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The article introduces attraction marketing methods employed by Russian monthly popular science magazine Diletant. The authors compared the printed version and the website. The paper magazine attracts the reader mainly by the topic name printed on its cover as a unique creolized text. The further semantics of the front media text includes various aspects of the main topic. Color highlights both topical issue and regular features. The comparative analysis with the online version revealed some significant differences. The website has a muted color scheme and minimal animation; it contains neither video nor audio materials. Like in the printed version, the function of attraction belongs mainly to illustrations and subtitles. Online Diletant is interactive in navigation, tests, and surveys, which are, however, the only form of interactivity: the site does not provide comments, forums, “likes”, etc. Such limited use of attention-seeking tools makes the digital version of Diletant uncompetitive and inferior to its paper issue.

The article presents an overview of research literature on the etiquettical conventional speech genre “wish” in Russian and foreign linguistics. The author compares definitions of the lexeme “wish” in various lexicographic sources, considers researchers’ approaches to determining the status of a wish and identifies some debatable problems of studying the genre. Particular attention is paid to the consideration of wishes within the theory of speech acts and the theory of speech genres. The article also compares researchers’ viewpoints on the debatable problems concerning pious wishes and evil wishes, as well as gives an overview of the works concerning grammatical and syntactic means of making wishes and typical models of the genre. The article provides the analysis of works with the existing classifications of wishes based on their structure and on being etiquettical/non-etiquettical, stereotypical/non-stereotypical, etc., as well as the analysis of works based on ideas about the field structure of the genre, where the core consists of clichéd wishes, and the periphery – of non-standard statements, or (according to another theory) explicit statements and imperative/modified wishes, respectively. The research points out the importance of investigating extralinguistic factors (gender, age, status-role relations of communicants) in the study of wishes. The paper reviews articles which deal with the comparison and collation analysis of wishes in different languages (Russian, English, German, Chinese, etc.). The conclusion outlines some directions for the further study of this genre in various areas and situations of communication.

SYSTEMATIC BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PAPERS ON PUBLISHED DIALECT MATERIAL

The purpose of this article is to find approaches to understanding of Anna Akhmatova’s poetry in the eleventh grade classroom. The author presents written and oral assignments that can lead students to an understanding of the lyrics through independent reading comprehension. Each assignment creates a problem situation at the lesson. Acquisition of new material in such an approach is creative, that is, it takes place via looking for new information in a problem situation. The group of students in this case serves as a “collective researcher” (L. S. Aizerman), and the answer is sought throughout the whole lesson. Such assignments create an unexpected situation in which readymade typical answers do not work, the same as searches on the Internet. The assignments were used by the author at literature lessons in non-profile and in social-humanities classrooms. The article analyzes extracts from written works and essays of eleventh grade and the author explains his approach to their evaluation. The logic of classes on the poet’s lyrics (love and civil poetry), which end with a discussion of the poem “Requiem”, is described in detail. While reading of the poem “Clasped hands under a dark veil ...” in class, the teacher dwells on the psychological plot in detail, which allows the students to see not only the complexity of the psychological plot but also some continuity of Ahmatova’s and Tyutchev’s lyrics. The article also describes several tasks on the poem “When in the yearning of suicide ...” related to different editions and cultural-historical context; suggests various suitable ways of comparing the poem “Dante” and “Lot’s Wife” in a secondary school literature classroom, formulates a topic for an option class on Akhmatova’s poetry, and describes fragment of the lesson on the poem “Requiem”.

This article deals with the multimodality in modern English-language advertising. The influence of advertising on consumers has been a subject of many investigations among linguists. In this present paper, I build on the theoretical and practical data gained by researchers who studied virtual influencers in multimodal advertising, discussed the unique characteristics of the suggestion realization strategies in political advertising, evaluated advertisement discourse influence formula in terms of positive and negative orientation of the advertisement, investigated various functions of different contact languages in advertising, the phenomenon of multimodality in the Polish advertising of pharmaceutical products with the audio-visual spots. Scholars also used a pragmatic approach to advertisements in Britain and Japan and conducted a multimodal discourse analysis of malaria drugs advertisement. However, the role of multimodality in the context of pharmaceutical advertising remains understudied. Advertised pharmaceutical products have an impact on human consciousness. Misleading or inaccurate information can seriously affect consumers, including adverse health outcomes. The unique nature of pharmaceutical advertising makes pharmaceutical advertising different from other types of advertising, like political or consumer advertising. The material for this study consists of 500 samples in both paper and electronic formats. I hypothesize that the multimodal character of pharmaceutical advertising, incorporating both verbal and non-verbal elements, significantly enhances its persuasive impact by influencing consumer emotions and encouraging them to select specific pharmaceuticals. To prove this hypothesis, I identified patterns of interaction between verbal and non-verbal components through the prism of words, images, signs, and symbols. In this research, a multimodal approach allowed to uncover both the intended meanings and the subtle manipulation tactics used in pharmaceutical advertising.

Intensifiers in English appear to be at the junction of grammar and lexis thanks to an unachieved process of grammaticalization. They are sometimes also subjected to pragmaticalization processes. This paper discusses the case of the intensifying adverb ‘really’. After laying down the theoretical framework used to analyze the various uses of this intensifying adverb, this paper presents the various uses of really through a corpus-based study. The focus is then put on the criteria that make ‘really’ a grammaticalized adverb before investigating to what extent it can be considered as an instance of pragmaticalization.

The relevance of this study is conditioned by the fact that the study of languages in the comparative aspect contributes to the identification of common and specific features of linguistic material, the description of the national picture of the world, cognitive thinking, linguocultural features of native speakers, interaction and mutual enrichment of languages, the solution of linguistic and linguodidactic tasks, which is part of the modern system of linguistic research. The category of gender, being one of the most complex and universal grammatical characteristics, is a subject of close attention of linguists. The importance of its study is conditioned by the need for a deeper and more comprehensive analysis of the grammatical and lexical-semantic potential of this category in languages with different structures. In modern linguistics, research in this area focuses on cognitive, gender and functional aspects of the category of gender. This study aims to examine the category of gender from the point of view of its grammatical and lexical-semantic realization in differently structured English, Tatar and Russian languages. This paper considers the formation of gender category of some nouns, reflects the system of morphological, syntactic and lexical features of feminine, masculine and middle genders in the languages under consideration. The article gives the specificity of representation of this category by lexical and grammatical means of languages, analyses morphological and semantic ways of nouns' relation to grammatical gender. In the paper a comparative analysis is carried out, the general and specific features of this category are determined on the basis of the languages under study. The results of the analysis can be used in further linguistic research, as well as in teaching a foreign language with reference to the native and/or previously learnt foreign language.

The paper analyses several classes of pronouns in the Soikkola dialect of the Ingrian language, namely interrogative/relative, indefinite, and negative pronouns. These classes of pronouns belong to one of the most underdescribed parts of Ingrian morphology, so the main goal of the paper is descriptive. Special focus is placed on the analysis of variation within pronoun classes. While variation in interrogative/relative pronouns mostly concerns minor aspects of their formation, indefinite and negative pronouns show many competing variants. In the case of indefinite pronouns, this variation arises from indefinite suffixes with different origins and functions. Negative pronouns have another source of variation: the morphophonological processes that can occur when a pronominal stem is concatenated with the negative particle kaa/kää. In all these classes of pronouns, we usually observe idiolectal and free variation, while contextual and register variation occurs less frequently.

The paper outlines research identifying key elements of the ‘new knowledge’ frame in popular science Telegram channels. Highlighting categories that can be used to describe this frame, authors propose principles for developing an algorithm to search for it. The article demonstrates that the terminals’ automatic recognition of the frame ‘new knowledge’ is accomplished by developing a multistage search algorithm that involves describing programmed units located within the different-level linguistic means, creating a qualitative sample, and drawing conclusions about the inclusion of the category in the algorithm’s requirements. The paper employs both quantitative and qualitative methods to identify trends in various types of media to make some basis for further development of a supervised ML system. An analysis of 288 units from popular science Telegram channels reveals that the location and frequency of framing techniques in texts indicate the quality and level of audience preparation. The results of the study have demonstrated that the term ‘new knowledge’ is explicated via the set of semantics components that form the following microfields: a) The course of study; b) The result of study; c) The subject of research work; d) Comparison between new knowledge and old knowledge; e) Novelty of knowledge; f) Denial of previous knowledge. The aim of the frame description is to develop an algorithm that can identify units within this frame in real speech materials of social media. This will aid future research on objection’s stylistics and enable the development of AI systems that can be trained to recognize objection styles.

Interest in innovative technological strategies and modern digital tools has increased significantly due to the need to manage large amounts of unstructured data. This paper reviews current paradigms and services for automated summarization, developed based on interdisciplinary research in linguistics, computer technologies, and artificial intelligence. It focuses on syntactic and lexical techniques employed by neural network models for text compression. The paper presents performance examples of such AI-powered services as QuillBot, Summate.it, WordTune, SciSummary, Scholarcy, and OpenAI ChatGPT. The contemporary automated models proved effective in using extractive and abstractive methods to generate summaries of varying quality and length. The extractive approach relies on identifying the most significant sentences from the original text, while abstractive algorithms create new sentence structures that preserve the main idea of the original content. Automated summarizers effectively utilize text compression techniques that are inherent to human approach to text processing, e.g., they exclude redundant information, simplify complex structures, and generalize data. These technologies provide high accuracy and coherence in the generated summaries, though each summarization model has its limitations. Optimal results depend on the specifics of the task at hand: extractive models provide brevity and precision while abstractive ones allow for deeper semantic processing. Automated summarization is becoming an important tool in various fields that require effective analysis and processing of large text data.

Numerous research studies addressing the differences in the use of lexical bundles in academic English by L1 and L2 writers interpret these differences as a deficiency or deviation that L2 writers need to eliminate. In this paper, we argue that this “deviant” use is not essentially the product of insufficient knowledge of English and/or Anglophone norms of academic writing but rather a transfer of the academic conventions of non-native speakers, rooted in their local culture. To confirm this hypothesis, we reviewed some previous studies and analyzed the use of lexical bundles in dissertations and research papers written in English by graduate and post-graduate students from Russia and Cameroon. The Russian corpus (38 texts of 576,186 words) was compiled from publicly available papers and dissertations written by bachelor’s and master’s students at the Higher School of Economics; the Cameroonian corpus (21 papers of 680,146 words) was compiled from papers contributed by students and teachers of the University of Yaoundé I. Using content analysis, corpus analysis, and the comparative method, we found that the most significant differences in the use of lexical bundles were connected with the peculiarities of the Russian and Cameroonian academic writing styles and cultural norms. Our study, therefore, reinforces the need to consider a more inclusive and culturally sensitive approach to the use of lexical bundles by L2 academic writers and take into account their diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. It will expand our knowledge of the linguistic features of different varieties of English and provide a deeper understanding of academic traditions in different languages and cultures.

This paper presents a theory of audience-resistance and speaker-denial. The paper commences with the problem of definition, encompassing an analysis of the scope and nature of denial and resistance. The data for this study were primarily obtained from mainstream and social media postings in two languages: English and Arabic. The article primarily draws on discourse and socio-cognitive frameworks. The paper’s principal question is how and why Arab and English speakers may resist or deny a remark. Previous research on resistance to figurative language has focused predominantly on the rhetorical trope of metaphor and on what drives the English political and media elite to reject a metaphoric expression. However, this raises an important question that is rarely asked: how and why do members of the general public resist verbal metaphors, and what about other tropes such as hyperbole and metonymy, other languages such as Arabic, and other modalities such as images and art forms? The paper argues that the existing literature on meaning negotiation and/or human dialogic action and behavior is riddled with fundamental theoretical, methodological, and analytical flaws. The paper aims to fill in this gap and has significant implications both for conceptual metaphor theory and for (non-)deliberate language use.

This scoping review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the contemporary studies regarding ethnic and national identities written in the Russian language. The study reveals major contexts and patterns of the operationalization of the concepts. The scoping review is based on the framework outlined by Arksey and O’Malley, with qualitative content analysis as its primary method. Samples from 114 papers were analyzed to find existing approaches to identity studies and conceptualization. Explicit and implicit identity definitions and identity attributes were mapped and coded. The research found that scholars tend to provide original definitions and relate identity to consciousness. Implying the idea of a person’s uniqueness, identity is often regarded as rooted in memory, hence the number of mentions of memory studies and memory politics in the reviewed articles. Another finding is that multiple and/or complex identities are widely investigated, and these identity types are given original names, mostly compound. With a great number of identity types, there is still a common understanding of identity as a constructed, dynamic phenomenon. The study concludes that identity is a common value-charged notion for Russian academic discourse, with national and ethnic identities being at the heart of the ongoing studies. The paper concentrates on identities of large groups, which is viewed as a politically sensitive issue, closely intertwined with the view of identity as a factor and resource of the development of society. Main topics are politics, history, representation, dynamics, plurality, communication, cultural factors, and territory. The analysis of the identity studies contributes to professional discourse by illuminating how concepts of ethnic and national identities are operationalized and communicated in the Russian-language academic community, thus enhancing cross-cultural understanding and facilitating more effective professional communication in related fields. Given the limitations, the findings identify the main patterns of concept usage, point to research gaps, and provide a basis for future research.

This paper is a response to a discussion note by Yuliia Normanskaya about consonantism in the first Meadow Mari primers (1870 and 1873). The journal "Ural-Altai Studies" previously published a study of the grapho-phonetic features of their vocalism (Klyucheva and Normanskaya 2015) and consonantism (Klyucheva 2017). An article on consonantism was followed by a discussion note in the same issue of the journal (Normanskaya 2017). It contains a discussion of some of our conclusions, in particular: 1) some objections are raised against the compilativeness of the Primer of 1870; 2) the conclusion about the Morki-Sernur dialect in the Primer from 1873 is confirmed by additional argumentation. Besides, Normanskaya made a clear conclusion about the dialect basis in the Primer from 1870: it is identified as the Yoshkar-Ola dialect of the Mari language. But this conclusion cannot be accepted. The localization of the âYoshkar-Ola dialectâ âover a wide area from Yaransk to Urzhumâ and generally the classification of Mari dialects in the Normanskaya diagnostic table are doubtful; we also noticed incorrect dialectological data in it (especially significant for affricates). In sum, this was the reason for writing a detailed answer. This paper also provides arguments for our new decision that the dialect of the Primer from 1870 corresponds most of all to the Volga dialect of the Mari language. The authorship of the Mari primers of 1870 and 1873 is discussed, based on revealed new archival data, and some general methodological conclusions are made on the problematic point of dialect attribution of early Mari books.

The article is based on the field materials of three expeditions to the Greeks of Russia (territories of the Krasnodar Krai, Karachay-Cherkessia, Caucasus Mineral Waters region). This paper analyzes the typological transformations that Greek given names and surnames underwent in different periods of history, as well as the peculiarities of naming among the Pontic Greeks. The historical and modern trends in the choice of a name are considered, as well as the features of the functioning of Greek surnames in different historical and social contexts (“Russification” of surnames during the period of repressions, reverse process of “Hellenization” when moving to Greece, morphemic translation of surnames from Turkic into Greek, etc.). Along with names that easily could be labeled as “Greek” (Nikos, Despina, Christos, Ellada, Athena, Euclid, Socrates), Greeks in Russia use “Russian” names (e.g. Maria, Elena, Pasha, Olya, Nadezhda) as well. It often turns out that these “Russian” names are hypocoristics of Greek ones: e.g., Olya from Olympiada, Pasha from Parthena. The paper also contains the description of the features of Greek anthroponymy in the field of traditional culture, such as the use of “double” names to protect one against the evil eye and “stopping” names designed to prevent the birth or death of children. The “Russification” of surnames and given names, as well as the use of Georgian names by Greeks during their residence in the territory of the Georgian SSR, are considered as strategies of ethnic mimicry, which were common among different ethnic groups in the USSR. At the same time, the reverse processes are characteristic of the last three decades: the return of “Greekness” to surnames and given names when obtaining a new citizenship, when installing tombstones, etc. Ever since the Soviet era, the Pontic Greeks have found the use of ancient Greek names that clearly indicate the ethnicity of the bearer, recently in the Caucasus it has become possible to baptize a child with this name in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Picture books as multimodal narratives contain rich data for analysis of multimodal meaning-making. Verbal and visual modes offer various choices for representing different interpersonal relations. In this paper, I focus on the following research question: how visual and verbal resources are used to construct interactive meanings between the reader and characters and between the characters of picture books. In my analysis, I follow Halliday’s social semiotic approach to language within systemic-functional linguistics, according to which every semiotic system operates at three levels corresponding to ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions. I focus on the interpersonal level, using methodology and typologies from Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) visual grammar, further developed by Painter, Martin, and Unsworth (2012) for the analysis of picture books. Visual resources used for representing interpersonal relations are connected with the categories of contact, social distance, attitude, pathos, affect, ambience, and graduation. Verbal means of realizing interpersonal relations include, among others, mood structures and attitudinal lexis. Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory is applied to classify appraisal resources according to three systems: attitude, engagement and graduation. I have analysed interpersonal text-image relationship in two picture books: The Paper Bag Princess by Munsch (2005) and Snow White in New York by French (1989). The analysis of visual resources at the interpersonal level has demonstrated a predominance of long shots, direct eye contact with a reader is rare with the exception of several close-ups. Front-on images situate characters in an equal position with readers, creating a sense of involvement. Overall, the interactions between the visual and verbal components create a synergetic effect in representing interpersonal relations in picture books.

Investigating the activities of the First Soviet Meteorite Expedition of 1921–1922, the paper aims to analyze the objectives of the expedition and fill in some gaps in the Quest for the Tunguska Meteorite. Aiming to recover either the fragments of the Tunguska meteorite or any other meteorite, the expedition was launched by the Russian Academy of Sciences and led by Leonid A. Kulik. The Yenissei province in Siberia was among several territories where the Expedition worked. The paper hypothesizes that the First Soviet Meteorite Expedition (1921–1922) was a factor that contributed not only to the development of the new Soviet space science but became a unique driving force behind the vigorous attempt of the Soviet state to shift the backward mental paradigm full of prejudices and cognitive misconceptions and introduce the new one that prioritized scientific knowledge. The paper identifies the legal basis for the Expedition, its overall educational impact on ordinary people. The paper argues that the First Soviet Meteorite Expedition of 1921–1922 became a factor in transforming the sociocultural space and an incentive for further scientific research. The paper presents a historiographical review within the framework of the topic and introduces some new data obtained from the documents stored in the local archives (the towns of Yeniseisk and Minusinsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory).

The relevance of the study of lexical transformations in the process of translation is associated with the need to ensure communication between the author and recipients in terms of recreating the lexical, structural and stylistic richness of the original in the translated text. Since today far from all the methods and mechanisms for eliminating language inaccuracies have been studied, this direction occupies an important role in the translation science branch of knowledge. The purpose of the study is to examine the role and functions of differentiation of meanings in the process of literary translation from Russian into Turkish by analysing the lexico-semantic means used in the context of literary works. This paper uses the methods of contextual, lexico-semantic, comparative, linguoculturological and analytical-synthetic analysis are used in the paper. This study is aimed at studying lexical transformations in the translated text, mechanisms for transferring the semantic subtleties of the source with minimization of lexical losses and combining techniques to obtain a translated text that is as accessible to the readership as possible. The work is focused on contextual and lexico-semantic analysis, search, and comparison of lexical variants and structural patterns in the original and translation. Attention was drawn to the mechanisms of differentiation and generalization of meanings, as well as the semantic unfolding of events. When analysing lexico-semantic and syntactic constructions, as well as phraseological phrases, the topic of national linguistic features and cultural specifics, which play an important role in the translation of literary texts, was touched upon. In the future, this work can be used in the field of translation studies, cultural linguistics, automatic text processing, the creation of lexicographic thesauri, and the study of semantic patterns and equivalents. The study examined the nuances of word usage in translations from Russian to Turkish, underscoring the inevitability of lexical transformations. Strategies primarily involved expanding, narrowing, and clarifying the source text’s semantics. Russian-Turkish translations also frequently employed semantic deployment and structural element transformations to elucidate intricate meanings. Stable, often phraseological turns were highlighted, emphasizing their non-equivalent nature. Such techniques reconstruct the original’s cultural essence and authorial style. While there exist discrepancies between the Russian and Turkish contexts, lexical transformations often simplify complex structures for clarity in Turkish. Idiomatic expressions in Turkish involve detailing meanings or unfolding specific events descriptively. The study demonstrated the interplay between the original and its translation, revealing strategies and issues within linguistics and translation studies.

In the first quarter of the XXI century, world-modeling has been actively discussed in the theory of literature, text studies and discourse studies. The concept of world-modeling in linguistics significantly differs from that in literary studies, which determines the relevance of this research. The paper aims to review the publications by Russian scholars that raise the problems of world-modeling in communication, to highlight the dominant tendencies of research within the framework of the cognitive-discursive paradigm and to discuss their theoretical potential. The sample consists of 334 publications retrieved from eLibrary database. The paper argues that due to the influence of the dominant paradigm in linguistics, an independent cognitive and discursive trend of world-modeling research is being developed in Russia, and is becoming more specific, which leads to the emergence of discrete areas of research that accumulate their own system of concepts. The paper discusses the research potential of lingua-cognitive, conceptual, functional, axiological, semantic, stylistic, lingua-ideological, cognitive and pragmatic trends. The author argues that the logic of the development of discrete trends is determined by the inter-paradigm interaction, thanks to which knowledge about the representation of the world in communication is built on general paradigmatic principles as well as the achievements of particular disciplines. The paper concludes by drawing attention to the lingua-cultural, socio-semiotic, lingua-personological and psycholinguistic research traends observed in some recent publications. The interdisciplinary nature of modern linguistics makes it possible to combine several perspectives of the world-modeling analysis. The results of the study can contribute to the further development of the cognitive and discursive world-modeling theory in linguistics and social studies.

The present study focuses on irony in political communication and ways of expressing it, since in modern political discourse irony is becoming an indispensable characteristic. The ideas are verified on the material of English and American politicians’ speeches. The paper argues that the ironic type of communicative behaviour is realized through an ironic image, a certain temporary role, in compliance with which the speaker builds up his/her remarks. The ironic image functions as an element of the strategy of theatricality, which is typical of political discourse and is aimed at an indirect addressee – the public. Such images rely on the “friend–foe” opposition (also known as: “us vs. them”), which divides the world into those who support “us” and those who oppose “us”. The latter becomes the object of political irony, which is implemented in discourse through various ironic discourse tactics, such as destructiveness, eccentricity, harmonization of communication and others. These tactics are closely connected with the national style of communication and reflect the communicative values of Anglo-Saxon culture: privacy, individualism, common sense, competitiveness, politeness, etc. The hypothesis, stated and verified in the paper, regards ironic images, which in this study are divided into two kinds: those connected with the genre (situational images) and those regulated by the context and the format of speech (emotional images); the latter reflect the mood and feelings at the given moment. The results of the analysis may help to reveal the real politicians’ intentions and preferences and pose challenges for further investigation of political discourse regarding irony and ironic images.

This paper examines the defining characteristics of contemporary American political discourse, aiming to identify, analyze, and classify these traits in terms of content, structure, and formative features. The analysis draws upon a corpus of speeches by American politicians during the 2016 and 2020 Presidential Elections, as well as journalistic articles, to illustrate the distinctive elements of American political discourse. Understanding a nation’s political discourse necessitates examining the idiosyncrasies of its political culture. Therefore, this study foregrounds the cultural underpinnings of modern American politics, exploring the interrelationships between American political discourse and the nation’s political history and culture. Employing discourse analysis, linguacultural analysis, and comparative analysis, the paper delineates the characteristics of modern American politics, including societal heterogeneity, the imperative of political correctness, a pronounced degree of religiosity, an individualistic political culture, and the dramatized nature of political contention. These cultural traits manifest in four salient features of contemporary American political discourse: a syntactic orientation in speech production, the employment of nicknames and sobriquets, the fluidity of political concepts, and the contentious exchanges between the two predominant parties, which engender linguistic divergences. While some features may be present in other national discourses, the unique combination and intensity in the American context accentuate their presence. This paper contributes to political discourse studies by examining political discourse through a linguacultural lens, thereby enhancing understanding of American society and its worldview. It underscores the pivotal cultural attributes of American politics, correlates them with political discourse, and presents concrete examples from speeches of current American politicians and contemporary media, laying the groundwork for future research into American political discourse from a linguacultural standpoint.

The aim of the paper is to describe the names of confectionery products used in advertising texts, such as price lists, posters, leaflets and inserts, from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The article adopts the methodology of research on the thematic division of vocabulary (see Witaszek-Samborska 2005, Batko-Tokarz 2019). The analysis proves that due to the specificity of the community of trading and advertising discourse and its communication practices, the discussed vocabulary requires a very broad approach to the thematic field of names of confectionery products, which includes both sweet and dessert dishes and drinks, as well as their ingredients, semi-finished products and additives. Moreover, the important role of centuries-old linguistic contacts was confirmed, which resulted in numerous loanwords in the field of culinary vocabulary (including the names of confectionery products). The paper also shows the multitude, diversity and function of collocations, in which confectionery vocabulary is used.

The shipping industry is regulated by international laws with the stakeholders significantly influencing the standards of international transport systems and, therefore, demands highly qualified specialists. The introduction of digital technologies, automatization of working processes, and globalization of international maritime trade create new challenges and increase the requirements for the mariners’ professional competences, thus impacting the training of future specialists. The latest studies on the current trends and the long-term prospects indicate the need to acquire new professional skills to support the shipping industry’s sustainable development. The stakeholders are increasingly recognizing the influence of human factors on the efficiency of the processes aboard ships and emphasize the urgent need for an overhaul of maritime education. The focus on the soft skills training aims to contribute to the formation of future leaders and improve the quality of seafarers’ professional training. Thus, there is a need to substantiate the importance of soft skills for a successful career in the maritime industry and to describe the methods to integrate them into the educational process. The authors acknowledge that the concept of “soft skills” proposed by national and foreign researchers varies in their characteristics. Based on the analysis of scholarly papers, we have formulated the “soft skills” definition appropriate for our research. We define “soft skills” as individual psychological and behavioral properties that are realized in interpersonal interaction and contribute significantly to its effectiveness.The purpose of the article is to present some approaches to integrating soft skills into Maritime English program at a higher educational institution.To determine the primary directions of soft skills development, the authors have analyzed the latest international projects, conducted by maritime experts. We consider the integration of soft skills into the Maritime English course to be one of the most suitable approaches since the teaching methods and the course learning materials are aimed specifically at the development of effective interpersonal communication skills.The information presented in the paper can be useful for researchers and educators, who are interested in soft skills embedding into educational programs.

This paper analyses the use of the wishing genre among Russian young people. One of the features of youth speech is a shift from stereotypes, searching for new creative ways of expressing various intentions, such as evaluation, compliment, congratulation and wishing. The purpose of the study is to analyze the texts of wishes from the point of manifesting the linguistic creativity of the addressers; to identify the means and ways of destroying stereotypes. The research material is youth wishes, predominantly students’ wishes (more than 700 text fragments). The analysis of the content of the wishing texts enabled the author to classify all wishes into stereotypical, individual and combined. Empirical material shows that in the communication of friends most wishes refer to individual ones (64%), whereas combined and stereotypical wishes make up 25% and 11%, respectively. The analysis of the texts of wishes identified the ways and means of demonstrating the linguistic creativity of the addressee. These ways and means include the tactics of compliment, appeal, advice, switching the addressee to a humorous tone and some other tactics that are not discussed in this paper. All of them allow to make wishes less stereotypical. The material showed that addressers in wishes aim to supplement the universal components of the wishes with individualized elements, including in the text the utilitarian details of the addressee’s life. Most often, wishes contain references to the addressee’s profession or hobbies. Linguistic creativity of the addressers is manifested at all linguistic levels. First of all, addressees actively use tropes, such as epithets, metaphors, and comparisons. Addressers look for unusual objects for comparison in the linguistic repertoires; they often use hyperbolization. At the level of word-formation, we observe the use of affixes with an augmentative meaning, diminutives (predominantly in wishes to female addressees); speech innovations and occasional word formation. In wishes of young people, a shift from stereotypes reflects in reduplicating letters and symbols, changing letter case, breaking words into syllables and placing a hyphen between syllables; using a wide range of emojis and stickers; playing with colorful highlighting. Precedent texts play an important role in moving away from stereotypes. The author concludes that all the considered methods and means of linguistic creativity that are regularly used by authors when creating wishes make it possible to enhance the expressiveness and impact degree of the texts. They function to avoid stereotypes, achieve a perlocutionary effect, and contribute to the self-presentation of the addresser.

The suffix -i has been regarded as a gender-neutral morpheme that communicates affection in Spanish. Previous studies have shown this diminutive morpheme to be more productive in relation to female hypocorisms. There are, however, many Spanish proper names for which there exist pairs of alternative hypocorisms (e.g. Antonia > Toña/Toñi; Antonio > Toño/Toni). This paper compares the potentiality of the suffix -i to build hypocorisms for both genders with its actual use by Spanish speakers over a four-generation time spam from Baby Boomers to Generation Z. It explores the connections between its sound symbolism and its pragmatics in order to assess its alleged gender neutrality over time. The paper is organized as follows. First, the author considers previous literature on sound symbolism and gender, together with a description of the theoretical tools used in the present investigation. Second, the paper describes the methodological decisions adopted for the present research, which include the design of a survey to assess the gender neutrality of the actual use of the hypocorisms by Spanish speakers. The cohort of informants includes 30 men and 30 women from different generations (50% Baby Boomers / Generation X and 50% Millennials / Generation Z). Finally, the author reports and discusses the results of the survey. These point to a preference for hypocorisms in -i for female names. Differences also arise in the use of hypocorisms in -i in relation to the gender and age of the speakers, signalling an incipient diversion from the traditional use of hypocorisms in -i for female names in previous generations.

As the geopolitical situation changes, it is necessary to discuss how politics is structured by metaphor in the context of recent social phenomena, such as the European migrant crisis. This paper analyses the conceptual metaphors politics as war, politics as a game, politics as a trade, and politics as a theater in British and Bosnian-Herzegovinian newspapers. The goal of this study is to establish to what extent and in which situations journalists resort to figurative language to persuade the recipients to view politics in a desired way. The paper aims to reflect on the use of deliberate metaphor as a perspective-changing device by journalists striving to achieve their rhetorical goals and influence recipients’ perception of the political situation. The corpus comprises 174 British and 307 Bosnian-Herzegovinian articles collected from August 2015 to March 2016 (247,912 words). Relying on Steen et al.’s (2010) model of metaphor analysis, the paper investigates the types of metaphor in the corpus, the deliberate use of politics metaphors and their communicative function in migration discourse - discussing both the rhetorical goals of journalists and the rhetorical effects on recipients. It has been established that the analyzed set of metaphors has a divertive and persuasive function in migration discourse. Similar studies are encouraged to shed light on how deliberate metaphors related to politics may have diverging communicative functions in other types of discourse.

Cognitive linguistic investigations into the metaphorical conceptualization of anger suggest that languages are remarkably similar on a schematic level, with intensity and control as two, possibly universal dimensions underlying the metaphorical conceptualization of anger. These dimensions, however, can manifest themselves in language-specific metaphors. Yet arriving at a definitive answer to the question of universality versus variation is hindered by (a) a relatively limited number of systematic, contrastive analyses; and (b) varied methodologies, with some papers adopting a type-based account, while others following a token-based analysis. We take up both challenges in the present paper with the aim of offering a more definitive answer to the question of the universality and variation of anger metaphors. We investigate the anger metaphors of a type-based analysis, focusing on dictionary data of anger-related idioms, and a token-based analysis, focusing on data collected from online corpora, in three languages: (American) English (2,000 random instances of the lemma anger from the Corpus of Contemporary American English), Hungarian (1,000 instances of the lemma düh from the Hungarian National Corpus) and Russian (1,000 instances of the lemma gnev from the Russian National Corpus). The lexical data were analyzed with the well-established Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP). Our results indicate that there is a great deal of congruence relative to shared metaphors in both approaches, but this derives from specific-level metaphors in the lexical approach, whereas it derives from more schematic, generic-level metaphors in the corpus-based approach. The study shows that the full picture of the metaphorical conceptualization of a complex emotion concept such as anger can only emerge with the combination of the type- and token-based approach.

Metaphor has been established and extensively examined as one of the tools experts deploy to explain, simplify and transform complex scientific discourse into the knowledge suitable for the audience of non-experts. However, relatively little research has been conducted on metaphor scenario (Musolff 2006, 2016a) and its role in this process. Therefore, in this paper we explore how metaphor scenario is used to explain Covid-19 vaccines’ safety and effectiveness to the population in an understandable manner in order to speed up the immunization process in Serbia. By analysing a data set gathered from various Serbian electronic news media sources ( NovaS , N1 , Danas , Vreme , Večernje novosti , Mondo , Politika , Telegraf , Krug ) published from January to December 2021, we aim to explore (1) how the three metaphor scenarios, combat, container and movement, may help simplify complex scientific concepts in the pro-vaccine discourse; and (2) how the conceptual elements of these scenarios and their interconnected relations are used for this purpose. The findings showed that these conventional scenarios manifest their explanatory potential by means of several sub-scenarios, whose conceptual elements establish useful mappings relying on rarely used components of source domains. The results confirm that metaphor scenarios may be used strategically by medical experts as an apt explanatory tool to simplify challengingly complex scientific concepts to the general public. The paper contributes to current research on the role that metaphor and other cognitive instruments play in science popularization.

Most papers written on polysemy focus on sense overlaps and lexical ambiguity, yet studies that explore the possibility of establishing a polysemic complex and explaining how the new interpretations arise through metaphor are almost non-existent in Arabic. This paper aims to explore how metaphor serves to create new concepts as part of polysemic complexes through adopting Dynamic Conceptual Semantics. The target words are bidʒannin [make mad][1] in Jordanian Arabic (JA) and mad in American English (AE). An online questionnaire containing 15 items was sent to forty participants (20 JA speakers and 20 AE speakers) where they were asked to provide the interpretations of the words bidʒannin and mad in contextualized sentences. The AE contextualized instances of mad were collected from Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) which generated 5,168 tokens of mad (in the years 2015/2019). The questionnaire results were discussed in a semi-structured focus-group discussion involving 10 participants. We have demonstrated that when an expression is deemed suitable for all situations categorized under both the primary perspective of madness and a related perspective involving exaggerated descriptions of entities, a concept (P) emerges that bears similarity or relevance to the polysemic complex ( bidʒannin\mad ) to which the expression belongs. In such cases, we can consider the related perspective (P') as a member of the polysemic complex ( bidʒannin\mad ). Thus, this study explains how the same metaphor can lead to a complex of multiple meanings in two different languages that are not necessarily related to each other.

In this paper, the problems with the reconstruction of an affricate phoneme *Ä and its reflexes in Hungarian are discussed. Proto-Ugric *Ä is often reconstructed, but its alleged reflexes in Hungarian show unexplained variation (s, z, cs), and many of the etymologies involve other phonological irregularities. It is troubling that although in some cases Hungarian shows s and Khanty and Mansi *Ä, often the reflexes of the affricate show discrepancy, with part of the languages showing regular reflexes of Proto-Uralic *Å. In this paper, the Ugric etymologies suggested in earlier etymological sources are analyzed and new solutions to the problem of Proto-Ugric *Ä and its reflexes in Hungarian are suggested. The problems is also related to the study of the reflexes of Proto-Uralic *Ä in Hungarian.

This paper aims to highlight the prevalent challenges faced by Hong Kong Chinese students in utilizing connectives and ensuring coherence in their English academic writing. Research indicates that constructing fluent, effective, and cohesive English written texts that maintain logical flow poses a significant challenge for Chinese learners studying English as a foreign language (EFL). This difficulty is likely attributed to the substantial cultural differences between the English and Chinese languages, regardless of the learners’ grasp of English grammar and vocabulary usage. In order to raise awareness among EFL teachers regarding the struggles Chinese students encounter in mastering connectives and cohesion in English writing, this qualitative study analyses five sample English term papers written by Hong Kong university students majoring in English in 2023. The findings reveal that the Hong Kong EFL participants tend to present their arguments in an indirect and circular manner within their English essay assignments. Additionally, due to cultural norms and politeness, the true intent of their writing is often withheld, and the thesis statement is implicitly inferred towards the end of the essay rather than being explicitly stated at the beginning in the introduction. Furthermore, a focus group interview with the student participants conducted after the written analysis demonstrated that their English academic essays reflect the influence of Chinese social interaction norms on rhetorical patterns. The relevance of this study lies in its potential to inform EFL instruction, enabling educators to better support Hong Kong Chinese students in navigating the complexities of English academic writing and to adapt pedagogical approaches that bridge cultural and linguistic gaps.

This paper analyses Phalee proverbs that refer to acts of speaking and holding the tongue in a community rhetorical context. Phalee/ Phadang, spoken in the Ukhrul district of Manipur, falls under the Tangkhul Naga language sub-group of the Tibeto-Burman family but is mutually incomprehensible with it. Tangkhul is the lingua franca among the villages that make up the Tangkhul Naga identity despite every village’s quotidian language use, rituals, and laws being unique to the village identity. This is a complex phenomenon, and the proverbs that arise out of the Tangkhul-Phalee composite provide interesting perspectives on identity formation regarding language, custom, and art. The collected corpus of proverbs we studied shows that while speech is considered clearly a necessity in terms of self-expression, community policy determination, and social interaction, most proverbs on speaking nevertheless emphasise the power of spoken words and ultimately counsel minimal and extremely careful speech. Silence seems to be often and poignantly granted greater value in communal life. This paper explores how these accumulated insights into speech reflect cultural attitudes in Phalee society and offer insights into the distinctive forms of social governance as mediated through the rhetorical strategies of proverb context and usage that characterise the village identity.

In 1899 and 1900, Pero Budmani, the then editor of the Dictionary of the Yugoslav Academy (Rečnik JAZU), wrote four letters to Hugo Schuchardt, a renowned German scholar specializing in Romance languages and Basque. Their correspondence has recently been digitized within the Schuchardt Archives at the University of Graz. These letters discuss the meaning and origins of the Serbo-Croatian piscatorial term trbok and even offer a valuable insight into Budmani’s interest in Dalmatian-Romance loanwords. Budmani was the first scholar to study this subject; in his paper Dialect of Dubrovnik, as it is Spoken Today (Dubrovački dijalekat, kako se sada govori) (1883), he identified the first loanwords of Dalmatian-Romance origin in Serbo-Croatian (60 of them, to be precise). From one of the letters to Schuchardt, it can be inferred that he later intended to publish another study on the subject – a project which never came to fruition. For this purpose, he gathered about sixty Dalmatian-Romance loanwords in total, including those he already published in the Dialect of Dubrovnik. The paper concludes that the newly collected Dalmatian-Romance loanwords (not more than 10 in number) must have been the ones that Budmani identified while editing the letter K for the Dictionary of the Yugoslav Academy, i.e., SCr. kentènār ‘silk thread, string’, kȅra ‘tuft’, kìjerna ‘Cerna gigas’ and kìmenat ‘crack between two boards on a ship’, to which may be added SCr. gȅra ‘Smaris alcedo’, specifically designated as a Dalmatian-Romance loanword in one of Budmani’s letters to Schuchardt.

The paper is focused on common and different aspects of two leading semasiological theories of today - the theory of the Russian semasiologist M. V. Nikitin and that of the American cognitive linguist R. W. Langacker. Both authors view meaning as a complex psychic phenomenon whose formation is affected by numerous factors - social, cultural, psychological, situational, etc. The paper focuses on significant, but not identical aspects of these theories, which represent their major distinctive features - sources of meaning and basic structures of consciousness according to M. V. Nikitin, as well as the actualization of components of the construed meaning under the impact of specificity/schematics, focusing, prominence and perspective as factors which affect the construal according to R. W. Langacker. It becomes evident that they do not so much contradict as complement each other, revealing such essential facets of meaning as its formation and functioning.

The paper explores the evolution of communication etiquette between humans and artificial intelligence (AI), focusing particularly on the adaptation of traditional politeness strategies. While the politeness of AI can enhance the human level of trust, human politeness towards AI is equally important as it can impact the efficiency of communication. To demonstrate this, I conducted a pilot experiment with ChatGPT 4.0, using polite and non-polite prompts in Russian. The results suggest that politeness is likely to positively impact the accuracy of responses. Furthermore, the paper examines changes in speech etiquette, highlighting how interactions with AI often omit traditional greetings and farewells, reflecting a more functional approach to communication. Although the paper does not provide definitive answers on how politeness strategies between humans and AI should function, it underscores sociolinguistic points that are likely to become increasingly pressing over time. Overall, the paper illustrates a significant shift in communication practices, driven by the integration of AI into daily interactions, necessitating a reevaluation of the established social norms and speech etiquette.

The spread of new poetic meters in the works of both older and younger generation of symbolists inevitably led to attempts at their scientific comprehension and description. This paper demonstrates that in writings on Russian verse, starting with Andrei Bely's “Symbol­ism”, the concepts of ‘dolnik/pauznik’ have been consistently analysed in comparison with German tonic verse in general and Heine's poetry in particular. The theoretical interest in ‘dolnik’ was fueled not only by the prevailing poetic processes but also by new translation experiments, primarily the equirhythmic translations of Heine by Alexander Blok, published in his collection “Night Hours” (1911). The formal similarities between Russian and German ‘dolnik’ prompted scholars to develop comparative metrics and theories of tonic verse, while the rhythmic differences led to the refinement of concepts related to rhythm and meter in non-syllabic verse, as well as the establishment of ideas concerning formal and functional equiva­lence of metric forms in poetic translation. In addition to scientific discussions from the 1910s—1930s, the paper addresses the rhythmic strategies employed in Russian translations of Heine’s three-ictic dolnik of the early decades of the 20th century by Alexander Blok, Yuri Tynianov, Viktor Zorgenfrei, Evgenya Knipovich, and Vera Arens. The equirhythmic tradi­tion established by Blok in translating Heine’s verse is contrasted with Tynianov's functional approach. This study deepens the understanding of the connections between symbolist and formalist poetics, as well as between symbolist translation and the so-called philological trans­lation of the 1920s and 1930s.

The paper examines the linguistic and communication changes taking place in poetic dis­course under the influence of new media. The digital interface (blogs, social networks, applica­tions) affects the transformation of all the parameters of communication, due to the dominance of information channels and codes. The interaction of poetic language with colloquial speech and the influence of digital technologies lead to the creation of new strategies of subjectivation and addressing in contemporary poetry, as well as to an increase in the role of poetic pragmat­ics. In addition, the process of meaning formation in contemporary poetry involves the mech­anism of transcoding, i. e. the transfer of a message from one format to another, which can take place during the conversion from a paper (or analogue) format to a digital one. Transcoding involves a change in the form and content of the message, as well as other communication parameters. The paper classifies and explores in detail the pragmatic parameters that undergo transcoding under the influence of digital technologies, acting as new pragmatic techniques of poetic utterance.

A lot of research has been devoted to the study of the practices of creating images, the canonization of heroes in Soviet culture, but it is worth noting that female images were not created according to the same patterns as male ones, therefore they need to be considered separately. At present, there is a typology of Soviet heroines, the mechanisms for creating images of “stakhanovka”, polar explorers, etc. have been analyzed, but a special study on the image of a military pilot has not been found, which determines the relevance of the study. The image of a military pilot is considered through the prism of traditional plot schemes of socialist realism. The structural-typological method, the method of descriptive poetics, and mythopoetic analysis were used. Comparison of the obtained results with the conclusions made on the basis of the consideration of the “Navigator’s Notes” (1939) by M. Raskova allows us to trace the transformation of the model for creating the Soviet heroine. The focus of the author of this article is the collection of essays “My Fighting Friends” by M. Chechneva (1975), the year of publication of which determined some of the features of the story. The paper considers the plot scheme according to which the pilots’ biographies were built, in the “trivial” genre these schemes are reproduced in accordance with the socialist realist canon, however, the model of the Big Stalinist family undergoes significant changes: the image of the mother is actualized with absolute inattention to the figure of the Father. The paper also describes the mechanisms of representation of the process of initiation – exclusion from society during the war and return there in a different status, describes in detail the schemes of relations between a man and a woman in a situation of separation of the latter from society in order to carry out revenge, victory over the enemy, a conclusion is made about the features of gender inversions. The practical significance of the work lies in the possibility of using research materials in teaching the courses “History of Russian Literature”, “Culturology”. The paper analyzes for the first time an image that has not previously become the subject of independent analysis in the proposed vein. Further study of the transformation of ideas about the Soviet heroine pilot seems appropriate. The study is relevant taking into account the interest of modern science in gender studies

The article demonstrates how onomastic studies can help with interpretation of the key events of Russian history. The central figure of the paper is Czar Vasili IV of Russia (Vasili Ivanovich Shuisky): the first part of the paper focuses on the attribution of a valuable altar cross from the early 17th c., which has to do with the Christian binominality of this monarch, while the second part deals with the semiotics of the Czar’s deposition from the anthroponymic perspective. The votive inscription on the eight-pointed reliquary cross made of gilded silver gilded and decorated with stamped and carved sacred images on its front side says that the cross was donated to the Suzdal Monastery of the Intercession of Our Lady in 1603/04, with the style of figurative images, foliage pattern and the high quality of work clearly indicate the Moscow origin of this liturgical object. Until now, the identity of the donator was believed to be unclear, although the inscription is readable and contains both the names and all information necessary for identification. Many people of Medieval Rus’ had two lay Christian names — today this idea comes as less of surprise to researchers as it used to a decade earlier, yet the tradition of lay Christian binominality is still to be described and analyzed. Studying specific cases sometimes requires almost detective investigation, and challenges faced by a researcher are not incidental: they are rooted in the very ways how this system of lay Christian binominality functioned in the pre-Petrine Rus’: the same person could appear under one name in one case and under the other name in another, and sometimes it is really challenging to find the crossover points allowing to identify, say, Cosmas, servant of God with Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky. The historical and onomastic analysis of the inscription on the cross not only allows to reliably identify the owner of this precious specimen of early 17th-century jewellery but also to make some guesses about the circumstances of donation and to clarify our evidence of naming practices characteristic of the 16th-century Russia.

The paper provides the outcomes of the authors’ ongoing research on Russian collective nicknames of the Perm region. It significantly complements the previously published part, dealing with the features of usage, semantics, and historical significance of local collective nicknames as evidence of the settlement of the Perm region by Russians. This paper approaches the material from lexicographical perspective, which, in combination with the first part, delivers the most complete picture to date of the nature of collective nicknames in the region. The studied units are retrieved from several sources: materials of field trips led by the authors and other Perm researchers since the 1990s; dictionaries of Russian dialects of the Perm region and card indexes of dictionaries; “Dictionary of Russian Folk Dialects”, a number of onomastic dictionaries, modern ethnographic, folklore and ethnolinguistic collections on the traditional culture of the Russian population of the Perm region; works on local ethnography and folklore published in the 19th — first half of the 20th century. Dictionary entries are arranged in alphabetical order. The article examines collective nicknames as such (their phonetic and word-formation variants, if any); their interpretation (which territorial group of people they refer to); geographical label (the place where the name was recorded); usage contexts and explanations for the nickname if available. The nicknames used for residents of different settlements, villages, and regions are considered as polysemantic words with different meanings. If a collective nickname includes a qualifying toponymic epithet, it is enclosed in parentheses. In cases where a settlement appeared near a factory, the factory name is specified along with the modern oikonym.

The paper examines the structure and distribution of two types of ­nominal/adjectival predicates in the Northern Mansi language. A nominative noun or adjective serves as the predicate in one construction. The other predicate type contains a predicate noun or adjective that takes translative case marking. In both ­constructions, the stative-like copula Ål- âbe, existâ can also appear, though under ­different ­conditions. In the paper we focus on (a) the licensing conditions of the Ål- copula, (b) the ­predicate-subject agreement morphology, and (c) concord within the predicate phrase in both predicates. Our findings demonstrate that the two types exhibit systematic structural differences: the copula Ål- is utilized in the nominative construction in the past, while it must be omitted in the present. The Ål- copula is always obligatory in the translative predicate. The nominative predicate noun/adjective takes the morpheme of the subject agreement in number, and we attested inter- and intra-speaker variation in Number concord in this construction when there is an overt copula in the predicate phrase. The translative-marked nominal/adjectival predicate does not take any inflectional suffix, and agreement that indicates both the person and the number of the subject is marked on the Ål- copula. ­Additionally, we will show that only the translative-type is acceptable in identificational clauses. As a result, the identificational reading/interpretation is where the ­semantic ­division of labor between the two constructions lies. Our data come from fieldwork where Mansi native ­speakers helped us with survey research. Northern Mansi newspaper texts were also used to clarify certain inconsistencies between our findings and the literature.

The article traces the changes in the aesthetic conventions of Modern art in accordance with the dynamics of literary development in Great Britain. The study focuses on three key areas: the impact of “the ancients and moderns” quarrel on European philosophical and literary thought; the nuances of critical and literary discourse in Enlightenment-era Great Britain; and the reception of the Enlightenment aesthetic values and novelties in Victorian criticism, linking them to the emergence of twentieth-century modernism. The subject involves the evolution of Enlightenment aesthetics and poetics in Great Britain, particularly the departure from classical art and literature models, and the emergence of concepts like imagination, novelty, and the reader’s subjective experience of art. Seminal literary-critical essays of the eighteenth century, including works by Joseph Addison, Henry Home, Richard Hurd, and Leslie Stephen’s monograph ‘History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century”, are analyzed. The paper also examines philosophical texts by Michel de Montaigne, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Marquis de Condorcet to understand the oscillatory nature of philosophical thought before and during the Age of Enlightenment. The study contextualizes “the ancients and moderns” debate on models for literary excellence and accentuates its role in shaping the discourse of aesthetics and artistic creativity. Contributions by Enlightenment figures such as Addison, Home, and Hurd are explored, emphasizing how they reshaped the discourse of aesthetics by redefining the nature of beauty, the sublime, and the principles of artistic criticism, thereby influencing the literary and artistic productions of their time and beyond. Particular attention is paid to the critical views of Stephen who wrote about the “fluctuating mode” of the literature of the second half of the eighteenth century, illustrating his peculiar subjectivism as an exponent of the Victorian worldview (Stephen saw Sterne’s novels as a serious moral threat), and simultaneously reflecting the normative aesthetic views of the second half of the nineteenth century. The paper also demonstrates how the antinomianism in aesthetic thinking, which challenged traditional norms and values as seen in “the ancients and moderns” quarrel, was further evolved in the works of Friedrich Schiller and Friedrich Schlegel, the latter articulating the antinomy of “classic versus romantic”. This tradition of antinomian thinking, coupled with the rejection of the idea of linear progression in cultural evolution, a call for a reassessment of values amidst a paradigm shift in culture and the breakdown of traditional ethic and aesthetic systems, finds a notable and unique expression in Friedrich Nietzsche’s works, that significantly influenced the transition from Modernity to Postmodernity. In summary, it is argued that the Modern Age was the time of the emergence of a new aesthetic sensibility, and its aesthetic pluralism and anti-classical literary ideas were pivotal in redefining concepts of progress, novelty, and human consciousness in art and literature. This laid the groundwork for modernist art and literature, characterized by a departure from tradition and a quest for new artistic expressions of human experience.

The paper aims to clarify the biblical image-symbols in Frank Peretti’s mystical thrillers. The problem of the detailed analysis of the lingual representation of the biblical image-symbols and their pragmatic value is solved in the article by applying a complex of methods of linguistic poetics, cognitive linguistics, stylistics and methodological tools of discourse analysis. The paper considers the biblical images-symbols, used in American mystical thrillers written by the protestant author Frank Peretti, as biblical intertexts depicting not only biblical knowledge but also author’s intentions and beliefs in conveying the most profound ideas and principles of the literary texts. Executed in the written works by lexical means, biblical image-symbols become the heart of biblically-marked contexts, which are differentiated according to their addressee orientation into author`s and character`s biblically-marked contexts and their scope – into propositional, composite, and complex biblically-marked contexts. The lingual representation of the biblical image-symbols is differentiated according to their structure into one-component (anthroponyms, toponyms, artifact, animalistic, anthropomorphic) and multicomponent, (two-component, three-component and four-component). The type of semantic transposition in the meaning of the lingual representation and pragmatic value of the biblical image-symbols determined the distinguishing of metaphoric and metonymic linguistic classification of the biblical image-symbols. Metaphoric are classified according to their structure (onecomponent and multi-component), their stylistic characteristics (language and speech metaphoric linguistic representants of the biblical image-symbols), and their denotative meaning (anthropomorphic, naturalmorphic, zoomorphic, and phytomorphic). Metonymic are differentiated according to the kinds of the metonymic transference of meaning into four groups: metonymy of belonging, metonymy of place, metonymy of signs, and metonymy of phenomenon.

The article represents an attempt to build and apply a linguosemiotic model of existential conflict research in modern English fictional discourse. The modern tendency of philological and socio-humanistic studies to involve the tools of semiotics, discourse theory, and multimodality in the process of complex analysis of a literary work as an artistic model of reality is highlighted. The research is based on practical blocks of illustrative material, selected discursive fragments from a literary work, which contain an existential conflict. Basically, the key point here is the analysis of intra- and interpersonal conflict based on the theoretical achievements of semiotics and linguosemiotics (Ch. Pierce, Yu. Lotman, U. Eco, G. Pocheptsov) and the theory of discourse and multimodality (G. Kress, K. O’Halloran, C . Forceville, M. Halliday). It makes it possible to provide a detailed research of existential conflict in fictional discourse with the identification of latent, ambivalent meanings and the relevant reconstruction and interpretation of the conflict by the reader. The paper aims at projecting the modern tendency towards the synergy of various aspects of conflict studies across the humanities. Therefore, the goal of the paper is to outline the advantages of an integral approach to the study of conflict in modern linguistic conflictology and to build a linguosemiotic model for the analysis and interpretation of existential conflict in fictional discourse. Thus, the paper`s core objectives involve: 1) to study the achievements of the semiotic and multimodal approach in its application to synthetic level communicative systems containing conflict; 2) to reveal the place, role and potential of the existential conflict in fictional discourse using the above-mentioned methods; 3) to present a linguosemiotic model for the study of existential conflict in modern English fictional discourse. The theoretical and methodological base of the research involves general-scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, deduction as well as the method of linguosemiotic and multimodal analysis to determine the components of semiosis of existential intrapersonal conflict in fictional discourse. The results of the research consist in the creation of an integral semiotic model of the analysis of existential conflict in modern English-language fictional discourse, which assumes the presence of a static and dynamic component in its structure, revealed, in particular, in the process of semiotic reading of the work in three successive stages of mimesis, semiosis, and synthesis. The process of conflict interpretation presupposes a comprehensive approach to semiotic reading activity developed in consecutive steps. The linguosemiotic means of representing the existential conflict at different levels of the literary work, which have a multimodal nature, have been revealed. The temporal, psychological, and sign-symbolic characteristics of the existential conflict, which make up the semiotic space or semiosphere of the literary work, are analyzed and classified. As a result of the identification and unification of the factors that determine the way of development of existential conflict in fictional discourse, the linguosemiotic model of the analysis of this type of intrapersonal conflict was reconstructed. The model covers the study of the semiotic components of the sign-symbolic, psychological and temporal space and the surface and deep levels of the semiotic reading of the literary work, at which the cognitive, behavioral and emotional aspects of the conflict are decoded and reconstructed.

In the paper, on the basis of a multimodal critical discourse analysis of political posters and social media posts, the authors outline the complex interplay of multimodal means serving to convey a political leader’s charisma. The paper aims to advance a set of historically conventionalized features typical of the charismatic personality (such as intelligence, self-confidence, persistence, ability to inspire, sociability, dominance, narcissism, and vision), present the updated definition of this notion, and substantiate theoretical and methodological grounds for the study of the interplay of multimodal means portraying a charismatic political leader that assist in conveying a political speaker’s charisma creation through its graphical image, namely political posters and social media posts. The results of the study reveal that charisma is a complex communicative and cognitive phenomenon reflecting person’s beliefs about certain innate, obtained or promoted by media, internal or external subliminal traits of a leader. These beliefs are shaped in the recipients’ consciousness during interactive communication on the basis of the leader’s strategy, techniques, and methods used in oral or written communication, as well as a set of linguistic and extralinguistic means associated with the speaker’s ability to satisfy certain needs of the community. As a study material the authors opted for the images of Boris Johnson, a politician already acknowledged as a charismatic one by international audiences, who has been a prominent political figure for almost a decade and has recently come to the forefront of political and diplomatic support of Ukraine in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war. The carried out analysis proves the highly informative as well as subliminal potential of multimodal visual pictographic means aimed at creating a charismatic image of a public person. The authors outline a set of verbal (elliptical sentences, catchy slogans in imperative mood, assonance, alliteration, the use of first person plural pronoun “We”, the lexical unit together, etc.) and visual-graphical means (font of the message, symbolic colour scheme, clothes style, body posture, gestures, oculesic features, etc.), whose interaction is aimed at triggering cognitive processes in the recipient’s mind in perceiving a charismatic image of the politician. Boris Johnson’s charisma is confirmed by the survey conducted among British and Ukrainian respondents as well as by his subscribers’ reactions, comments and likes following his posts on social media. The carried out analysis allows summarising the markers of a politician’s charisma portrayed on social media as follows: the number of comments and likes for their posts; informality while addressing the Prime Minister by his first name “Boris” and presence of a “popular name” “BoJo”; high degree of the followers’ messages expressiveness actualised through verbal means (significant amount of exclamatory sentences, interjections, evaluative epithets and idiomatic expressions), as well as graphical-visual means, in particular through the usage of graphic emoticons (emojis), serving to intensify the overall expressiveness of a message. The conclusion is that social media graphical images are aimed at conveying charismatic political leaders’ vision, offering their followers support and promise of a better future, portraying them as approachable, down-to-earth, considerate but at the same time serious leaders, ready to work to endure a better future. The results of the performed study can provide grounds for interdisciplinary research of both oral and written charismatic communication within the cognitive approach framework considering verbal, nonverbal and paralingual means’ (physiological, psychological, social, etc.) interplay that allows the audience to perceive a speaker as a charismatic one.

In the current climate ecolinguistic research has arguably never been more important, as its basic premises regard the survival of life on Earth and key philosophical questions hitherto under-acknowledged by mainstream science. In recent decades, environmental thinking has made great advances in shaping current opinions towards nature and the non-human world. The goal of this paper is to explore certain currents of mediated thinking in modern Britain regarding nature, in order to assess how far expressions of sorrow for the felling of a prominent tree might correspond to a genuine ecological sentiment. The study explores public responses to an apparent case of eco-vandalism, the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree in September 2023 in Northumberland, using data taken from social media and other online sources such as e-newspapers. From the point of view of Ecolinguistic theory and that of Positive Discourse Analysis it applies critical lenses such as Evaluation and Discourse Pragmatics to dig beneath the surface of texts produced on the topic, in order to explore diverse current attitudes to trees in the UK. The paper finds that, though there are instances in which people appear to express grief for the loss of the Sycamore Gap tree, it is possible to account for these in ways that lessen the likelihood that they are motivated by purely ecological sentiment. In practice human attitudes towards trees tend to be superficial and instrumental, and this tendency is also found here. The Sycamore Gap event brings many latent social attitudes into play, and this paper thus contributes to the developing field of Ecolinguistics by focusing on tree-centred narratives, distinguishing between inherent ideologies of pseudo- and authentic environmental sensitivity.

The paper presents the first results of the field research carried out in June 2023 in the Khorol and Chernigov districts of Primorsky Krai of Russia among the descendants of immigrants from Ukrainian and Belarusian lands. The purpose of the expedition survey was to record the speech of dialect speakers of the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, to study the functioning of dialects in contact with closely related Russian language, to identify the preservation of traditional folk culture. The main problem during field research was related to the difficulties of informants when trying to record spontaneous dialect speech. Relics of Belarusian dialects were not found in this expedition. The utterances in Ukrainian were recorded in cases of quoting speech of older relatives, in memories about childhood and in folklore. The paper presents some transcribed texts, reveals phonetic and morphological features, analyzes individual lexical units. Narratives on the following topics are presented: the linguistic situation among migrants at the micro and macro levels, metalanguage observations, stories about local place names and ethnic nicknames. In addition to audio recordings, a written source is analyzed, the history of the formation of the Khorol village, written in Russian with Ukrainian dialect items. This text reveals all the linguistic features noted in the oral speech of the informants. Moreover, it contains valuable information about the daily activities of the first settlers, about their holidays, customs, contacts with neighbors of different ethnicity. In the future, it is planned to work on transcribing the entire corpus of recorded texts for their publication and analysis, as well as to publish a written history of the village of Khorol.

This article explores the multifaceted nature of “The British Identity” within the context of political discourse, focusing on its representation in The Guardian newspaper. The aim of this study is to investigate the content specificity of the concept and its transformation under the influence of socio-cultural and extralinguistic factors. Through a qualitative analysis of selected articles from The Guardian, the paper examines the linguistic units used to represent the British identity and the evaluative nature of their expression. The study adopts a conceptual framework that considers the British identity as a political and cultural concept, susceptible to diverse interpretations and judgments within the ideological context. By employing a content analysis approach, the research reveals the tensions arising from the attempt to cater to both conservative and progressive factions of the UK society. The findings indicate that the representation of the British identity in The Guardian is influenced by socio-cultural factors, reflecting the evolving dynamics of British society. The analysis highlights the presence of evaluative expressions, reflecting the conceptual domain’s evaluative nature and its connection to political and cultural debates, particularly those concerning multiculturalism. While the study predominantly relies on articles from The Guardian, it acknowledges the need for broader source diversity to capture a more comprehensive understanding of the British identity. Moreover, the paper suggests that further research in this field holds promise for exploring the evolution and adaptation of conceptual domains in an ever-changing world. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by shedding light on the complex and evolving nature of the British identity within political discourse. The research serves as a foundation for future investigations into the concept of identity and its representation in professional media outlets, and its implications for social cohesion in diverse societies.

This paper investigates how engineering discourse evaluates technical developments based on their utility, uselessness, or harm. It examines German-language specialized texts that report on contemporary scientific innovations, using a functional-pragmatic analysis method to explore the propositional structure of statements that convey utilitarian information. The article, published in a scientific journal, is considered in this study as a situationally conditioned speech act that aims to inform readers through the communicative strategy of explanation. The analysis focuses on identifying the implicit configurations that the author creates in the linguistic expression of propositions such as “fact,” “opinion,” and “assessment.” The combination of these propositions in one context allows describing the ways of presenting scientific data from a utilitarian point of view. Utilitarian evaluation mainly depends on the author’s explanation of cause-and-effect relationships, which form the basis for assessments. Moreover, the author often refers to authoritative opinions or experimental results to support the evaluation. The text also includes unargued assessments, which invite the reader to agree or disagree. The analysis in this paper shows that utilitarian assessments in engineering discourse are driven by the goal of professional communication. They follow the principles of rationality, provability, and objectivity, which are reflected in the author’s deliberate detachment from the subject of description. These pragmatic features are related to the values of professional communication, which involve not only providing reliable data but also promoting progressive ideas in society. The rhetorical effect of persuasion achieved by reasoned objectification of utilitarian assessments in the text is a distinctive characteristic of scientific discourse. It is also an efficient way of fulfilling the objectives of specialized communication. This study contributes to a better understanding of the pragmatic aspects of utilitarian evaluation in engineering discourse, highlighting its empirical basis and its importance for the wider field of professional communication.

By de re propositional attitude ascription for rhetorical purposes, we will understand ut­tering a modal statement wherein the speaker deliberately uses a description of the attitude’s object which she knows to be unavailable to the attitude holder. As the existence of rhetorical de re is revealed, it gives rise to two questions that will be the primary concern of the present paper. (1) Using a rhetorical de re ascription, does the speaker utter something false in the model-theoretic sense? (2) Would it be justified to classify rhetorical de re as a rhetorical ploy designed to, or naturally predisposed to, mislead the addressee? This paper argues that the first question can be answered positively but the second one should receive a negative answer. We show that the question of whether a certain instance of rhetorical de re is a ploy or act of manipulation should be answered depending not on whether the statement is clearly false for the speaker but on whether it is clearly unacceptable for the speaker. In case the speaker herself considers the argument made by means of the statement acceptable, there is no reason to de­nounce such a communicative act as a ploy or manipulation irrespective of which model-theoretic truth-value the statement has. There are therefore reasons to incorporate rhetorical considerations into the modelling of how attitude reports are interpreted, in addition to con­siderations of truth and epistemological aspects, championed by Frege.