Articles

The article presents an analysis of precedent statements in socio-political discourse, which is reflected in different types of media texts thematically related to the coronavirus pandemic. The described means of language contributes to the realization of various communicative strategies, first of all the strategy of persuasion. The article demonstrates the role of precedent statements and illustrates their persuasive potential as one of the fundamental elements of intertextuality category in the framework of rhetorical media discourse. As an effective means of implementing both the global strategy of persuasion and specific communicative tactics — warning, threatening, manipulating, discrediting, etc. — precedent statements are regularly reproduced in different types of rhetorical discourse (political, economic, religious, etc.) and make a significant contribution to achieving the main perlocutionary effect — inducing the recipient to take a certain action.⁠

The present study is devoted to one of the topical issues of linguoculturology — integration processes taking place in the intercultural space. The realization of these complex processes is possible owing to the word and its semantic content, which is constantly enriched with new or well-known, but rethought in the practice of speech activity meanings. The article presents the results of the study of the semantics of the word mind and its adjectival variant smart in the comparative aspect of the Russian and French languages (l’intelligence, intelligent). The semantics of these words is actualized in modern speech due to new technological aspects of human life, such as artificial intelligence, information and digital technologies. They are of interest as concepts that formed the intercultural space of Russia and France as a result of the mutual influence of French surrealism and Russian avant-garde.

The present article aims to reveal the particular features of the way proper names function in an operatic text, in particular in the libretto of the British comic opera “The Sorcerer” created by William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. This study is based on the following hypothesis: within the framework of theatrical discourse, one of the main functions of a proper name is an information-accumulative, or cumulative, function. As an integral part of culture, an onym has the ability to store culturally significant information. “Decoding” such onyms in a literary or an operatic text provides the reader or viewer with all the context necessary for an understanding of what is happening according to the plot. For example, in “The Sorcerer” there are anthroponyms that indicate the status that the main characters have in the Anglo-Saxon society. Apart from anthroponyms there are also culturally significant toponyms, which have to be understood in order to grasp the comic effect created by William Gilbert, the author of the libretto. The analysis of the few chosen onyms made it possible to prove that a proper name may play an important role in the construction of the plot and in the creation of characters’ images within the framework of a musical theatre piece.

The article is an analytical review of some problems of dictionary codification of Luxembourg German Standard. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the Luxembourg variety of German Standard, which differs in a number of distinctive features from other national varieties of the German language, is still poorly studied. Some aspects of the study of the German language in Luxembourg, the criteria of the standard in general and the features of the Luxembourg standard of the German language in particular are briefly described. The main part of the study is the analysis of current lexicographic sources that codify the specific features of the pronunciation, grammar, lexical and semantic norms of the Luxembourg Standard. The results of the analysis of lexicographic sources, which are descriptive codifiers of the German Standard in Luxembourg, are presented: a pronunciation dictionary of the Standard High German language, the project “Regional Variation in the Grammar of Standard German”, dictionaries of varieties of the German language. The structure and content of the dictionary of the Luxembourg standard for the German language [Sieburg, 2022] are considered in detail. This includes general information about the mega-, macro- and microstructure of the dictionary, the subject and variable characteristics of the codified vocabulary, the features of the structure and content of dictionary entries. As a result of the analysis, a conclusion is made about the development of the normalizing activity of the Lu­xembourg German Standard and about the recognizing of this standard, which has specific features at different levels of the language system.

The paper presents the structure, content and organization of the glossary of English verbs and their word combinations functioning in the geographic register of scientific speech. The glossary is compiled at the Department of Foreign Languages for the Faculty of Geography. It is a kind of “active” lexicographic source which helps students and scientists to master ESP of geographic disciplines. Verbs are given as part of the most common lexical and grammatical collocations such as river flows, sea level rises, rain falls accompanied by brief contexts illustrating their real usage in scientific articles, textbooks and terminological dictionaries on geography. Verbs of different kinds: terminological verbs, verbs of general English, verbs of general scientific vocabulary are usually used in recurrent collocations and free word combinations. Their linguistic functioning is confined to a set of rather simple and logically based patterns. These verbal word combinations serve as the “building material” of scientific speech in the field of Earth sciences. Thus, our glossary contains the most essential information about the use of basic geographical verbs. It can also serve as the material for testing the knowledge of geographic ESP.

Foreign languages have always occupied a prominent place in Russia and the Russian culture. The paper states that despite being seemingly isolated from the outside world, Russia has always been closely connected with it, and not only by trade and political relations, but also by spirit and culture. The research contributes to the discussion of the role of foreign languages in Russian culture and reviews the development of foreign languages teaching system in Russia. Adoption of Christianity was the first significant reason for the spread of foreign languages in the society that brought not only a new religion, but also the Greek language along with the theological books. Over time, more and more foreign languages began to spread in the society, sometimes even entering into a conflict with one another: Latin with Greek (in the theological field), German with French (in the sphere of politics), French with English (in the literary field). In certain historical periods (for example, in the first half of the 19th century), foreign languages even displaced the Russian language in some social strata. The contribution underlines the importance of analysing such historical periods with special reference to interconnection between language as a means of communication and national identity. The investigation also argues that at times, for example, like in Soviet times, foreign languages acquired the status of the ‘dead’ languages and became an exclusive tribute to the tradition and a means of reading. In conclusion, the paper declares that foreign languages have always retained their important role, opening up new horizons for the Russian people and connecting them with the outside world.

The article discusses the principles of nomination in the field of Italian wine production for the period 2018–2022, the identification of an onomastic shift relative to the traditional principles of naming classic vintage wines in Italy in the 19th-20th centuries. Using the method of continuous sampling from the websites of wine producers and the blog of wine marketers, the units of the study were analyzed in terms of linguistic-cognitive criteria that guided wine producers when choosing non-traditional and innovative names for wines and champagnes. The article also reveals word-formation models of pragmatonyms in the wine-making sphere and a hierarchy of communicative functions. Particular attention is paid to the actualization of the associative-connotative series when forming the names of wines.

The article aims to study modern aspects of the variation of linguistic and cultural space and to clarify approaches to its study, using the example of the French-speaking space. The role of Romance studies in the development of the principles of spatial research, the establishment of spatial patterns, mapping and the creation of atlases is shown. It is proved that the peculiarity of the Romance school of areal studies is the increasing desire to reflect the connection of language and culture. Taking into account these features, it is established that the French-speaking space is a vast, fragmented area with a core and regional centers, showing a tendency to expand, having relative integrity, which is supported by the interconnections and development trends of its constituent zones. The question of whether the unity of the Francophone area is preserved or weakened as it expands requires further research. The results of the study confirm the immanent nature of variability as a property of language, the complexity of the relationship “center” — “periphery”, the role of borders in language and culture, the importance of self-esteem of speakers in maintaining the integrity of the area. These questions are important for studying not only the Francophone area, but also the areas of other supranational communities formed on the basis of other languages — Romance and non-Romance.

There are two opposing tendencies in the French speech stream. As a vocal-type language with a dominant open syllable and the absence of lexical stress, French creates sequences of two vowel sounds (gaping/l’hiatus) on the border of words in speech. Phonetic processes such as coupling (enchaînement) and binding (liaison) are used to remove this coarticulatively unfavorable context at the word junction. It is obvious that the implementation of coupling and binding at the border of words in the speech stream creates a diffuse acoustic marking of the external sandhi: words merge into a continuous physical signal. How do speakers create this co-articulatory cohesion of sounds in the speech stream? How do listeners manage to recognize in a continuous stream separate words that enter into certain syntactic and semantic relationships with each other? The article considers the external sandhi from the point of view of its articulatory, acoustic, auditory and cognitive processing.

The article deals with the cognitive essence of zoomorphic metaphor and its national and cultural identity in the Russian language. The study was carried out based on dictionaries and text corpora of the Russian language. The purpose of the article is to analyze the vocabulary material and its textual implementations in order to determine, based on the analysis, which cultural information is not fully reflected in explanatory dictionaries. In the course of the study, it was found that the names of animals, which represent cultural standards in the Russian language, mainly capture negative character traits of people and their appearance. The images of flying birds, on the contrary, capture and describe in a figurative form the positive characteristics of a person. The analysis of dictionary definitions showed that different names of the same animals often have different associative potential in the national-cultural sense. Explanatory dictionaries do not always capture differences in the connotative volume of lexical units. The results of this study can be used in lexicographic practice when creating a complex dictionary, which involves the inclusion of connotative and associative meanings in the interpretation of words. Such dictionaries are necessary both when teaching Russian as a native language and when working with foreign students who study Russian.

The purpose of the paper is to point out some theoretical problems concerning the role of cognitive methods in linguistics, and in the widening the humanitarian competence in general. The paper focuses on the investigation of the cognitive metaphor as a sense-creating device in the literary discourse, using cognitive, conceptual, frame/slot analyses with the elements of the component analysis. The author investigates R. Bradbury’s “Embroidery” in close connection with the metaphorical transfer of meaning and draws the conclusion that this approach opens new facets of conceptualization. The cognitive aspects of a literary text are analyzed, its deep intertextuality and ability to generate the new texts is established, the chain links are constructed. Such approach gives a new impetus to outlining the ways of its possible role in derivational text history. Much attention is paid to the intertextual inclusions, specifically emphasizing their role in changing and reframing the readers’ cognitive system. Furthermore, the paper shows the movement along the multiple ways of creating sense, ensures unlimited possibilities for literary and linguistic sense revealing.

The article is devoted to one of the relevant problems of understanding francophonie — the consideration of this phenomenon as a special literary field, where several texts in different languages (one of which is French) coexist. Francophone literature outside of France emerged as an independent phenomenon in the middle of the 20th century (with the exception of the province of Quebec and the historical francophone areas, such as — Switzerland, Belgium) and the study of these literatures has its own history. The purpose of the study is to consider several approaches to interpreting the problems of French-language literatures that are formed at the intersection of cultures. The article gives a brief overview of the concepts and theories used in the context of literary francophonie: the traditional “center-periphery” dichotomy, the concept of cultural miscegenation, post-colonial discourse and the theory of creolization. The research describes such markers of the borderland as the representation of a mestizo identity by French-speaking authors, the poetics of postmodernism, and the hybridity of the language code. The conclusion is made about the inextricable connection of French-language literary texts that exist on the border of two worldviews — “one’s own” and “alien”, simultaneously with the local and world literary heritage, as well as the relationship between the postmodern concept and postcolonial studies.

The article discusses the terminology of cultural memory research — the designations of reference points and/or vectors of culture that are important for the identification of a person and a collective. It is shown that the symbolization of culture can occur in different forms: the author examines the nominations that are used in the French-language scientific literature when developing the concepts of places (lieux): places of memory, places of knowledge, not places, places of transition. Most of the names with the place component are still close to metaphors and are not well known to the Russian-speaking audience. The article aims to trace the evolution of a number of designations proposed by the French-speaking authors of the second half of the XX–XXI centuries within the framework of theories of places of culture that can find wider application in domestic science. Based on the material of France and Quebec, it is established that in the French-speaking scientific discourse, the reference points of culture can be associated with the symbolism of places and reflect two sides of the existence of culture itself: static and dynamic. These sides are mutually reversible: in the process of the development of culture and language, new references arise, while “old” references are stored in memory, forgotten and resurface, revised and processed. The interchange and reinterpretation of old and new reference points, places of memory and places of transition are a sign and condition for the development of society, culture and discourses about society and culture at different stages of history.

The article investigates the issue of whether emphatic particles exist in the English language as well as looks into the ways of distinguishing these particles from similar phenomena including discourse markers and function words. Though particles cannot always be easily identified among other parts of speech, emphatic particles are quite distinct from other types of particles presented in grammar studies — structural, negative or adverbial ones — as well as discourse markers. To clarify the point, the authors dwell on the emphatic particles of the Russian language in order to highlight their main purpose — they help the speaker convey the full message to the addressee without adding any semantic connotations to an utterance. Thus, emphatic particles, along with other discursive elements, are used by the speaker to carry out a complex and multidimensional operation of controlling the understanding of the text on the part of the addressee. As emphatic particles fall into three functional classes — attention markers, background information markers, topic and focus markers — the paper provides a frame for presenting their semantic composition in lexicographic sources. Another objective is to distinguish between discourse markers, discourse particles and emphatic particles in the English language. As various languages prefer different parts of speech as the source of producing particles (prepositions, adverbs, interjections, etc.), there is great terminological variability in the number and purpose of particles used in communication. The findings reveal that in the English language words that are not essentially emphatic particles, such as adverbials or compound discourse particles derived from idiomatic word combinations, often perform the emphatic function. The outcome of the research proves the hypothesis that the English words ‘just’, ‘simply’ and some others are equal to Russian emphatic particles.

The sound [ǝ] refers to one of the most complex and variable phenomena observed in the French speech stream. One of the most important features of [ǝ] is its ability to be both a sound and an absence of sound in almost the same context, i.e. without changing the informative content of the message. The specificity of French [ǝ] also lies in the fact that it is pronounced as a labialized vowel. As a result, three rounded vowels of the front row and middle rise are pronounced in an unstressed syllable: fluent [ǝ] and harmonized [oe] and [ø]. Taking into account the acoustic and articulatory similarity of these sounds and the law of least effort, the [ǝ] ability for complete reduction could be expected to be transferred to [oe] and [ø], especially in rapid speech. Do these facts indicate the French unstressed vocalism tendency towards simplification? How is this variability tracked by the speaker while understanding and generating speech? The article summarizes empirical data (acoustic, articulatory and perceptual) on the [ǝ] variability from phonetic, sociolinguistic and neuro-linguistic studies. It highlights major challenges and open issues that should be addressed in further research.