We take into consideration that the number we see in the newspaper exists only on paper, but the amount of money in the bank account of Billionaire does, not reflect that kind of wealth in any shape and form. Paper wealth differs from “real” or actual wealth, which is the value of the physical assets that are at the disposal of an individual or company. Many individuals and corporations fall victim to the paper wealth trap. On paper, it looks as though the assets logged are worth a certain amount, but the real assets in hand do not add up to the same. In order to assess, the real wealth individual has to realize the asset in the market by selling the asset mentioned below. If the taxpayer sells these assets, it has accumulated capital gains, then the taxpayer is subject to capital gains taxes. By using the tax planning strategy “Buy, Borrow, and Die” the wealthy individual avoids paying the capital gain tax on the assets that they have. This principle suggests buying and holding assets as they appreciate tax-free, as well borrow using the assets as leverage and using debt to reduce or eliminate income and estate taxes, and maximize aftertax wealth accumulation, as well after the taxpayer pass away the heirs, sell the whole wealth is tax-free, and the debt is paid with the tax-free proceeds.

Based on the analysis of the texts collected in the 1930s in Latvia and Estonia, this paper provides a description of the semantics of the verbal modifiers, i.e., prefixes (preverbs) and particles, in Latvian Romani. The system of verbal modifiers in Latvian Romani is an innovation evolved under Slavic and Baltic influence. Most preverbs are instances of MAT-borrowing from Slavic and Baltic, whereas verb particles are a PATborrowing, modelled after the Latvian system. The paper argues that even preverbs of Slavic origin often copy the semantics and derivational patterns of Latvian prefixed verbs. It is also shown that, differently from Latvian, in Romani both preverbs and verb particles can affect the verb’s argument structure (e.g., by making it transitive) and change its aspectual value (e.g., by making it perfective). Finally, the distribution of verbal modifiers in Latvian Romani (the development of verb particles as opposed to other closely related Northeastern Romani dialects which only have prefixes, and higher frequency of verb particles in Estonia than in Latvia) confirms the areal cline in the spread of verb particles.

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), widely recognized as one of the most important documents in foreign language teaching, defines the levels of communicative language proficiency. The common points of reference are primarily meant to assist foreign language teachers and test developers striving to adhere to a unified understanding of CEFR levels. Yet it is not uncommon among practitioners to claim a particular level of a task, text or sample of learner performance drawing merely on their individual experience and intuition, with only limited knowledge of the original descriptor scales. The main purpose of this paper is to describe general procedures for relating foreign language tests and learner performances to the CEFR as they are prescribed by the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE). The five stages of the linking process are familiarisation, specification, standardisation training and benchmarking, standard setting and validation. While the full implementaion of the linking process is a complex undertaking mostly applied in the context of high stakes examinations, certain stages of the linking process could be implemented by individual language schools and programmes. Benchmarking is one of such stages. It involves identification of illustrative learner performances for different proficiency levels. This is a stage which also has its relevance in daily teaching practice and could be easily incorporated in routine assessment procedures thus increasing foreign language teachers' awareness of CEFR levels. Therefore the discussion of the formal linking procedures in this paper is followed by a demonstration of an exercise in benchmarking. It is meant to acquaint the Lithuanian readers with the complexity of the linking process and encourage a more principled approach to level allocations. The exercise in alignment with CEFR level decribed here involves L2 spoken Lithuanian produced by five foreign learners of young age. Sample performances were taken from a corpus of L2 Lithuanian compiled within the XXX project. Since the subjects are children of 11–12 years, another important challenge in the alignment with the CEFR is children's maturity and the necessary adaptation of CEFR descriptors for young learners. Qualitative analysis of five learner samples offers a number of insights into practicalities of linking procedures and discusses ways to ensure reliability and objectivity.

The paper focuses on the book of poetry immersion (2017) by Lithuanian poet Gytis Norvilas, maps the strategies of its reading within the framework of the semiotic-pragmatic approach, and considers the theoretical issues of the mapping. Despite the book cannot be unambiguously defined as an example of patterned poetry, it is configured in a specific way which exposes the functionality of the structural visual layer in written / printed poetry. This feature of the text in question inspires to revise the interpretation of the issue of iconicity and the configuration of the model of reading literature, proposed by the semiotic-pragmatic approach. The semiotic-pragmatic modelling combines Peircean and Jakobsonian ideas with minor insertions of Lotmanian thought (i.e. Johansen 2002), thus it links the ideas from the conceptual systems, based on different epistemological grounds (Peircean vs Saussurean notion of sign). It creates theoretical tensions that force to raise the question of how the transference of notions from one system to another changes their meaning, and where one could find the basis for overcoming or bypassing the controversies. The first part of the paper explores the theoretical tensions between Peircean, Jakobsonian and Lotmanian approaches to the issues of iconicity and attempts at revealing the fields of theoretical reasoning that help to define the ground of contradictions and see the way of their bypassing. Besides, it relates the discussion of iconicity with a discussion of the semiotic-pragmatic model of reading as iconization, based on the Jakobsonian idea of intersemiotic translation, and revises the model concerning the printed poetic text. The second part of the paper exemplifies the theoretical issues in the analysis of the book of poetry immersion. It examines the process of diagrammatization – the reading strategy, which makes the syntax of the text and that of the book the meaning-making devices, shows how diagrammatization semantizes the structure of the book, transforms the process of imaginization, and helps to identify the role of the book’s dialogue with hypotext to which both intertextual references and the structure of the text refer.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the OPr. construction ʃubban Aʃman (cf. German selb acht, OLith. patį aʃchmą) attested in the liturgical supplement of the Baptism Booklet of Martin Luther’s Enchiridion (1561). The two terms are mostly traditionally considered as not related to one another. A new interpretation of this construction is given in this paper, based on a newly accomplished comparative and philological analysis of the passage involved. It is possible to say that we are dealing with a collective numeral, which was known also in Middle Europe-linguistic-context (examples from Middle Latin, Middle German, and West-Slavic are given). During the process of translation both an iconic imitation of the model and a servile calque played a major role for the emergence of OPr. ʃubban Aʃman (and OLith. patį aʃchmą). Despite the traditional interpretations, my conclusion is that the two terms are related indeed.

The paper deals with two case-forms of East Baltic nominals, the dative and the instrumental dual. It summarises what is already known about these case-forms from Lithuanian and Latvian dialects as well as from Old Lithuanian sources. It is demonstrated that these data imply a particular reconstruction of the dual inflectional endings in these cases for Proto-Baltic. Subsequently, the paper shows that etymological matches of the reconstructed Proto-Baltic endings of the dative and instrumental dual may be attested in two further branches of Indo-European. Such endings are found in Gaulish, which is a member of the Celtic branch, and in Ancient Greek.

Dark tourism is a segment of tourism that has been growing in recent decades and is strongly associated with tragedy and mystery. As a result, 2020 was strongly marked by the pandemic of the new coronavirus (COVID-19). This paper presents a reflection on the role of dark tourism in the pandemic and post-pandemic period and analyses impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism industry. The paper discusses the global context of the pandemic situation that has an important impact on re-directing and tracing eventually new tourism trajectories of the (post)pandemic time. The shift that occurred in pandemic time are like catalysts for re-enforcement and raised interest into slow movements and ‘new normal’ tourism. Instead of seeking to ‘go back to business as usual’, the author argues to reconsider the trajectories that emerged during the time of the pandemic and to envisage other approaches towards more sustainable tourism.

In 2021, the association “Knowledge Economy Forum” published their research “The assessment of the impact of cultural education activities”. The mentioned paper included analysis of countries’ cultural education practices designed for children and youth (including Lithuania and its comparison to international practices). In general, the assessment of the impact of the existing cultural education “mapping” in Lithuania is welcomed, and this paper is based on empirical research. The most important drawback of the mentioned research is a lack of scientific criteria.

This paper aims to define the aspects (practices) of innovative human resources management and identify the impact on such behavioral outcomes as employee engagement and organizational commitment at the workplace. Proposed practices for innovative human resources management are: idiosyncratic work arrangements, high performance work systems (HPWS), sustainable workplace, employee autonomy. Review of primary and secondary sources has shown that these variables are related to such positive organizational outcomes as workplace productivity, flexibility, level of innovativeness, resistance to internal and external threats. In addition, it was indicated that intensity of HPWS can lead to a workplace burnout in the long run and it is crucial to understand how HRM practices work and what we should expect. This paper gives an overview of abovementioned HRM practices and what impact they can make on employee behavioral outcomes.

In the recent decades the interpersonal nature of written academic communication has been widely studied in various linguistic/cultural contexts, including Lithuanian. To gain new insights into how knowledge is negotiated interpersonally in Lithuanian scientific texts, the present paper explores the distribution and use of interactive and interactional features of metadiscourse in Lithuanian research articles in a single discipline, i.e., linguistics. For the classification of metadiscourse resources, the study employs the interpersonal model of metadiscourse (Hyland 2005a). Based on the analysis of 30 Lithuanian research articles in the field of linguistics, this exploratory investigation reveals rhetorical strategies utilized by professional authors to construct a coherent text and engage their audiences in the chosen disciplinary domain. The dominance of interactive metadiscourse features over interactional ones in the corpus examined shows that Lithuanian authors of research articles in linguistics are generally more concerned with organizing discourse and guiding readers through the text than with expressing attitudes and commitment to their arguments. The most common interactive resources are transitions and evidentials, and the most frequent interactional devices include boosters, engagement markers, and hedges. The analysis offers a number of methodological steps necessary for applying the interpersonal model of metadiscourse to Lithuanian data, and complements numerous investigations into Lithuanian academic discourse by illustrating and discussing the writer-reader interaction in linguistics in a larger corpus.

The comparison of light verb constructions with the verbs make and do has not received much attention. The present paper is an attempt to contribute to the study of these constructions. It aims to analyze the light verbs make and do in combination with the same deverbal nouns to identify similarities and differences between the two light verbs and examine the contribution of the light verbs and deverbal nouns to the light verb construction in terms of semantic and syntactic features. The research is corpus-based, and the data for analysis are collected from the British National Corpus (BNC). The semantic description deals with characteristics such as generality, polysemy and aspectual meaning, and the syntactic description focuses on complementation. The analysis of findings demonstrates that, despite some similarities, almost all constructions with the two light verbs show either meaning or/and complementation differences. The study also reveals that both light verbs and deverbal nouns have an impact on the semantics and syntax of the construction. Light verbs may affect light verb constructions semantically in terms of generality and polysemy, and the aspectual meaning of constructions depends on both light verbs and deverbal nouns. Likewise, both light verbs and deverbal nouns have an influence on complementation, but in their own way: light verbs on the selection of complements and deverbal nouns on complementation patterns.

This paper aims to reveal differences between the competing accusative and locative forms of Lithuanian temporal expressions denoting parts of the day (rytas ‘morning’, diena ‘day’, vakaras ‘evening’, naktis ‘night’). Since the accusative of time expresses a wider semantic spectrum, it was first necessary, using a prototypical approach, to define exactly what the morphosyntactic and semantic characteristics of the competing pairs are (i.e., prototypical verbal modifiers expressing location of an action/ state in time). Then, analysing the DLKT corpus data confirmed that the competition between the accusative and locative forms is present using the word vakaras ‘evening’ and rytas ‘morning’. This study reveals that the choice of case depends on the interaction of the given word with the (non)presence of an attribute and on the concrete type of attribute as well. It was confirmed that the accusatives of all the studied words predominate over the locatives, but the strength of the dominance varies. This may be caused by the different degree of adverbialization of the locative forms and by the different semantic implications embodied in the lexemes themselves, which is related to how successfully the locative resists the expansion of the accusative.

The concept of the null article in English was originally developed as a means of explaining the apparent paradox that singular nouns with the same surface form, namely the non-presence of a grammatical article, are used in quite different communicative situations. Null has been described as the most definite form in the English article system, standing in direct contrast to zero at the opposite end of a scale. Yet, while this may applicable in the case of predicates nouns denoting unique roles, certain institutions where the referent is pragmatically unique, or coordinate structures with a preceding referent, there is persuasive evidence to suggest a considerable number of other null structures do not fit such a description but, on the contrary, share common characteristics with the weak form of the definite article or occupy more of a neutral position which would permit insertion of either one of the surface articles. On this basis, a proposal is advanced to acknowledge two forms of the null article, strong and weak, according to context. Rather than a corpus-based statistical approach, this paper draws upon a smaller selection of contemporary, non-fictional texts from a variety of semantic fields to illustrate the points being made.

The article is devoted to English neologisms in tourism and ways of their formation. Neologisms are defined as recently coined or existing words or word combinations which name new phenomena or concepts and which are moderately used by most members of a particular speech community. The study of neologisms in various spheres of functioning is always relevant, as it makes it possible to identify and analyze current changes in modern life. The research is focused on the neologisms which name new types of travel (apitourism, weather tourism, grief tourism, flashpacking), in particular, different types of post-COVID vacations (GOAT, revenge travel) have become very popular as many people were deprived of the chance to travel for a certain period of time. New types of holidaymakers (liveaboards, babymooners, half-tourists), professions (disco nannies, director of first impressions), and the related phenomena (spread booking, ghost flights, air curtain, place lag) are analyzed in the framework of the current paper. The availability of budget travel, which has provided a variety of options for all kinds of travelers, brings both positive and negative consequences as it stimulates the local economy but can also damage the local ecosystems and be detrimental to the local population which is reflected in the neological coinages (extractive tourism, overtourism). The research focuses on the word-forming potential of neologisms in tourism as well, in particular, the analysis showed that most of the considered units were formed by compounding (48% of neologisms of the sample) and blending (44%). The least popular ways of forming neologisms in tourism are affixation (4% of neologisms in the sample), abbreviation and conversion (each method in 2% of neologisms in the sample). At the end of the article, general conclusions are presented, Table 1 ‘Word-formation types of neologisms in tourism’ and suggestions for further neologism research are provided.

This article presents the Lithuanian Language Resources Information System "E. kalba" ("E-Language"), which was developed at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. The article therefore introduces the history of the development of "E. kalba", discusses the advantages of the system, shows how to perform a quick search in all or selected language resources, how to search for information of interest using wildcards, and briefly presents the statistics on the use of the system. The paper concludes with an introduction to the possible development perspectives of the system. From 2021, the system is freely available to the professionals and general public at https://ekalba.lt. The "E. kalba" provides access to 39 language resources, which are divided into three major groups: 1) e-dictionaries ("Dictionary of the Standard Lithuanian Language", "Dictionary of the Modern Lithuanian Language", "Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language", "Database of Lithuanian Language Neologisms", "Dictionary of Synonyms", "Lithuanian-English Dictionary", "German-Lithuanian Dictionary", etc.), 2) e-catalogues ("Main Catalogue of the ‘Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language’", "Catalogue of New Additions of the ‘Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language’", "Catalogue of Riddles", etc.), databases ("Database of Surnames", etc.), and 3) e-services ("WordNet search", "E-terms", "E-names", "Sentiment Analysis", "Word Formation Guide", "Language Advice", "Educational Language games", etc.). In addition to being a treasure trove of linguistic resources, "E. kalba" is also a multi-criteria search tool, with an effective and sophisticated search mechanism (quick and detailed search, search across all resources or within each resource, etc.). "E. kalba" offers a user-friendly way to view search results – results can be downloaded and saved in PDF and XML formats, and results can be shared on "Facebook". The system is also mobile-friendly.

This paper qualitatively examines mixed speech styles within the context of two single-gendered white-collar Lithuania-based workplaces situated in Vilnius: an IT company and a company producing cosmetics (COSM). In Lithuanian contexts, mixed speech styles could be broadly defined as a flow of speech consisting of linguistic resources from languages other than Lithuanian (mainly English and Russian) incorporated into otherwise Lithuanian talk. The paper focuses on situated usage of mixed speech styles employed in talk at work. It aims to see how the linguistic enactment of mixed speech styles varies according to the working team and how such variation may influence the construction of participants’ complex identities. The research is based on naturally occurring recorded speech, and the method applied could be determined as ethnographically informed Interactional Sociolinguistics. The analysis shows that the two single-gendered communities of practice examined do not draw on the same non-native linguistic resources and that such dissimilar speaker choices and identity work can be predetermined by an intricate interplay of social and situational factors.

The paper focuses on Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas’ poem “Vilnius 1943”, written in 1966 when the poet lived in the USA. However, the poem depicts the period of his life in Lithuania when he spent a lot of time in Vilnius. Therefore the paper raises the question of how the authentic living experience influenced the imagery of the poem. It proposes the semiotic reading of the poem that helps to consider the coherence of the imagery and its functions. The semiotic study of the imagery is supplemented with contextual analysis, which differentiates three contextual fields – that of historical context (the war realities), the cultural context (ancient literature, the Bible, Jewish culture, the modern art, etc.) and the context configured by the poet himself. The discussion of the episodes from Nyka-Niliūnas’ biography is based on the diaries, letters and memories of the poet and his relatives. The analysis reveals that it was the historical perspective that influenced the manner of description of holocaust events in the poem. So far as the egological sources allow us to argue, the poetic imagery of the poem is based on the universal historical, cultural and literary contexts rather than significantly influenced by the living experience of the poet in war-time Vilnius.

When Apple Store was launched, there were 500 applications available for iPhone users. Since then, the number of applications in the App Store skyrocketed and in 2017 reached around 2.2 million. In recent years, the number of apps in the App Store is steadily declining, due to Apple’s decision to remove old apps that do not function or the apps that do not follow current app guidelines. The distribution of the apps is only available through the App Store, where the only available payment processor is controlled by Apple. That places Apple in a unique position. The case Epic Games v. Apple raises a broader discussion, whether Apple as the “gatekeeper” of Apps can restrict distribution and access to the apps in the iOS operational system, and whether that kind of activity can be deemed as a monopolist and restrictive competition in App distribution market. This paper will analyze and critically evaluate the recent lawsuit that was brought up against Apple by Epic Games. The main aspect of this analysis is whether Apple can legally restrict the developer’s ability to distribute the applications through the App Store and if it does not restrict the competition. This article is composed of several chapters. Chapter one will examine the relevant facts of the Epic and Apple lawsuit and will summarize the key arguments of this case. The second chapter will explore the relevant legislation and the relevant market related to previously mention proceedings and will explain how the doctrine of the essential facility might affect the case. Chapter three will delve into similar cases brought up earlier and will cover the distribution of digital goods. Chapter four will provide conclusions and the paths moving forward. The object of the paper is to perform a detailed analysis of the case. The purpose of the paper is an assessment of the relevant facts and legal framework regarding Epic’s claim, as well as analyze the topics of foreclosure and dominance in the market. To write this paper several academic writing methods such as descriptive to provide readers with relevant legislation and inform them about relevant facts of the case, also analytical to form the readers’ opinions regarding the recent events and activities of both sides of the suit, also a comparative to compare different legal frameworks in the United States of America and European Union regarding the regulation of monopoly were used. There is no doubt this topic has enormous relevance because of its’ possible after-effects. Epic’s claim already has an impact not only on Apple but also on the whole app development and distribution industry of digital goods and might create a precedent to the similar cases. Currently, this claim is only discussed in the media, and there is no precedent. This article will not give a clear answer to how this lawsuit will be resolved, because it mainly depends on court interpretation of the relevant market. We would rather give a few alternative solutions to this case.

This paper addresses the issue of polysemy, and more precisely of multiple meanings in the case of the words francophonie/francophone from the perspective of argumentative semantics. The aim of the paper is to examine the mechanisms that account for the multiple meanings of francophonie/francophone, i.e. the semantic and discursive mechanisms involved in the (re)construction of lexical meaning as the words occur in discourse. The data analysed in this paper consists of a set of discourse fragments about francophone identity, discourses that vary according to the speaker, the geographical location and the media support. The study is carried out within the framework of the SAP theory (Semantics of Argumentative Possibilities), following a procedure based on a pre-built reference meaning – i.e. a description of the argumentative potential of the lexeme – that will be used when analysing the discursive occurrences. First, the paper briefly presents the SAP theory and the pre-built reference meaning of the lexemes francophonie/francophone (described in terms of core-elements, stereotypes and argumentative possibilities). It then illustrates several discursive mechanisms of meaning construction. The analysis highlights a series of meaning construction mechanisms: transgressive activation of the argumentative potential, reconfiguration by scission of the core-elements or by deletion of one of the elements, modality addition, transgressive reconstruction of the core meaning, and finally core circularity. Thus, the paper indicates, from the perspective of argumentative semantics, that the multiple meanings of the words francophonie/francophone, i.e. the various semantic configurations attached to these words, can be seen as reconfigurations of a single lexical meaning.

From the corpus data, we observe that in the real language usage, the particular verb does not appear in all theoretically possible finite and infinite verb forms in the morphologically rich Lithuanian but is used in those forms which are relevant for the verb patterning. On the one hand, by teaching vocabulary, is it important to represent lexis in these relevant forms – frequently used forms, and, on the other hand, in grammar teaching, there is a need to provide learners with appropriate vocabulary, e.g., by teaching infinite forms, to use verbs, in the usage of which, these forms are relevant and frequent. In this paper, we provide language teaching practitioners with the data about the frequently used Lithuanian verbs and show which of them and how often appear in infinite forms (participles in passive and active voice, adverbial participles, half participles). As a research data we use 200 verbs from the Lexical Database of Lithuanian Language Usage which was developed on the basis of the written subcorpus of the Pedagogic corpus of Lithuanian. The investigated verbs belong to the frequent vocabulary: in the corpus of approx. 700,000 tokens, these verbs are used 100 times (and above). First, we analysed, which verbs appear in infinite forms, second, we checked whether frequent and typical infinite forms are included into corpus pattern(s) of these particular verbs, and if there is a link between the infinite form and a particular meaning of the verb. All verbs (except of three verbs with no infinite forms) were included into one of three groups: 1) 11 verbs which occur in the infinite forms frequently (more than 50% of all forms – finite and infinite) and, accordingly, typical; 2) 117 verbs with the infinite forms making up from 10 to 50%; 3) 69 verbs, with the infinite forms making up less than 10% of all verb forms. Interestingly, the verbs of the first group, usually have only one infinite form, e.g., participle in passive voice which makes up more than 50% of all forms of verb. These cases are also frequently observed in the second verb group. Thus, if the verb tends to be used in infinite forms, it is important to know which infinite form is relevant to that particular verb. In the Lexical Database of Lithuanian Language Usage, lexical and grammatical patterning of the word is represented in the form of corpus patterns. In this study, we showed the interrelation between the frequently used infinite forms of the verb and its corpus patterns (also, corpus patterns related to particular meaning of the polysemous verb). We can expect various applications of the provided data in the Lithuanian as a foreign language teaching: the provided data about the verbs typical and frequent in infinite forms and the corpus patterns including these infinite forms can be used for building vocabulary training as well as for developing grammar exercises.

This paper assesses two competing modalities for the assignment of morphological case. Arguments are provided from Lithuanian against the configurational strategy of Dependent Case (Marantz 1991, Baker 2015) and in favor of case assignment by functional heads (Chomsky 2000, 2001). The first argument comes from a series of Transitive Impersonal constructions in which accusative appears independently, in the absence of a higher, nominative-marked argument, so long as the predicate is two-place and caused, implicating v-Cause as the source of accusative. Further evidence for this analysis comes from the Inferential Evidential, an oblique-subject construction. While the Dependent Case strategy states that nominative automatically shifts to the object if not assigned to the subject, nominative objects are exceedingly rare in the Inferential Evidential, a fact that is entirely consistent with the local, feature-based theory of case advanced in this paper, which relates the appearance of nominative to the Agree relation with Tense.

This paper aims to present and discuss the results of a survey study concerning the notion of SZACUNEK (“esteem”). The survey was conducted in a group of students from Lublin universities: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Medical University of Lublin and Lublin University of Technology. The participants of the study included male and female students pursuing both STEM and liberal arts degrees. The present paper is situated within the research on the language of values, which has its framework in the context of the five-volume Leksykon aksjologiczny Słowian i ich sąsiadów (“Axiological Lexicon of Slavs and Their Neighbours”) published under the scholarly and editorial direction of Jerzy Bartmiński as part of the international conference EUROJOS. The analyses discussed by the author were carried out in accordance with the methodological approach adopted in the report Język – wartości – polityka. Zmiany rozumienia nazw wartości w okresie transformacji ustrojowej w Polsce (“Language, Values, Politics. Evolution of the Understanding of Names of Values during the System Transformation in Poland”) published under the direction of Jerzy Bartmiński. The survey study made use of the Axiological Dictionary Questionnaire. All respondents were obligatorily asked the following question: “What – in your view – constitutes the essence of esteem?”. The analysis and discussion of questionnaire results was based on 100 responses (N) and 142 “mini-responses” (W). This allowed to distinguish 28 descriptors (D), 15 of which had only single occurrences. Descriptor characteristics (along with the corresponding phrases) were ordered according to the number of occurrences and assigned to appropriate aspects. Six aspects characteristic for the students’ view of ESTEEM were distinguished.

The paper offers an analysis of selected uses of the Polish perfective and imperfective in the non-past indicative and in the imperative construction. In uses under consideration, both the perfective and the imperfective refer to a single complete occurrence of a telic process and, hence, the semantic contrast between them is not a matter of distinctions such as boundedness/unboundedness, completion/non-completion, telicity/atelicity, punctuality/durativity, etc. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of selected corpus examples which is aimed at elucidating the nature of the relevant contrast. The claim advocated in the course of the discussion is that the perfective/imperfective contrast may play a role in the system of clausal grounding in Polish, as it may convey the idea of, respectively, epistemic and/or effective non-immediacy/immediacy of the profiled process relative to the ground.

The present paper deals with the attrition of the first language. It presents a general overview of language attrition as a research field and discusses the main characteristics of the phenomenon by examining some typical lexical, grammatical, and phonological properties of attriters’ speech. Our attention is drawn here to a variety of factors, such as age, time spent in the L2 environment, frequency of first language use, language attitudes, and other aspects that have an impact on language attrition. The paper also reflects on and motivates the choice of the term ‘attrition’ in the Lithuanian academic use. The current empirical analysis focuses on an extreme case of first language attrition in the situation of international adoption of an early-teenager (~12 years old) Lithuanian girl adopted to Italy. The linguistic development of the girl was normal, and at the time of adoption she was regularly literate in Lithuanian L1. With the adoption, her language environment switched completely from Lithuanian to Italian. This case study is based on longitudinal observation and speech recordings mainly from the final stage of the observation period, i.e., 14 months after her departure from the country of origin. The paper examines Lithuanian utterances and other elements of the Lithuanian language in the girl’s communication. Her spontaneous speech is analysed mostly on the lexical and grammatical level, but some other language levels are also touched upon. The analysis shows a very advanced stage of first language attrition not only on the most evident – lexical – level, but also substantial changes on the grammatical level. The data shows that categories of tense, aspect, indefiniteness, case, and even gender, which differ in the two – Lithuanian and Italian – languages, have been impacted by the new dominant language. To conclude, even though the girl’s age and particularly positive attitudes towards the Lithuanian language were quite likely the most important factors for her maintaining some of the language one year later, the attrition of her L1 is still very advanced.

The paper sets out to examine prepositional polysemy in the Baltic languages. More precisely, the investigation focuses on the semantic structure of the Latvian preposition aiz + Gen. ‘behind, beyond’ as compared to the Lithuanian už + Gen. / Acc. ‘behind, beyond, for’ discussed in our previous paper (Šeškauskienė & Žilinskaitė-Šinkūnienė 2015). The methodology of research relies on the cognitive linguistic framework, mainly on the principle of motivated polysemy. Its key idea is that in the semantic network of the preposition all senses are seen as directly or indirectly linked to the central sense. In the case of aiz and už, the central sense encodes information about spatial configuration of Figure and Ground with the former located in the back region of the latter. A number of other senses, mostly concrete, derived from the central sense, overlap in Latvian and Lithuanian but demonstrate a differing degree of entrenchment. The most distinct differences are identifiable in the abstract senses.

The paper analyzes the results of a sentence repetition task performed by Lithuanian L2 speakers of different language proficiency levels. This paper focuses on a set of targeted verb forms included in the task because they are less likely to occur in free production. The different forms the speakers produced are analyzed by considering their correspondence (or not) to the targeted form, by comparing the speakers among each other with respect to their learner variety and by comparing the task results to the repertoire of the same speaker in the free production data. In multiple cases of failed re-production, the analysis examines what the targeted forms were substituted with and tries to identify possible reasons for such substitution. This analysis confirms the general inability of the basic variety speakers to distinguish between morphologically different forms and the dominant trend showing that L2 learners are more meaning-focused than form-focused. The analysis also shows growing implicit knowledge, or at least gradual passive acquisition, of the less frequent forms as the speaker advances in the post-basic continuum.

Alongside the process of globalisation, from which no state can escape today, there appears to be an underlying “Americanisation of the world”, which is reflected essentially in the worldwide export of American industry and capital, but also of ideas, customs, and social habits. Among these habits, the American sociologist George Ritzer has highlighted the spread of fast-food chains which, according to him, is less a sign of the generalisation of a way of consuming than the implementation of a way of thinking. Indeed, Ritzer observed that contemporary societies have gradually abandoned the traditional way of reasoning in favour of more rational ways of thinking, similar to fast food chains, which rely on efficiency, calculability, predictability and the use of new technologies. Described as “McDonaldisation”, in reference to the famous multinational fast-food corporation, this phenomenon of rationalisation is affecting “more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world” due to cultural homogenisation resulting itself from globalisation. Indeed, the American justice system as well as “the rest of the world”, such as many European legal systems, are also concerned by it, particularly regarding their criminal procedures, which are increasingly under the influence of this process of “McDonaldisation”. The relatively recent use of guilty pleas for individuals and legal persons, the use of sentencing guidelines and the increase in predictive justice in criminal matters reflect the key aspects of “McDonaldisation” mentioned above, namely efficiency, calculability, predictability, and the use of new technologies. However, this streamlining trend harms the defence rights placed at the heart of criminal procedures in general, such as the right to a fair trial, the right to an independent and impartial tribunal, the presumption of innocence and the individualisation of punishment. This paper therefore examines the future of these fundamental rights in the light of the “McDonaldisation” of criminal justice in America and in various European States and focus on the new principles that now guide it.

This paper analyses, if the Intertemporal Guarantee of Freedom, that was developed by the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC), can be used to expand the protection of human rights against the harms of climate change. The case of the Swiss Senior Women shows that there are jurisdictions, where the Intertemporal Guarantee of Freedom could be applied to improve standing and the control standard of states’ climate change action. Within international law bodies with jurisdiction over human rights treaties there are distinctive standards of protection against the harms of climate change. A major deficit within the international human rights protection against climate change lies within the focus on the positive obligations and the corresponding wide margin of appreciation granted to the states. The Intertemporal Guarantee of Freedom could provide a protection expansion in this regard, especially in the case of the European Court of Human Rights. It could also enable and legitimise present human rights concerns focused on the future actions of states following their past inaction. One considerable hurdle that is not addressed by it are procedural hurdles like the Plaumann formula applied by the European Court of Justice. The Intertemporal Guarantee of Freedom cannot solve major problems for climate change litigation like procedural hurdles. Yet, it can provide a new approach for complaints to address unambitious mitigation legislation which will lead to future human rights infringements.

This paper will review some concepts elaborated upon by restorative justice and reflect on how some of them can be put in with the context of the ecocide crime. It can be said that this crime, as the fifth most serious crime against global peace, is a new threat for a human’s life. The crime of ecocide, especially its governmental and corporate types, severely damages and destroys the environment, and in addition to the threat it poses to environmental security, ecocide undermines the foundations of economic and social security. The author used a descriptive-analytical approach and library resources to study the process of invention of the concept of ecocide as well as its essence in restorative justice thought. The present study tries to show that restorative justice applied to ecocide crime is a justice that provides environmental revitalisation-reparation. This novel vision will attempt to provide judicial actors insights regarding the role played by restorative policies to restore or sustain ecological functioning in the promotion of human rights, survival of environment, and the diminishment of social suffering.

Ancient Greek subjects preserve their relevance in our times through their timeless, profound and comprehensive consideration of the human soul and interpersonal relations, which remain unchanged throughout the centuries in accordance with human nature. Euripides’ tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis has not been exploited often by later writers and film makers who have focused mainly on the murder of the King of Mycenae, Agamemnon, and the destiny of the dynasty of the Atreidae in accordance with Aeschylus’ trilogy. Nevertheless, one of the main reasons for the murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra is his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia, the story of which is told by Euripides in his tragedies Iphigenia in Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris. In Yorgos Lanthimos’ film The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) the main character Steven, just like Agamemnon, is informed of the will of the gods who demand sacrifice to be given. The carefully considered reasons which led Agamemnon and Steven to face an inevitable choice highlight their common character features, with hubris the decisive one among them. Comparison of the texts under analysis shows that acceptance of the inevitability of the situation by the families of the main characters develops through the classical stages from denial to understanding that nothing else depends on them. And while in Euripides’ tragedy the plot device of a “deus ex machina” is exploited, as the gods are satisfied with the acceptance of the inevitability of sacrifice, in the film one of the members of the family actually dies in order for order to be restored, because a murder presupposes atonement through the blood of another. This reception of Euripides’ tragedy is of particular interest because Yorgos Lanthimos is Greek by origin who at a certain moment of his career decided to move away from his native Greek space and start creating films for a more general Western audience. This paper analyses how, in this post-modernist multimodal film text expressive means from Ancient Greek theatre are combined with elements of modern cinema.

This paper presents the linguopoetic analysis of the Latin panegyric "Iter Laureatum" by Hryhorii Vyshnovskyi, dedicated to Josaf Krokovskyi, the former rector of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The panegyric is analyzed within the historical and cultural context of that time. The purpose of this study is to give the idea of the structure, poetic means and individual author's performance of the genre in Latin language. The relationship between Ukrainian baroque poetry and antiquity is defined in precedent texts. Precedent texts actualize well-known cultural phenomena, thereby creating the effect of recognition. It is proved that the transfer of the narrative to the mythological plane creates the effect of historicity and legendary nature of the event or personality, which benefits panegyric pathos. The article focuses on lexical poetic means (analysis of poetic interpretation of mythological names) and stylistic means (the amplification, anaphor, use of metaphors and comparisons). The mythological names are classified according to the main thematic groups: geographic names, representing the ancient and medieval realities (Regna Mauri, Regna Lydiae, regna Arabum, Canopus, Thracia, Rhodopa, Troja), personal names of mythological characters (Apollo, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Thalia, Siren, Echo, Hercules), words of musical art (chorda, carmen, lyra, chorus, nablium), martial arts (Mars, Scipio, trophaeum). The following metaphors were defined for description of patron's dignity: "majorum decus"; "pater Rossiadum"; "patronus pupillae sortis"; "victor cordis"; "princeps pectoris". We direct attention to the realization of author's narrative strategy of the will-expression, which is to exalt the patron's generosity and express the affection and loyalty towards him. It is discussed the poet's intention to cross the time barriers and transfer the mythological realities to the Ukrainian ground (Borysthenes, Siren Kioviensis).

Interest in the concept of competence is becoming crucial, as it is highly interconnected with the idea of life-long education and the requirement of continuing professional development. Improving competence and becoming a long-life learner are essential components of ensuring employability. From an educational perspective, a competence-based education addresses the problem of defining exactly what competence is due to the variety of interpretations of its meaning. On the one hand, the concept of competence is understood as an intermediate level of knowledge and skills developed in the future professional (the current student), and yet conversely competence implies efficient behavior in a non-standard situation that requires the highest level of knowledge, skill, and qualification. This paper is based on the analysis of the concept of competence and the variety of interpretations of its meaning. The goal of the paper is to discuss the different concepts of competence, seeking an integral approach to the meaning of competence. The literature review allowed the authors to conclude that the discourse that surrounds competence is widely analyzed in the scientific literature, and the meaning of competence depends upon the approach chosen. Each of these interpretations are rational, and majority of them resonate with Westera’s competence model. According to this model, competence can be considered to be comprised of an individual’s knowledge, experience, skills, abilities, attitudes, values, and other personal qualities that determine understanding and willingness to solve a concrete intellectual or practical challenge, and ensure success. An individual’s competence depends not only on what qualities they have as a whole (their “quality pool”) but also, most importantly, on the structure of qualities that they choose from their inner “pool” to solve a situation in life or in work. Attitudes and values are the bases of competence, which constitutes an action’s driving force and forms both commitment to an activity and confidence in its success. Competence has a dynamic structure, as in every activity a person not only makes decisions but learns in parallel, and as such their knowledge, experience, and skills are enhanced.

On 23 June 2016 almost 17.5 million citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. The UK government invoked the relevant Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union on 29 March 2017. As authors of the said provision have admitted, it was never to be used (Fabbrini, 2017). And yet here we all are/were (depending on when you are reading it), anno domini 2020, witnessing an unprecedented event of a sovereign state “taking back control” i.e. leaving in great pain the most powerful economic and political union of sovereign states ever established, taking advantage of the procedure that had initially not only been de iure impossible, but also seemed inconceivable in and of itself. According to Theresa May, “Brexit means Brexit”. Little help did that tautological definition bring anyone. And yet, after Brexit came, the transition period started. Written in the middle of the said transition period, the purpose of this paper is to briefly treat on Brexit in general and the near-term future related thereto. In addition, also considering the timing of this paper, i.e. May / June 2020, a particular regard will be paid to the more distant future ahead of us – certain matters pertaining to international commercial dispute resolution after Brexit. Considering the overall uncertainty surrounding Brexit that we find ourselves in, the relevance of the topic discussed in the paper is unquestionable. In addition, relevance-wise, one could consider whether the process we are all witnessing could result in encouraging or, rather, discouraging any similar future initiatives. In this context, a broader perspective will be utilised to come to certain indicative conclusions as to whether Brexit can result in good know-how practices learned for future similar initiatives, or rather serve as an example for “never again”.

This research paper deals with the Institute of Smart Contracts, reveals legal regulation and its problems. In the first part of the work, using the attributes: immutability, specific form and operation without third party mediation, and the basic functions of storing, validating and executing, the concept of smart contracts is revealed. Also, in order to fully disclose the exclusivity of these contracts, fundamental differences from automated transactions are discussed. In the second part – three contract institutes are distinguished, in the context of which the compatibility of smart contracts with the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania is assessed. First of all, it discusses the formation and its characteristics, in addition it is evaluated whether the formation of the smart contract violates the norms of the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania. Further, the exclusive execution of these contracts and their compliance with Chapter XVI of the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania is disclosed. Finally, the paper examines possible breaches of smart contracts, ways to resolve them, as well as customization and compatibility.

The paper aims to reveal the process of face and power construction in the context of political TV debates in Lithuania and to analyse face threatening acts (FTAs) in terms of propositional content and orientation to the addressee’s face. This study adopts the qualitative content analysis approach to analyse 360 minutes of political debates broadcasted before the 2016 Lithuanian parliamentary elections. The current paper presents the concept of impoliteness, which is later applied in the empirical analysis to address two main objectives: (a) to analyse the process of face and power construction in political TV debates and (b) to study FTAs in terms of propositional content and orientation to the addressee’s face. The results of the study have revealed that politicians seek to get more power by producing FTAs towards their opponents; a zero-sum game metaphor can be used to describe this process. Also, the analysis of FTAs has demonstrated that politicians tend to apply both negative and positive impoliteness strategies. The analysis of FTAs in terms of propositional content has shown that politicians are mostly described as the ones who are lying, hiding the truth, and have performed wrong and ineffective actions in the past. This suggests that participants in Lithuanian political TV debates seek to damage their rival’s face in a way which does not harm their own face by applying indirect – positive and negative – impoliteness strategies and by negatively describing their opponents’ professionalism and general competencies.

The article analyses national and foreign approaches to the legal regulation of ICO, STO and cryptocurrencies from a comparative perspective, examines the models of taxation of crypto assets in Lithuania and Japan, and pays special attention to the legal regulation in Germany as an EU country. It concludes that the tax and legal regulation of cryptocurrencies in Lithuania and Germany is similar, as both countries follow the principle of neutrality – they do not prohibit, but they do not regulate by law. The paper also makes recommendations for recognising cryptocurrencies as legal tender by including regulation of crypto assets in national tax laws, defining types of crypto assets, uniform concepts, and taxation principles. According to the authors, such a solution would provide more legal certainty for natural and legal persons and would help to manage the risks associated with crypto assets.

This article analyses the practical application of blockchain technology in the organisation of annual general meetings. The paper presents examples of the spreading application of the technology in foreign companies. In addition, it discusses the legal regulation of the organisation of annual general meetings in Lithuania, which is relevant for the practical application of the technology: authentication of shareholders and voting. Furthermore, the perspectives of blockchain technology in the Lithuanian market and its companies are reviewed.

By employing a functional-cognitive frame, this paper, in which neologisms derived from English are analysed, focuses on the semantics of new Hungarian terms of quality assurance (quality management in general). Although the importance of unambiguous terms in scientific communication is often emphasised (Temmerman 2002: 211), it has been observed that the presence of conceptual metonymies and metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Panther and Thornburg 2003, Kövecses 2015) also fosters understanding of technical languages. The author’s previous research in the field of the semantics of Hungarian neologisms (e.g. Sólyom 2014a, b, 2016) has also revealed that the presence of metonymies and metaphors has a significant impact upon the process of meaning construal. The present research assumes that various metonymic and metaphorical meanings occur in the semantics of novel Hungarian terms of quality assurance. To attest this, examples from a questionnaire filled by Hungarian quality engineers in 2018 will be analysed. Another question addressed in this paper is whether there is a mental reason for the fact that although there are colloquial Hungarian words and expressions for describing the processes of manufacturing, experts in the field do not use them, but rather employ neologisms with English roots. Indeed, this is how specialists distinguish technical terms from everyday expressions.

The primary goal of this paper is to examine the coverage of the 2008-2009 economic crisis in the Lithuanian online media as well as its relationship to the actual economic situation and perception of media consumers. The theoretical basis for this research is made up of the theories of agenda-setting and framing. The coverage of the media is assessed on the basis of the corpus of economic reporting in 2006–2014 in two Lithuanian media sources, the news agency BNS and DELFI news website, by analysing the volume and the tone of the reports. The coverage in the media is then compared to some statistical economic indicators. The main findings of the paper are the following: 1. The coverage of the crisis in the media reflected rather accurately the actual situation: the fluctuations of the volume of the reports largely followed the timeline of the main events of the crisis. The correlation between the reporting tone and industrial production index as a gauge of the economic situation was rather high, which supports the adequacy of the coverage. The relationship between the reporting and economic indicators was found to be stronger in the case of the BNS than in DELFI. 2. Negative reports were found to be dominating over positive ones. It is partially inevitable due to the context of the crisis, but the effect of the general media negativity bias cannot be ruled out either. 3. During the year of the worst economic situation, the number of the reports of both highly negative and highly positive tone increased, but the volume of the two extremes decreased with the improvement of the economic situation. This might suggest that the media was aiming to counterweight the flow of very negative news during the crisis. 4. On average, the tone of the BNS news agency coverage was more positive than that of DELFI. The factors behind this trend could be the linguistic features of the reporting style (usage of intensifying modal words as well as negatively or positively image-evoking lexis) and the intention to attract attention from the audience. 5. Certain asymmetry was noticed in the public reaction to the coverage of the crisis in the media as media consumers reacted more rapidly and for a longer time period to the deterioration in the reporting tone than to its improvement. 6. The correlation to media coverage was stronger in the case of the consumer sentiment indicator rather than in the case of the indicator for consumer behaviour (retail trade turnover index). It should be noted that the analysis was limited to only two media channels, so the inclusion of other media channels, especially television, could make such research more informative. Further research could include an additional corpus of reports with such keywords as “recession”, “recovery”, “growth”, “unemployment” and similar items. An analysis of the effects of linguistic factors alone on the reporting tone could also provide some interesting insights. Research on the coverage tone in relation to different subjects (economy, companies and political events) could be another valuable addition to the study.

The idea of this paper arose in a reading group of several colleagues at the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University after a discussion of a review article published by the editors of Language Teaching. Titled ‘Replication studies in language learning and teaching’ (2008), the paper focuses on replication studies and argues that they should be promoted and valued no less than original research. The participants of the reading group agreed that replication studies, understood here primarily as replications of quantitative research, are indeed an important issue that could be of interest to the broader community of applied linguists in Lithuania. The present paper argues that attempts to replicate earlier studies, which are very scarce or non-existent in Lithuania, deserve more attention both from novice and mature researchers. Replications are particularly valuable in developmental studies where replicating a study over a period of time allows the researcher to obtain data for continued analysis. Furthermore, a replication of a published study that deals with data collected in one country offers an opportunity to verify its findings in a different context and this way consolidates our understanding of phenomena under study. Finally, replication is an invaluable learning method to a novice linguist, be it a senior undergraduate or postgraduate student. Thus the authors of this paper would like to promote the idea of replication research in our community as well as encourage everyone interested make use of the increasingly growing amount of open access data available on the internet.

This paper examines the status of the Latin demonstrative ille and the intensifier ipse, which are the sources of definite articles in modern Romance languages. My analysis is based on the text of the Itinerarium Egeriae from the end of the fourth century AD. Using the approach of cognitive linguistics, I suggest how the articloid could be defined and how it could be distinguished semantically from its source element. I argue that both ille and ipse are used as articloids in the text. However, the original demonstrative meaning of ille and the original intensifying meaning of ipse are also attested, and in certain cases; though redundant, their use can be caused by the specific stylistics of the text. Furthermore, ipse has developed an additional meaning that establishes identity through similarity, and which might have led the path to its further grammaticalization. Therefore, both ille and ipse have a spectrum of interrelated meanings that range from those attested in Classical Latin to grammatical usage as articloids. However, as definiteness markers, their usage is not extended into contexts reserved for definite articles in languages with fully grammaticalized definiteness markers and hence its use as an articloid in the Latin of the fourth century AD could have been typologically equivalent to that of the articloid in the Baltic languages.

The present paper reports the instrumental analysis of the unstressed variants of /iː/, /uː/, /eː/, /oː/, /æː/ and /ɑː/. The study was carried out by employing the sound analysis software PRAAT, which was used to measure the length and tenseness of the specified variants. 10 residents of Vilnius city and 10 hosts of TV/radio programmes covering serious public topics were selected as the informants of the study. The main aims of this research were as follows: (1) to determine whether vowel length and tenseness differentiate the pronunciation of Vilnius city residents from that of the hosts of TV/radio programmes covering serious public topics, and (2) to reveal whether the hosts of TV/radio programmes use the length or tenseness of the unstressed variants of /iː/, /uː/, /eː/, /oː/, /æː/, /ɑː/ as a resource for creating a formal and serious speaking style. The current study examines, among other things, if the TV/radio hosts pronounce the unstressed variants of /iː/, /uː/, /eː/, /oː/, /æː/, /ɑː/ systematically more tensely, or perhaps on the contrary – they create the impression of a serious style only with isolated sounds of increased tenseness. The analysis has revealed that the hosts of TV/radio programmes covering serious topics pronounce the unstressed variants of /iː/, /uː/, /eː/, /oː/, /æː/ and /ɑː/ in the same length as Vilnius city residents speaking in a semi-formal style. Hence, vowel length in the said programmes is not a significant linguistic resource when creating a serious and formal speaking style and constructing the linguistic identity of a TV/radio host addressing serious public topics. However, TV/radio hosts covering serious public topics pronounce the unstressed variants of /iː/, /uː/, /eː/, /oː/, /æː/ and /ɑː/ with more tenseness than Vilnius city residents, which suggests that the style of the hosts is distinct from the semi-formal speaking style of Vilnius city residents and serves as a well-defined marker of a certain language standard. These findings are in line with some previous studies indicating that vowel tenseness statistically significantly distinguishes programmes covering serious public topics from entertainment-based programmes covering personal topics. Therefore, it can be argued that vowel tenseness differentiates speakers (TV/radio hosts vs. Vilnius city residents), types of programmes (programmes covering serious public topics vs. entertainment-based programmes covering personal topics), styles (formal vs. semi-formal), and language varieties (actual standard language vs. Vilnius speech). Thus, in the speech of hosts of TV/radio programmes covering serious public topics, tenseness acquires the indexical meaning of “I am speaking seriously”. The use of isolated vowels of increased tenseness is thus sufficient to create the impression of a serious speaking style and to form the linguistic identity of a TV/radio host covering serious topics.

This article sets out to discuss the potential of Juri Lotman’s semiotic theory to serve as a ground from where a new understanding of cultural complexity could emerge. While the connection between Lotman and complex systems theory is quite well established, what is yet to be clarified is the ways in which his approach differs from the universally accepted understandings of complex dynamics, i.e., what makes Lotman’s perspective on complexity unique? The article also explores the possibility of developing Lotman’s ideas further in the context of the contemporary paradigm of complex thought with the aim of clarifying the specifics of complexity in cultural systems. In order to fill these aims, the article will first compare Juri Lotman’s ideas with a generally recognized understanding of complexity to delineate a common ground. Then, the paper will address the issue of how studying complexity differs in physical systems and cultural systems, focusing on how this matter has been discussed in semiotics. The final part of the article will propose some initial lines of thoughts regarding how Lotman’s ideas could be advanced further to grasp the phenomenon of complexity in culture.

The paper deals with the effects of prescriptivism on the Lithuanian language. The research includes one domain of language use – radio and television, and one aspect of language – lexicon, in the period between 1960 and 2010. The investigation is corpus-based and focuses on the use of words that are classified as “incorrect” by the Lithuanian norm-setters. The study is important both as a discussion of the impact of prescriptivism on language change in general, as well as of the indirect influence of media on language, since media can affect the symbolic evaluation of specific language forms. The paper consists of five chapters. The first chapter “Review of the research” discusses the theoretical assumptions and concepts needed for further analysis: it gives an overview of studies on the effects of prescriptivism conducted in Lithuania and elsewhere, presents the concepts of second-level indexicality and style, and outlines the key characteristics of media change in Lithuania that are relevant to the study. Studies on the success of prescriptivism do not give a definite answer as to whether prescriptivism works. Institutionalisation and a high degree of stigmatisation of the corrected language forms can be listed among the factors that increase its success; prescriptivism is likely to be less successful when the “forbidden” language forms are too convenient to be given up, or when prescriptivist rules are too complicated for lay language users and the rules contradict each other. In the case of media, the effect of prescriptivism is said to be weakened by media commercialisation. When applied to the analysis of non-standard words, first-order indexicality refers to situations when the non-standard forms are used as value-free instances of ordinary speech, in already established meanings; in these cases, the speakers are not aware that they are using “incorrect” forms. Second-order indexicality refers to cases when non-standard words are used for additional function, e.g., to express a speaker’s particular identity or to construct a certain (informal, friendly) speech style. The concept of style, referring to the social differences between individual speakers, is used to analyse the use of words in concrete situations. The paper gives an overview of three sociolinguistic concepts of style that are relevant in this study: style as a degree of formality (e.g., when the speaker accommodates to the formal context of the media and uses less non-standard words); as audience and referee design (e.g., use of non-standard words in programmes for young audiences); and as a speaker design (e.g., play with language by the programme host in order to construct a fun persona). In the study of non-standard lexis, it is important to account for certain features of Lithuanian media development, such as the Soviet period, which was characterised by the use of newspeak, and the commercialisation of the media in the contemporary period. Accordingly, the paper analyses the uses of incorrect words as a part of newspeak and their use for the entertainment-related purposes such as language plays in present times. The paper also addresses the transitory period of radio and TV development, which has features from both the previous and the later periods, as well as some unique characteristics of language use. The second chapter “Radio and TV speech in the prescriptive discourse” presents an analysis of the metalinguistic discourse on media speech produced by Lithuanian prescriptivists from the pre-war period up to now. The analysis shows how this discourse preserved the same dominant idea about media’s role in language standardisation. On the one hand, during this whole time, radio and television were approached as responsible for teaching listeners and viewers the “correct language”; on the other hand, simultaneously, the language of radio and television was perceived as failing to conform to the prescriptive norms set by the norm-setters. The huge societal shifts that happened during this time did not make a major influence on this discourse. It remained very stable during different periods of time. The social, cultural and political changes in society and the media were taken into account only by adjusting the argumentation – by presenting patriotic, moral, ideological or legal motives that were meant to justify the language prescriptions. The third chapter “Research methods and data” presents the Corpus of Radio and TV speech, the concept of non-standard words, and the sources of prescriptivist corrections used in the analysis. The corpus of radio and TV speech includes data from 1960 to 2011 and is constructed in a balanced way to represent the periods of Lithuanian radio and TV development (Soviet, transitory, contemporary), as well as programme genres (talk programmes, information programmes, journals/features/documentaries). The speakers are coded into six types: news reader/voice-over, talk show host, expert, celebrity, hero and vox populi. For the analysis, the non-standard words that are classified as “incorrect” in the normative tradition of the Lithuanian language were coded. These include old (mainly, Slavic) and new (mainly, English) loans, the so-called hybrid words (that have a borrowed part), semantic loans, translations, as well as some lexicalised uses of words and some lexicalised syntactic constructions. Two types of words are analysed – individual lexical words and functional words. The latter include various fillers and discourse markers, as well as pronoun constructions with tai (e.g. kažkas tai ‘some(body)’). Non-standard words were identified from older and present style guides, including the database of language corrections created by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language. The fourth chapter “Change in the number of non-standard words: a quantitative analysis” investigates development of the use of non-standard words on radio and TV, as well as the frequency of usage of the non-standard lexical forms. According to the corpus data, the average frequency of non-standard words by one speaker is 17 per thousand words, which makes up about 2–3 “incorrect” words per minute. Non-standard discourse markers and fillers (9.8/1000 words) are used most frequently, whereas individual lexical words (5.6/1000 words) are much less frequent, and pronoun constructions with tai (1.6/1000 words) are rarer still. Closer analysis revealed that the only statistically significant change between the analysed periods (Soviet, transitory and contemporary) was a decrease of the frequency of non-standard lexical words in the contemporary period compared to the previous ones. The frequency of discourse markers/fillers and pronoun constructions with tai did not change. Regarding the speaker types, the uses of non-standard words decreased in those groups that are within easier reach of prescriptivism – news readers/voice-overs and talk show hosts. Also, to a lesser extent, in the group of experts. Those groups of speakers that are less likely to be subjected to language correction practices (ordinary people) did not seem to change their behaviour: the number of non-standard words in their speech did not decrease, on the contrary, a slight increase has been noticed. These findings confirm the effects of institutionalised prescriptivism. Regarding genres, non-standard words are least frequent in information programmes, which are mostly based on the reading of written texts. Lists of the most frequent non-standard words during the three periods overlap to a great extent, which means that despite prescriptivist practices, the most frequent non-standard words do not disappear from the air. The fifth chapter “Change in the functions of non-standard words: a qualitative analysis” investigates specific communicative situations of the usage of non-standard words and takes into account the media-related and societal contexts, as well as the stylistic and social functions of the corrected lexis. A common trait of the use of non-standard words during all periods, interpreted as the first level of indexicality, is the use of common, everyday vocabulary, most likely without being aware of the “incorrect” status of the chosen forms. Also, non-standard words are used as a part of professional language, in this case the speaker might be aware that he or she is using an ‘incorrect’ word, but chooses to use it nevertheless for convenience or because of its indexical value for professional identity. During all the periods, non-standard words are also used as indices of informal and authentic communication between close acquaintances; this function is performed by all types of the studied non-standard words, particularly old borrowings and frequent fillers. The study identified a few style- and social meaning-related uses of non-standard lexis that explain the choice of the corrected forms instead of the required equivalents. In the Soviet period, some non-standard words were used as a part of Soviet newspeak; old borrowings were used in references to the ideological enemies of Soviet rule, mainly the ones from pre-war Lithuania. In certain cases, these words were employed due to their stylistic value in an intimate and authentic discourse. The late Soviet period saw the first use of non-standard words as markers of informal communication. The use of non-standard words in the transitory period shows some of the functions from the Soviet period, e.g., they are used as an element of newspeak, albeit without the Soviet ideological value, or as expressions of informality. A particular feature of this period is the use of non-standard words as an index of live and authentic speech, which was not allowed during Soviet times, as a means of authentic communication, and the criticism and violation of Soviet taboos. The contemporary period is marked by a huge variety of functions of non-standard words. It brings in a number of new style-related functions of non-standard words: construction of youth-oriented identity and youth-oriented referee design, reference to past times (e.g., by using non-standard words reflecting the Soviet reality), or quoting. Perhaps the most distinctive features of this period are the use of non-standard words in the speech of professional journalists, as well as their use for the purposes of humour and entertainment (for the construction of certain personas), e.g., in language plays and stylisations. These uses can be explained by commercial media requirements, increasing trends of the informalisation of public speech and conversationalisation. The study concluded that the effect of prescriptivism on the use of non-standard words in radio and TV in Lithuania is limited. Firstly, the frequency of non-standard words decreased mainly in those groups of speakers that are subject to the formal, institutionalised power of language gatekeepers (media professionals). Secondly, the data shows a decrease only of those non-standard words that are easier to control by the speakers themselves – lexical words. The frequency of various function words that are more difficult to be aware of when speaking did not decrease. Thirdly, the largest decrease in non-standard lexical forms occurred in those speech situations where a prepared written text is used; this means that prescriptivist requirements have a greater effect when the speakers and the language are controlled, and less effect in spontaneous communication situations. The above-mentioned difference between professional and non-professional speakers demonstrates that speakers are able to control the lexical forms they choose. Analysis of the most frequently used non-standard words during different periods also demonstrates the limits of prescriptivism. The lists of the most frequently used non-standard words during different periods overlap to a great extent, which means that despite prescriptivist efforts, they were not eliminated from being used on air. Finally, the limited success of prescriptivism is demonstrated by the discussed social values of non-standard words, when they are used for various social and stylistic functions not possessed by a ‘correct’ equivalent. The qualitative analysis revealed the particular strength of old borrowings, which are used to create a sincere, friendly speech style, as well as a ludic speaker identity. On the one hand, it can be interpreted as a sign of the ineffectiveness of prescriptivism – if the words are needed, it is likely that they will be further used despite their ‘illegal’ status. On the other hand, when the speakers purposefully (e.g., on account of a particular association, stylistic value) choose a particular language form and are at the same time aware about its “incorrectness”, it is an effect of prescriptivism, only with the opposite outcome. The study is based on the analysis of spoken language on radio and TV, therefore it cannot be used to draw conclusions about the Lithuanian language in general. It is likely that the effect of prescriptivism on written language (because of its more formal style and particularly because of language editing practices) would be stronger. Nevertheless, broadcast media speech constitutes a considerable and important part of language use, thus we can conclude that the impact of prescriptivism on the Lithuanian language does not have far-reaching effects.

In 2017, the world celebrated 100 years since the birth of Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917–1992). The anniversary inspired many commemorative works, events, conferences, research projects, etc. That is also the case with this paper. Here, instruments of semiotic analysis are applied to a rather unusual object – a bridge located in the town of Prienai, Lithuania. In 2010, the bridge was given the name of Greimai by the Government of Lithuania as a way of paying tribute to Julius Greimas (1882–1942), schoolteacher and burgomaster of Prienai (1934–40), and his son Algirdas Julien Greimas, literary scientist and semiotician who as a child liked to wander the woods of Prienai. The paper discusses the semantics and narrativity of the Greimai bridge. The main focus is on its function, the characteristics of the bridge and its shores, the semantic universe it embodies. Also considered is the transformation from a simple and concrete structure with a clearly defined function to a symbolic monument. The findings of this small research suggest that the bridge’s characteristics make the Greimai name a good fit and that it creates additional meanings: one recognizes plurality and duality, the echo of the father-son relationship, cyclicality and rituality, etc. In addition, the bridge appears to act as a mediator between nature and culture, life and death.

This paper introduces the first version of the Lithuanian database of free association norms. This is an attempt to provide an open-access resource, which would be helpful for psycholinguists, linguists, computational linguists, and students. This version of the database includes 277 cue word forms. The responses were collected from 304 participants. In total 15,612 association pairs were recorded. The paper presents the procedure of collecting free associations and additional data available for researchers. It also provides a list of all cue words with their five most frequent associates and some summary statistics.

Infinitive in Lithuanian as a second languageOne of the most apparent features characteristic of learners who speak Lithuanian as a second language is their overuse of infinitive forms where such forms should not be used in Lithuanian. The analysis of the general sequence of acquisition of the Lithuanian verb system shows that the infinitive was used nearly evenly through the whole acquisition process, i. e. learners who had just started to speak Lithuanian used about the same amount of infinitive forms as the more advanced speakers. This paper analyses in detail the use of the infinitive form by the learners at different levels of acquisition, what functions and in what contexts the infinitive form performs, as well as any changes in the development. The analysis makes it evident that despite the quantitative similarity of the use of the infinitive forms in different varieties of acquisition, the use changes fundamentally in quality. Moreover, it becomes clear that even the speakers of the basic variety, who often use the infinitive as the base form of the verb and therefore also as a predicate instead of a finite form, never use the infinitive of the modal verbs in this fashion and their utterances in which the infinitive is used according to the target Lithuanian language system employ the construction of modal verbs + infinitive. The paper also analyses what other constructions with the infinitive are used, when and in what way they start being used in the post-basic variety of acquisition.

Opportunities for International Phonetic Alphabet application to the sounds of Lithuanian dialectsThe paper discusses the issues of transcription of Lithuanian dialects. It compares the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) with the characters of the currently popular font Palemonas.From the 20th to the 21st century, almost for a whole century, there has been a tradition in Lithuania to mark texts of Lithuanian dialects using the so-called Copenhagen transcription that was adapted by Georg Gerullis. The established Lithuanian transcription system largely differs from those applied in other languages, even from the closest neighbours Latvians. Therefore, researchers are often confronted with the problems of comparing the research results of several languages. In the 21st century the issues of different transcriptions became more relevant after quantitative measurements of language variance became popular. They are usually made by computer programs which require identical data.The discussion paper analyses the opportunities for IPA application to the sounds of Lithuanian dialects, discusses the marking correspondences of vowels, consonants, some phonetic features and prosodic units in the font Palemonas and IPA, and provides examples of words from various Lithuanian subdialects transcribed by applying both systems.

The present paper presents evidence for treating the expression Zemopacios in Lasitius’ De diis samagitarum […] as referring to the totality of divinities enumerated in the text’s catalogue of gods. Such an extension of reference was made possible by secondarily motivating the name as if connected with žemas “low”. Consequently, Zemopacios adopted traits of an appellativum.

This paper analyses Lithuanian equivalents of German nominal compounds in an anonymous bilingual dictionary of the 17th century Lexicon Lithuanicum. 1208 words translated into Lithuanian were used for the analysis of the German compounds. Firstly, the article focuses on the Lithuanian equivalents, which are simple words (simplicias) and word phrases (syntagms), then the German words translated into Lithuanian as derivatives and compound nouns are described. The presented data are compared with the research results of other manuscripts (bilingual dictionaries C and B) from the 17th–18th centuries. According to the research data, the majority of the German nominal compounds recorded in the dictionary were translated into Lithuanian by simple words or syntagms. Almost a half of the German compounds were rendered into Lithuanian as derivatives, very often represented by suffixation. Lithuanian compound nouns, which serve as equivalents of German compounds make up only about 10 percent of the analyzed words, and are usually represented by N+N word-formation type.