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Listening comprehension is central to language learning, yet it remains the least understood and least researched skill. This statement is still relevant today, as there is insufficient research to explore listening comprehension from the perspective of family-related multilingualism and to consider the complete linguistic repertoire of multilingual speakers. Moreover, with regard to home language, listening comprehension is assumed to be a more developed language competence than reading or writing. Based on the mentioned research, the aim of the present study is to investigate listening comprehension and its influencing factors specifically in German-Russian simultaneous bilinguals aged 13–19 (n = 99) by considering the home- and majority language. The study uses quantitative data collection methods such as linguistic tests in Russian and German for the elicitation in different levels of listening and questionnaires for strategy use and background. The research questions are as follows: What does the language proficiency and input in Russian look like? (1) Regarding listening comprehension in Russian as a home language, are there differences between the speakers within comprehension on different levels, e.g., is sound decoding easier than sentence parsing? (2) If there are differences in Russian as a home language, which linguistic and background variables can correlate with the performance of listening comprehension on its different levels? Concerning the first research question, the results show relevant differences between four different levels of listening comprehension (phoneme, word, sentence, and text level), which strengthened the assumed complexity of listening comprehension in the home language. In addition, the results show different connections between the listening comprehension competence and the input from different family members, as well as exposure to film and television in the home and majority language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In today's globalized world, more children are born to parents who speak two or more languages between them. These families manage complex language dynamics, with diverse language practices influencing communication among family members. The complexity intensifies when multilingual and multicultural parents move with their children to a country with a new majority language, while keeping connections to their original society. In such cases, balancing heritage and host country languages affects both cultural preservation and integration into a new society. Based on semi-structured interviews with seven Generation 1.5 Russian–Hebrew bilingual parents living in Finland, this paper explores their strategies for managing their children's multilingual development. The study poses two key questions: What are the language management strategies reported by the parents? What are the major challenges these parents face in maintaining heritage Russian and Hebrew languages in Finland? Thematic data analysis using ATLAS.ti software highlights the parents' persistent commitment to maintaining multilingualism within their families, focusing on preserving existing social connections and fostering new ones for the entire family. The findings reveal key aspects of parental language management, parental involvement and home environments, along with reported challenges, both personal and institutional, in maintaining Hebrew and Russian as heritage languages in Finland. This study offers a new perspective on language management strategies in multilingual families, handling a less-explored language combination. By analyzing individual language management approaches, this study reveals common strategies used to support multilingualism and balance heritage languages with those of a new environment, thereby contributing to discussions on linguistic diversity and multicultural integration in transnational settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influence of selected aspects of family language policies (FLPs) on language proficiency across three generations of Russian-speaking families in Germany using data from a sample of 18 families. The data were collected via questionnaires and a cloze test was used to measure proficiency in Russian. Multiple regression analysis and Dunn's test were employed to analyze the influence of the selected components of FLP and assess differences in language proficiency between family members. The findings highlight a significant generational shift in language proficiency: parents exhibited the highest proficiency in Russian, followed by grandparents, with children showing the least proficiency and greater variation in their language skills. This pattern reflects the dynamics of language practices in families where older generations predominantly use Russian, whereas children display a greater inclination towards German or enhanced bilingualism. Additionally, this study underscores the positive influence of literacy skills in both Russian and German, reading in Russian, and a positive attitude towards maintaining cultural ties through reading on Russian language proficiency. Although attendance of Russian language lessons was positively correlated with the proficiency scores of children, the statistical models were only partially successful in accounting for their overall impact on proficiency, indicating that other unexplored factors may also play a significant role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a multifaceted portrait of immigrants to Germany from the post-Soviet states. The article traces the paths of two families over the course almost of a third of a century after immigration, focusing on language use and integration into the new environment. In-depth interviews conducted at various stages of the integration process and age-appropriate tests served as research material. The content, text, and lexical analyses, as well as a linguistic biography method, were used. The research included four generations of Russian Germans and Jews in each family. Russophones in Germany have not had an easy time integrating but, ultimately, have a positive attitude toward their adoptive country. The results show that the German language became the primary means of communication outside the family and partly within the family where Russian dominates among the second and third generations. The oldest generation (great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers) were fluent in German to some extent; those who moved at the age of 20–40 learned it sufficiently for their jobs; their children studied in German preschools and schools and became completely bilingual; and the great-grandchildren were born in Germany. The younger generations have fully integrated into German society, although strong connections with locals exist among the older generations too. Proficiency in the Russian language is still maintained even among the great-grandchildren's generation, although not to the same extent as among the generation of young parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Native language (L1) attrition is ubiquitous in modern globalized society, but its cognitive/psycholinguistic mechanisms are poorly understood. We investigated lexico‐semantic L1 attrition in L1 Russian immigrants in Israel, who predominantly use their second language (L2), Hebrew, in daily life. We included Russian monolinguals as a control group. We tested two potential causal mechanisms of attrition: L2 interference versus L1 disuse. Participants completed a fill‐the‐gap task in two conditions: accuracy (producing one exactly matching word) and scope (providing as many synonyms as possible). We expected L2 interference and L1 disuse to lead to the differential reduction of accuracy and scope features, respectively. Lower scores for attriters emerged in the accuracy but not in the scope condition. Moreover, attitude towards L1 influenced attriters’ accuracy—but not scope—performance, with higher L1 preference predicting higher accuracy. We provide evidence for lexico‐semantic attrition in adult immigrants, pointing to L2 interference as the primary cause of impaired lexical retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Euphemism is a linguistic phenomenon and a form of polite speech that clearly reflects the cultural and ethical behavior among members of a social community. In communication, speakers choose appropriate words and expressions based on the context, purpose, and content of their message to avoid discomfort for themselves and their interlocutors. The existence of euphemisms and the reasons for their formation are universal features across languages. This article examines Russian euphemisms and compares them with Vietnamese ones to enhance the teaching of Russian language, focusing on the thinking, cognition, and communication culture of Russian and Vietnamese people. The study presents, the theoretical basis for comparing linguistic and cultural characteristics of euphemisms in Russian and Vietnamese; and It also proposes several practical measures to improve the quality of Russian language teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In accordance with global migration trends, Russian geography became a source of emigration starting from the mid-19th century. On the other hand, following their independence in the early 19th century, Latin American countries became recipients of migration waves from different countries, including multinational Eurasian states such as Ottoman, Russian, and Austria-Hungarian empires. The migration wave from Russian Empire to Latin America started around the 1850s and lasted until the collapse of the empire in 1917. Argentina was the leading destination of emigration for the early migrant Russian citizens who were then officially called the “Ruso” and came from various ethnic and religious backgrounds. Within the context of this paper, which focuses on the migration and adaptation processes of Ruso immigrants in Argentina, the social, economic, cultural, and religious dimensions of their new lives are discussed. The paper concludes that early Ruso immigrants eventually constituted a labor diaspora and, despite being ethnically and religiously the most heterogeneous migrant movement from the Russian geography, Russian language, and culture continued their dominancy in the lives of at least the first immigrant generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines public discussions on Kazakh and Russian in post-Soviet Kazakhstan between 1989 and 2019 by using the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse. It focuses on how conflicting knowledge orders of the sociolinguistic reality are discursively (re)produced and advanced by various social actors in order to be accepted as 'true' and 'legitimate' in Kazakhstani society. Based on the concept of gift, the article reconstructs the language conflict as a dynamic discursive process of meaning-making and knowledge ordering in which the cultural values of the Kazakh and Russian language gifts and self-perceptions of Kazakhs and Russians are negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the role of maternal years of education and family language policy (FLP) in monolingual and bilingual children's acquisition of Hebrew plural morphology. The case of the Hebrew plural system is especially interesting when examining the influence of the above factors on morphological performance, given that it demands both a mastery of morphological rules (characterized by a high degree of transparency in Hebrew) and a lexicon-based mastery of exceptions. Participants were 146 children, 74 bilinguals (heritage language: Russian; societal language: Hebrew) and 72 Hebrew monolinguals, aged 5–8 (kindergarten, first grade, and second grade), from the same schools and neighborhoods. A Hebrew pluralization, sentence completion task that included 99 items from two categories: fully regular words whose plural forms are based on a morphological rule and non-regular words whose plural forms (also) require lexical and/or morpho-lexical knowledge. The parents of the bilingual children filled out a questionnaire with questions on background variables (e.g., maternal education) and language practice in both languages by different family members and language use at home. The findings indicated that maternal education contributes differently and distinctly to the linguistic performance of children from different linguistic backgrounds. For monolingual children, an increase in the number of years of maternal education is associated with an increase in the likelihood of success in the lexical and morpho-lexical aspects of Hebrew. By contrast, for bilingual children, no significant contribution of maternal education to children's performance was found. For bilingual participants, their performance in the lexical and morpho-lexical aspects of the Hebrew plural system was consistently influenced by FLP across all school settings—increased use of Russian at home was associated with a lower likelihood of success in the societal language. FLP characteristics were not found to be related to maternal education. These findings have clinical implications for both assessment and intervention processes when working with bilingual children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of natural translation in heritage speakers' bilingual communication in relation to the family language policies (FLP) adopted to maintain heritage language in Italian and German multilingual families. In order to investigate this, in spring 2023, a semi-structured questionnaire was administered to both parents and children. The sample consists of 60 Russian-speaking bilingual HS living in Italy and Germany, where they have access to regular primary education and attend, in some cases, private Russian courses or schools. The informants do not receive specific translation training from or into the Russian language (they only practice translation at school from or into Italian/German), and they translate, in most cases, as an occasional activity, closer to the function of mediation or brokering. The role of translation in relation to FLP seems particularly relevant when comparing the two samples, considering different family compositions: mostly bi-ethnic in Italy and mono-ethnic in Germany. The survey showed that in daily life, both parents and children use translation, often as a specific kind of bilingual communication. In the Italian part of the sample, the strategy called OPOL prevails, and translation is a frequent activity in the domestic sphere. In the German one, instead, the separation of language use contexts is widespread, and all family members speak both Russian and German, making translation activity less relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The USSR entered the Second World War with the world's most powerful propaganda apparatus, having twenty years of experience and a state monopoly on truth. 1 All publications were subjected to a three-tiered system of censorship: personal, editorial, and official, with the common line of censorship determined at the highest level. In the Soviet Union, there were five primary sources of official information: (a) periodical publications, (b) fictional literature, (c) journalistic writing, (d) films, and (e) radio broadcasts. The author examines the Russian language periodical press, which was the most widely available print material in the USSR. These sources were entirely aimed at Soviet readers, as opposed to Yiddish-language publications, which were in part intended to arouse sympathy in readers abroad. 2 Verification of casualty statistics and authenticating the facts of this published information is not the purpose of this article, but rather the author seeks to challenge the assumption that the USSR suppressed or censored reporting on the Holocaust during the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a semantic-syntactic analysis of prepositions / postpositions and conjunctions of the Tatar and Russian languages with the semantics of precedence. The purpose of the study is to determine the peculiarities of the functioning of prepositions/postpositions and conjunctions of differently structured languages involved in the representation of the category of precedence. The work defines a range of prepositions and conjunctions of temporal semantics that realize the meaning under study. The scientific novelty is that the dominant functions of preposition/postposition or conjunction have been identified as non-verbal means of expressing temporality, in particular, the meaning of precedence, in determining the temporal meaning of a statement. The results obtained showed that in both languages the potential of representation by prepositions / postpositions and precedent conjunctions is determined by their compatibility. In both languages, postpositions / prepositions and postpositional words are characterized by high frequency functioning. In both languages, there is a preference for expressing precedence towards the evening time of day, which is logically understandable. The Tatar language also contains postpositional words. The semantics of precedence in time correlates with the semantics of precedence in space, the third additional meaning is proportionality, comparison in size. In the Russian language, prepositions are polysemantic and have an extremely high frequency of functioning, that is, the semantics of precedence is only one of the meanings. They often realize the meaning of the degree of manifestation and many others. In both languages, the semantics of precedence in complex sentences is realized by conjunctive expressions, including postpositions and prepositions of the same semantics. In the Tatar language there are subordinate and welded clauses, but in the Russian language only subordinate clauses are presented.

Introduction. Currently, discursive words in the Karelian language have not been subjected to a comprehensive study, and many questions on the categories of connectors of both closely related and unrelated languages of the world cause controversy and discussion. The solution of these controversial issues is supposed to be possible through the accumulation of a significant amount of linguistic material, as well as data on the pragmatics, evolution, semantics and etymology of discursive words. The purpose of the study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the official parts of speech (their composition, functions and semantics) in three dialects of the Karelian language (Karelian proper, Livvikov, Ludikov ones) within the framework of the project “Discursive words in the Karelian language: a comparative typological aspect”. Materials and Methods. The study of Karelian syntax was carried out in terms of comparison with the grammatical structure of the Finnish language, which is closely related to Karelian, and the Russian language. The materials for the research were Karelian dictionaries (dialect and new-written) and samples of dialect Karelian speech, which allow to identify the composition and semantics of discursive words, to determine their origin in dialects and dialects of the Karelian language. General scientific and specifically linguistic (comparative-typological, lexicographic, etymological, comparative-historical) methods were applied. Results and Discussion. The most important result of the conducted research is a comprehensive analysis of discursive words in the dialects of the Karelian language with the use of data from related (Finnish, Veps) and unrelated (Russian) languages. Conclusion. The results of the study contribute to the study of pragmatics, evolution, semantics and etymology of discursive words of the Karelian language, and help to clarify the issue of connector categories in closely related and unrelated languages of the world.

The article investigates the settlement names in Southern (Olonets) Karelia, where the Livvik dialect of the Karelian language has been spoken for centuries. The study highlights that, in the early stages of settlement by Livvik Karelians, the development of villages was shaped by the region’s physical geography and the population’s way of life. Due to the abundance of lakes and rivers in Southern Karelia, early villages were mostly established along these water bodies. However, from the 18th century onwards, settlements began to develop on higher ground, leading to the formation of “settlement” type villages. The article focuses on the types of rural settlements and the structure of their names. The most common single-component names include oikonyms with the -l formant, typically derived from personal names. Less common are deanthroponymic patterns without a formant, and those with the formants -(i)ne, -sto, or the Russian -ovo and -shchina. Among other oikonyms, those based on geographical terms such as pogostu ‘village with a church,’ kylä and hieru ‘village’ are particularly prevalent. The study also identifies terms for smaller settlements and farmsteads, such as kodi, kondu, perti, and taloi, along with terms borrowed from Russian, like myza and khutor. The author examines why certain types of oikonyms are more common, the timeline of their adoption into the local toponymy, and the inclusion of reconstructed terms like moiživo and tula, which likely referred to small homesteads. The author concludes that the formation of the settlement system in Southern Karelia peaked in the early 20th century but began to decline with collectivisation and subsequent repressions, leading to the abandonment of many villages in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the present study, we introduce parafoveal letter confusion matrices for the Russian language, which uses the Cyrillic script. To ensure that our confusion rates reflect parafoveal processing and no other effects, we employed an adapted boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) that prevented the participants from directly fixating the letter stimuli. Additionally, we assessed confusability under isolated and word-like (crowded) conditions using two modern fonts, since previous research showed that letter recognition depended on crowding and font (Coates, 2015; Pelli et al., 2006). Our additional goal was to gain insight into what letter features or configurational patterns might be essential for letter recognition in Russian; thus, we conducted exploratory clustering analysis on visual confusion scores to identify groups of similar letters. To support this analysis, we conducted a comprehensive review of over 20 studies that proposed crucial properties of Latin letters relevant to character perception. The summary of this review is valuable not only for our current study but also for future research in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the temporal interpretation of fronting constructions in English, a topic that has received limited attention in the literature on tense semantics. It presents new empirical findings revealing that specific fronting configurations, involving present tense morphology in a complement CP under a matrix past tense, can yield a theoretically unexpected simultaneous interpretation. A novel theoretical framework for understanding English tense is proposed, which accounts for the temporal interpretation of both fronting and non-fronting versions of attitude reports. The framework introduces a null simultaneous tense as a replacement for the conventional indexical present and the Sequence-of-Tense (SOT) de se tense. It is argued that in complement CPs the null simultaneous tense, as well as past tense, can be anchored either to the attitude time or to the utterance time. In either case, each tense receives a de re interpretation. Moreover, the paper contends that evidence from fronting constructions supports Kratzer's (Proceedings of semantics and linguistic theory 8, pp. 92–110, 1998) proposal that the transmission of temporal features (as part of the mechanism of SOT) occurs at PF. Finally, the proposed revision of the English tense system contributes to a more unified cross-linguistic perspective on tense. It is demonstrated how the temporal readings of attitude reports arising in such non-SOT languages as Russian, Japanese, and Hebrew can be captured within the system developed for English, with known contrasts attributed to the absence of Feature Transmission in those languages. Further known and new data from English, Modern Greek, and German are examined, revealing variations in SOT effects across SOT languages. These data are used as additional evidence supporting the claim that cross-linguistic variation in the interpretation of complement tense stems solely from differences in Feature Transmission. Regarding the semantic profile of tenses, it can be considered largely invariant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contains a comparative analysis of the axiological component in phraseological units with the color name red in Russian and Persian linguistic cultures. Phraseological units with color names are numerous in both languages and represent a microsystem united by the semantics of color, the components of which enter into intralingual and interlingual relationships of full or partial equivalence, synonymy, homonymy, or antonymy. The research objective was to compare figurative meanings of the color component in phraseology of the two different languages on the basis of culture linguistics and axiological analysis. The study provided an insight into the national mentality of the two peoples, which emerged as such under the influence of historical events, climate, religion, traditions, and values. The research material included 53 Russian and 20 Persian phraseological units. Both worldviews demonstrated an axiological component in the idioms with color name red, as well as a binary axiological opposition. In Russian, it demonstrated a positive meaning (66%) whereas in Persian it had a mostly negative meaning (80%). In Russian, the color red had a positive meaning in such categories as beauty; respect, festivity; holiday, fun; especially valuable; oratory; the key thing, the beginning; achievement; response action; embarrassment. Categories with negative meaning included beauty; timidity, shyness; oratory; limit, danger; fire; aggression; response action; shame. In Persian phraseology, positive meaning was detected in such categories as appearance; embarrassment; preserving one’s dignity, appeal. The negative categories included change in complexion; troubles; limit, danger; anger, irritation; duplicity; obstruction; cruelty; bad consequences. In addition, 19% of Russian phraseological units were classified as neutral and belonged to the categories of trade, revolution, and communism. The method of lexical-axiological analysis makes it possible to use the results in teaching general linguistics, Russian, Persian, translation, and comparative typology, as well as in in lexicographic practice.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of natural translation in heritage speakers’ bilingual communication in relation to the family language policies (FLP) adopted to maintain heritage language in Italian and German multilingual families. In order to investigate this, in spring 2023, a semi-structured questionnaire was administered to both parents and children. The sample consists of 60 Russian-speaking bilingual HS living in Italy and Germany, where they have access to regular primary education and attend, in some cases, private Russian courses or schools. The informants do not receive specific translation training from or into the Russian language (they only practice translation at school from or into Italian/German), and they translate, in most cases, as an occasional activity, closer to the function of mediation or brokering. The role of translation in relation to FLP seems particularly relevant when comparing the two samples, considering different family compositions: mostly bi-ethnic in Italy and mono-ethnic in Germany. The survey showed that in daily life, both parents and children use translation, often as a specific kind of bilingual communication. In the Italian part of the sample, the strategy called OPOL prevails, and translation is a frequent activity in the domestic sphere. In the German one, instead, the separation of language use contexts is widespread, and all family members speak both Russian and German, making translation activity less relevant.

Background. The focus is on the potential of Russian scientific school for shaping the linguistic worldview of students in Russian schools when teaching the Russian language. This scientific school was created by Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences Mikhail Trofimovich Baranov. At the moment, the academic subject Russian language is considered from the ideological positions of socialization and personal identity, determining value priorities in the knowledge of Russian culture. The educational role of the Russian language as a meta-subject in personal development is being strengthened. Objectives. The research aims at evaluating progressive ideas and trends in the methods of teaching the Russian language. Their importance in obtaining quality results in the educational process as well as positive connections between the scientific achievements of methodological scientists and the possibilities of their application in the present time are identified. Methods. The study was carried out on the basis of a review of the works of the leader of the scientific school M.T. Baranov and analytical materials devoted to this scientist at different periods of time. A and analysis were carried out, assessing His contribution to Russian science is assessed in the analysis of selected publications of 2024. Results. The personal contribution of the scientist, whose ideas are continuously enriched by his successors, is of great importance. The objectivity of the assessment is based on the basic principles of the scientific school of M.T. Baranov and the prolonged and multidimensional nature of research in the development of the teacher’s ideas in science. Conclusions. The study has shown the potential of the scientist’s methodological heritage in a number of relevant issues: systematic study of the Russian language in secondary school, active attention to children’s speech, its enrichment and content, theoretical understanding of spelling methods, reliance on the traditions of cognitive-aesthetic teaching of the Russian language and speech.

The purpose of this article is to study the anthroponyms of the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East in a comparative manner. The author studies the problem of the existence of personal names, surnames, nicknames, ethnonyms in the languages of various types of northern peoples: Ural (Nenets), Altai (Evens) and Paleo-Asian (Chukchi) in inextricable connection with their ethnic culture. In comparative terms, anthroponyms of other northern ethnic groups are used: Evenks, Nanais, Udeges. The object of the study is anthroponyms, as well as linguistic connections between the indigenous peoples of the North and Russians in synchronic and diachronic aspects from the standpoint of modern linguistic contactology. The subject of the research is personal names, surnames, nicknames, ethnonyms of indigenous small peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East: Nenets, Evens, Chukchi. Research methods: descriptive, comparative, phonetic, lexical-semantic and morphological analyses. The theoretical and practical significance of the study is associated with the low degree of its study, the lack of special scientific works devoted to the problem of anthroponyms in the comparative aspect. Attention is also paid to contacting languages and cultures in the regions of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation. The results of the work revealed facts that stated that the personal names, surnames, nicknames and ethnonyms of the peoples of the North are distinguished by great diversity, and their origin and existence are associated with the characteristics of the material and spiritual culture of ethnic groups; Among the extralinguistic factors that influenced the linguistic material, one of the main ones was the close communication of the indigenous inhabitants with the Russian population of the region. The author comes to the conclusion that the material under study - anthroponyms - has gone through a difficult path of contact, mutual enrichment and development; In borrowed words, primarily phonetic and lexical differences are revealed. In the field of grammar, the main ways of forming anthroponyms have been identified: morphological (suffixal), basic composition, conversion; the most common derivational and inflectional suffixes are given, including those that form male and female names and nicknames.

The work is devoted to the study of biblionyms as one of the most important components of onomastics. It examines the biblionymy of Chuvash, Russian and English fiction using the methods of continuous sampling, systematization and classification of material, descriptive-analytical and comparative approaches. At the moment, biblionyms have not been studied enough. At the same time, their study is relevant and significant, since the title can be the key to understanding the text. This work is intended to clarify the interpretation of the term “biblionym”. At the same time, the author examines the functions of biblionyms, their classification, and identifies the place of titles in the system of onomastic terminology of the languages under study, which in the future should contribute to the development of the general theory of onomastics. The author of the work suggests using the term “biblionym” to understand the name of any text. At the same time, from his point of view, there is a need to introduce into onomastic studies such terms as “microbiblionym” for the names of chapters, paragraphs and constituent parts of the text and “macrobiblionim” for the names of collections of texts. By its position, a biblionym is a means of connecting the text with the outside world, in particular with the reader. Based on the biblionym, the reader will be able to form an idea of the content of the text.

This study identifies similarities and differences in the structural organization and cultural attitudes expressed in Swedish and Russian proverbs of comparative semantics on poverty and wealth. It provides a classification of linguistic units (35 Swedish and 60 Russian proverbs) based on their expression of identity, comparison, contrast, and syntactic organization. The research reveals that in the Swedish language, proverbs expressing comparison with adjectives in the comparative degree have quantitative advantages, while in the Russian language, proverbs expressing contrast prevail. Similar cultural attitudes in Swedish and Russian proverbs of comparative semantics on poverty and wealth include:(1) The wealthy person’s material status is incomparably higher than that of the poor, but the poor person surpasses the wealthy in moral terms.(2) The wealthy always desire more, being unsatisfied with their wealth.(3) Laws operate differently for the rich and the poor.(4) Wealth is fleeting if not used wisely.Differences lie in specific cultural attitudes. For instance, Swedish proverbs focus on the wealthy person’s daughter as a coveted prize for those seeking easy enrichment, while Russian proverbs intensify certain qualities of individuals based on their degree of poverty / wealth (the poorer a person is, the more generous, wise, intelligent, brave, cunning they are, etc.).

The study concerns the organisation and content of both the visual and verbal elements within the polycode text of French-language memes that pertain to medical discourse. The meme’s connection to medical discourse is established through its subject matter, the incorporation of medical symbols in its visual elements, and the inclusion of medical terminology in its written content. It also involves depicting communication scenarios between doctors, between doctors and patients, and between nursing staff and patients at both the image and text levels. The study’s novelty lies in its dual approach: firstly, it examines French memes as subjects for linguistic analysis, and secondly, it explores them as a genre of polycode text within medical discourse. The research material comprises 100 French memes centred on medical themes, obtained through continuous sampling from the internet. Study results revealed that memes pertaining to medical discourse are dynamic, viral, and eclectic texts that encapsulate the distinctive elements of institutional medical discourse. Thematically, the meme encompasses various medical topics and addresses social issues prevalent in France. Deciphering the author’s intention behind the meme relies on a layer-by-layer examination of how the idea is expressed through the polycode text, as well as an understanding of the sociocultural context that informs the text, which requires presuppositional knowledge on the part of the recipient. Linguo-cultural characteristics observed in the verbal component, as identified through the analysis, include the use of language play at phonetic and lexical levels, inclusion of colloquial and slang vocabulary alongside emotionally charged expressions within doctor-patient communication contexts, and the utilisation of phonetic spelling. The visual component of the polycode text in French medical memes is distinguished by the incorporation of elements from civilisational phenomena, such as political figures from the country, film protagonists, and globally recognised actors. The analysis revealed that the meme serves various functions including comedic, informative, compensatory, and appellative roles. The article constitutes a segment of a broader study examining polycode texts within medical discourse across multiple genres including memes, medical posters, and demotivators in languages such as Russian, French, English, Chinese, and Arabic.

Socio-economic changes, reforms of the pension system have transformed the perception of old age by Russian language native speakers. The authors deal with the dynamics of the semantic volume of the lexeme ‘pensioner’, caused by the above-mentioned extra-linguistic factors. The aim of the study is to describe the semantic transformation of the lexeme ‘pensioner’ representing the concepts ‘pensioner’, ‘pension’ and ‘old age’. The material of the research was the data of the National Corpus of the Russian Language for the period from 1995 to 2021, lexicographic sources, data of the associative experiment, which identified the conceptual, value-oriented and image-bearing components of the concepts ‘pensioner’, ‘pension’ and ‘old age’. The method of analysis and generalization of linguistic material from lexicographic sources, associative experiment, and the method of component analysis were used. The analysis of verbal elements reflecting cultural, traditional and value representations of Russian language speakers presented the dynamics of the semantics of the lexeme ‘pensioner’, its semantic transformation, which reflects changes in the Russian linguistic world picture. Semantic merisms identified as a result of contrastive analysis of potential associations allowed to present the semantic volume of the word considering the extra-linguistic data. As a result, the data were obtained, which can be used in lexicographic sources when defining the lexeme ‘pensioner’. Theoretical and practical approaches to modeling of Russian linguistic-cultural concepts are generalized. This reveals cultural and moral dominants of Russian language speakers and sacred meanings of the Russian culture.

In the digital era, folk orthologs (language normalizers who are not professional in the quality of speech, the choice of criteria, and the codified norm) have received unlimited access to the electronic publication of their opinions, which has come to the attention of scientists. The relevance of the proposed topic is determined by the need to popularize traditional cultural values, in particular, knowledge of the Russian language. The purpose of the study is to find out the motives of folk orthologs and the norm criteria used in their rulemaking, degree of objectivity, the correspondence of their opinions to scientific ideas and the level of literacy in their statements. The research material was based on judgments about the language of non-professional linguists available at online forums (public dialogues) about the Russian language. The method of content analysis was used, including the search and selection of judgments of folk orthologs, as well as the analysis of linguistic material from the perspective of compliance with norms in linguistic dictionaries. The results of the study showed both the lack of knowledge of folk orthologs about the Russian language and their demand for this knowledge. The motives for their activities were identified - interest in the language and its protection, self-realization, leisure time, and also the main areas of activity of folk orthologs - rulemaking, and the search for norms in spelling, vocabulary and grammar. This knowledge made it possible to propose recommendations for a possible dialogue between scientists and folk orthologs.

This article explores the assimilation of second-generation migrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) who grew up in Israel's social and geographic urban periphery. Their upbringing in peripheral towns and neighborhoods exposed them almost exclusively to Mizrahim (Oriental Jews), a stigmatized minority group whose members make up the overwhelming majority in those locations. We argue that their interaction with members of this group resulted in an alternative process of assimilation, which we term Hitmazrehut (Orientalization). Children of migrants, who were unaware of the historical stigmatization of Mizrahim and their culture, conceived of Hitmazrehut as their only viable trajectory of assimilation into what they erroneously perceived as the Israeli mainstream. However, embracing Mizrahi socio-cultural practices, including consumption and production of ethnic culture, religious traditions and romantic partnerships, did not lead to their downward assimilation, as the model predicts. Rather, it allowed second-generation Russian-speaking migrants to fit in and attain social and economic mobility by assimilating sidewards, into the growing Mizrahi middle-class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the many acid-base concepts, the theory of Usanovich is one of the least known despite the most general scope including almost all chemical reaction types and even redox chemistry. Published 1939 in a Soviet journal in Russian language, it gained little immediate attention, and was later criticized mainly as being too broad in scope. Although several articles recently remembered Usanovich and his acid–base theory, one major inconsistency again was overseen: the electron is put in a row along with anions. Chemical history probably correctly puts this concept aside, also because it added little explanation capabilities beyond the elaborated considerations of the simultaneously published acid–base theory of Gilbert N. Lewis which was later refined by Pearson (hard and soft acids and bases, "HSAB"). A modified version of the core of Usanovich' concept is finally discussed. It combines the classic protic and aprotic acid–base concepts on the foundations of Lewis' and Pearsons ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grammatical error correction is one of the core natural language processing tasks. Presently, the open-source state-of-the-art sequence tagging for English is the GECToR model. For Russian, this problem does not have equally effective solutions due to the lack of annotated datasets, which motivated the current research. In this paper, we describe the process of creating a synthetic dataset and training the model on it. The GECToR architecture is adapted for the Russian language, and it is called RuGECToR. This architecture is chosen because, unlike the sequence-to-sequence approach, it is easy to interpret and does not require a lot of training data. The aim is to train the model in such a way that it generalizes the morphological properties of the language rather than adapts to a specific training sample. The presented model achieves the quality of 82.5 in the metric on synthetic data and 22.2 on the RULEC dataset, which was not used at the training stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, based on ethnographic research conducted in Perth, Western Australia and Madrid, Spain, we consider how community is understood and enacted for Russian-speaking migrants and its role in cultural (re)production. Studies often overlook the important role of struggle, contestation and power relations in everyday practices of community making. Drawing on Bourdieu's field theory, we describe the Russian-speaking migrant community as a structured social space in which community leaders and migrant institutions compete for the right to represent the community. As a result of power differentials, contested ideas about what Russian-speaking culture is and how it should be transmitted, maintained and produced are established, (re)produced and revised. The community is perceived by its own members as disunited and/or consisting of members with whom migrants do not want to identify, forming a 'community of unbelonging'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion of multilingual education by showing how students understand the role of the English language in multilingual classrooms in the Expanding Circle context. It examines the perception and assessment of the status of English by university students in the context of the trilingual policy currently being implemented in Kazakhstan. The purpose of this study is to determine how the new language policy is implemented in university multilingual programs from the point of view of the functioning of English. The quantitative study utilizes a sociolinguistic questionnaire distributed between undergraduate students of multilingual programs offered by four major universities in the western area of Kazakhstan. The findings suggest that despite the increasing importance and prestige of studying English, it is not used on equal ground with the Kazakh and Russian languages, and its level of proficiency remains relatively low. The statistical analysis of the respondents’ answers allowed identifying gaps in the implementation of the language policy due to the lack of understanding of the specificity of multilingual education by both students and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relay translation of William Tufnell Le Queux's (1864–1927) Strange Tales of a Nihilist, which the prominent Chinese translator of nihilist fiction, Chen Jinghan 陳景韓 (1878–1965), completed based on Matsui Shōyō's 松居松葉 (1870–1933) Japanese rendering. By exploring the transcultural process through which a story of Russian nihilism traveled from Europe to East Asia, the author tests the translatability of the revolutionary structure of feeling across different cultures. The author reveals how English and Japanese media and literature inspired Chinese interpretations of Russian nihilism, and how a key Chinese translator channeled his own revolutionary commitments through intensive borrowing of traditional Chinese literary motifs and narrative devices. As a result, the Chinese vision of nihilism diverged from nihilism's Russian political connotations and was assimilated into a thrilling cultural topos of vengeful assassination plots in Chinese popular culture. Ultimately, this transculturation of revolutionary sentimental, which aroused sinicized emotions of love and revenge, not only generated public sympathy for nihilists in China but also motivated Chinese revolutionary actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on multilingualism in the home has approached the family as a fixed unit thus neglecting the dynamic view of the family and its intersection with family language practices. The present study aims to address this gap by focusing on Russian-speaking mothers in Finland who have raised their children bilingually in single-parent as well as in dual-parent families. Russian speakers are the largest minority language group in Finland, and their number is constantly growing. The current study is a contribution to the research on family language practices in the Finnish context. It examines the nexus of shifts in family configurations and language practices and explores how the dynamic changes in family constellations shape language practices in four families. The study reveals that creating new kinships leads to shifts in the language practices of the peripheral family members and that forming voluntary kin can expand heritage language use and enable an overhearer and bystander role for children. Non-residential family members expand the family's linguistic repertoire and support the legitimacy of already established practices. Being sole caretakers enables mothers to encourage language practices that they consider beneficial for their children without encountering any resistance from other family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern pulmonary hypertension (NPH) is a medical condition that is still enigmatic in non-Russian-speaking countries. The extant previous literature is mostly available in the Russian language and, therefore, not accessible to the rest of the world. The recent increased interest in climate changes and environmental effects on pulmonary circulation prompted us to summarize the knowledge from the past about the effects of cold on pulmonary vasculature. In this review, we, for the first time, describe, in detail, the pathological attributes of human NPH, a medical disorder that occurs in people living in extremely cold regions, in the English language. Briefly, NPH is characterized by the hyper-muscularization of the pulmonary arteries and de novo muscularization of the arterioles with the ultimate development of right ventricular hypertrophy. However, the profound molecular mechanisms of the NPH pathology are to be revealed in future comprehensive studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the question of language diffusion and examine the latest attempt to popularize the Ukrainian language. This effort has been undertaken by the Ukrainian government since 1991. While sociological studies report positive dynamics in Ukrainian language dissemination, in practice, the language adoption progress might be slower than reported. We test this hypothesis using google trends web search data. We apply a Bayesian beta regression model and show that the proposed model is appropriate. The results suggest that the Ukrainian language popularization policy is successful and that the 2022 Russian invasion has considerably intensified the usage of the Ukrainian language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the dominance of Russian in Kazakhstan and the status of Kazakh in the context of native language and bilingualism. The continuation and status of a language is closely related to its transmission to younger generations. For this reason, researchers investigated the status of Kazakh among university students in the context of native language and bilingualism. In the study, researchers tried to determine the degree of use of Kazakh among the students of the Kazakh-American free university in Oskemen, Kazakhstan. The data were collected by applying the “Personal Information Form” and the “Questionnaire on Determining the Degree of Use of Kazakh as a Native Language among University Students” developed by the researchers. The questionnaires were applied to 313 first and second-year students studying in 20 different departments at the university. Researchers examined whether the degree of use of Kazakh as a native language among university students showed a significant difference according to the variables of “gender, age, year of study, and nationality”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Oriental Studies (Al-Farabi Kazakh National University) / Kazahskij Nacional'nyj Universitet Imeni Al'-Farabi Vestnik Seriâ Vostokovedeniâ is the property of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Larq Journal for Philosophy, Linguistics & Social Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the acculturation of Russian speakers in Latvia and Finland by comparing their cultural (dis)involvement and preference (Carlson & Güler 2018) with their self-reported language proficiency and use. Using survey data collected from both countries (N = 224), the study finds a correlation between Russian speakers' everyday language use and their level of acculturation. The comparative results showed that respondents using more local languages show higher Cultural Involvement (CI) compared to those who use English or Russian. Beyond language proficiency, what mattered was the actual use of the language as the local language used outside the home was significantly related to low CP scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes Russian etiquette expressions (greetings, invitations, consents, apologies, thanks, etc.) used in Russian television series of recent decades. For the first time the factual material of three films is considered in detail: “Liquidation” (2007), “Alexander Garden” (2005) and “Black Wolves” (2017). It is shown that screenwriters and directors allow the use of modern (latest) lexical units in films showing the history of the Soviet Union in the 1920s–1950s. These are expressions like Проехали! and idioms like Интересное кино! Such an anachronism is explained, in particular, by the genre properties of films: they combine the features of action films, detective stories and melodramas. Although these facts are a violation of historical reality, they can be justified by the desire to bring the situations of recent history closer to the modern viewer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bulletin of Ablai Khan KazUIRandWL: Series 'Philological sciences' is the property of Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations & World Languages and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bulletin of Ablai Khan KazUIRandWL: Series 'Philological sciences' is the property of Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations & World Languages and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bulletin of Ablai Khan KazUIRandWL: Series 'Philological sciences' is the property of Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations & World Languages and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Causal relations allow a very detailed insight into the narrative skills of children from various backgrounds; however, their contribution has not been sufficiently studied in bilingual populations. The present study examines the expression of causal relations and the linguistic forms used to encode them in narratives of bilingual children speaking Russian as the Heritage Language (HL) and Hebrew as the Societal Language (SL). Narratives were collected from 21 typically developing Russian–Hebrew bilingual children using the Frog story picture book and were coded for frequency and type of episodic components, and for causal relations focusing on enabling and motivational relations. Results showed that the number of episodic components was higher in Hebrew than in Russian. An in-depth analysis showed that more components were mentioned in the first five episodes, particularly at the onset of the story. Causal relations were similar in both languages but were differently distributed across the languages—more enabling relations in Russian stories and more motivational relations in Hebrew stories. Production of episodic components and causal relations was affected by language proficiency but not by age of onset of bilingualism (AoB). In terms of language forms, lexical chains (e.g., search~find) were the most frequent means for inferring relations. Syntactic and referential cohesion were used in dedicated episodes to convey relations in both languages. Finally, a higher number of significant correlations between narrative productivity measures, episodic components, and causal relations were found in SL/Hebrew than in HL/Russian. The study results underscore the need to understand how language-specific abilities interact with knowledge of narrative discourse construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The translations of the Divine Liturgy into the languages of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Empire were created by Russian missionaries, primarily in the nineteenth century. Their objective was to prevent a mass exodus from Orthodoxy to Islam or paganism and offer the local population a more comprehensive understanding of Christianity. The article expounds on this phenomenon within the context of the ongoing debate regarding the translation of the liturgy into Russian and other languages. The article encompass the translation of sacred texts into the Komi language by St. Stephen of Perm and addresses the circumstances in the early nineteenth century when emperors issued decrees mandating the translation of the liturgy. A pivotal moment emerged with the missionary principles of the orientalist N. I. Ilminsky in Kazan, advocating for the translation of texts into the vernacular. Ilminsky proposed using solely the Cyrillic alphabet and resorting to borrowings from Church Slavonic when necessary. Slavicism within Christian terminology has been researched in liturgical texts in Abkhazian, Altaic, Buryat, Chuvash, Yakut, Karelian, Komi, Mari, Tatar, and Udmurt. The article also discusses the translation into Komi, highlighting the rivalries among translators in that context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews historical, economic and social reasons for working people to migrate from five Central Asian Republics (CARs) to Russia in the early 21st Century. Relationships between Russia and the five Central Asian States changed dramatically after the USSR collapse and in the ensuing three decades, large numbers of workers from Central Asia migrated to Russia. It became imperative for migrating workers to learn Russian to mingle socially and gain economic benefits. Russian-speaking workers amalgamated well in Russia and their remittances improved the GDPs of their home states. However, with greater numbers of migrating workers, Russia imposed new migration laws that required better competence in Russian, which resulted in new difficulties and challenges for migrants and those who aspired to move to Russia for work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mountain Jews (MJs), native of the eastern Caucasus, mass immigrated in the 1990s to Israel and the US. MJs brought with them two heritage languages (HLs): Russian, the language of wider communication in the former Soviet Union, and Juhuri, their traditional home language. The present study explores the effects of HL attitudes on proficiency among 146 Israeli and 138 American MJs differing in age (M = 35.42) and in education level. A questionnaire based on a triadic attitude model comprised of Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive items was used to examine the impact of language attitudes on self-rated Comprehension and Production of the two HLs. Results showed more positive attitudes toward Russian than Juhuri in both Israel and the US, with highest values registered for the Affective component. Attitudes toward Russian did not differ across countries, whereas attitudes toward Juhuri were more positive in the US. Attitudes predicted proficiency of Russian better than Juhuri and better in Israel than in the US. The findings are discussed in light of societal and cultural differences between Israel and the US, in terms of ethnolinguistic vitality and the status of the societal languages, as well as the implications of the unique attitude structure of the two HLs in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Russian Linguistics is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)