Articles

This article is devoted to the language and culture of Provence/Occitania in the period of the late XI – early XIII centuries. It is shown in the article that the phrase of F. Brodel “forever another France” refers to a collective representations. According to Narcy-Combes J.-P who separated the terms “concept” and “construct”, the former is a result of a classification of natural phenomenon and people’s observation, while the latter is a result of people’s actions and will. The aim of this article is to show that the Provence/Occitanian identity, that goes back to the tradition of troubadours was created consciously on the base of identifiers. These identifiers formed on the one hand the uniqueness of the region in the eyes of its inhabitants and on the other hand they made it recognizable in the eyes of strangers. The feeling of belonging to Provence/Occitania has the features of a construct, which is based on special – “strong” words, or “words of power” (mots-force), “places of power” (lieux de force). The article shows that troubadours had a developed sense of belonging to their land. This sense of belonging was expressed through a system of strong words – identifiers such as iconic toponyms outlining the region, language designations, names of famous courtyards, names of patrons and ladies (including encrypted ones), as well as a built-in system of word-symbols reflecting the ideal, game, dream and values. In the article the conclusion is made about the troubadours’ language: it is an example of the way the words form an identity and the way they create a construct, which components don’t lose their meaning up to the present.

The paper discusses the need to develop new approaches to the problems of intercultural communication under modern conditions. Old theories were formulated in the middle of the 20th century under specific historic conditions and for certain purposes, today they are outdated. At the new times of globalization, a changing balance of powers in the world, increased mobility of ever growing masses of the world population, mainly in the field of tourism, education and labour migration, new approaches and theories are needed. Cultural globalization revived an increase in interest in national cultures, a desire to preserve national traditions, lifestyles, features of everyday life and even worldview. This process was stimulated by the confrontation of ever-increasing globalization with attempts to maintain national identity. Thus today for most peoples issues related to national identity are becoming especially delicate and important. This clash of two opposing vectors – cultural unification, on the one hand, and a kind of cultural nationalism, on the other, is leading to an increase in intercultural misunderstanding and conflicts. The sources used for studying the issues discussed in the paper were versatile and include the results of a survey of Russian and Chinese students studying at Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov.

The paper deals with the role of the national cultural worldview (Weltbild), embodied in the national cultural worldview and realized through the language of its speakers to facilitate the process of modern languages learning. The researchers’ interest in this issue is explained by their strive to comprehend the mechanism of this processes. The language and the national cultural worldview manifested through the native speakers are determined by the geographical setting that does not only establish the lifestyle of the people, their vision and verbalization of the surrounding world, but fosters the identification of one ethnic community from others. In modern languages learning the idea of the key role of natural environment in the formation of thinking, culture and language of each nation caused the need to introduce a new academic discipline within linguodidactics – geolinguodidactics, which can improve the quality of teaching modern languages. European languages as members of the Indo-European language family are noted for their lexical and grammatical affinity; however, each of them has its own particularities determined by the habitat that eventually affects them. To learn modern languages proper besides mastering grammar and vocabulary it is necessary to study culture and the way of thinking of their native speakers.

This paper provides a contrastive analysis of verbal actional characteristics in Russian and Italian, with major regard to predications that are hybrid in their actionality. The notion of actional hybridism is examined within the Compositional Approach to Aspect and Actionality. The main characteristics of actionally hybrid predicates is defined as the manifestation of their compatibility with a range of aspectual grams, typical of more than one actional class (e.g., states, activities and accomplishments). The next step is a brief outline of an actional classification of Russian verbal lexicon based on grouping (clustering) morphologically related verbs around actionally hybrid pivot-verbs. The clustering principle takes into account both morphological criteria, and the actional characteristics of the verbs (telicity, durativity, stativity, multiplicity, etc.). We organize cluster members around 6 pivot verbs, illustrating the inner structure of the action, described by members of each specific verbal cluster. Testing the correlation of cluster members with aspectual grams, we analyze their compatibility with grams describing structural stages of the action (ingressive, delimitative, completive, etc.). The use of such a classification principle suggests the next level of abstraction if compared to the binary organization in aspectual pairs, but still does not overcome the former.

The article is devoted to the study of linguistic means of describing Paris in the memoirs of Baron Haussmann, who had the post of the Prefect of the Department of Seine from 1853 to 1870. Based on the text of the memoires the article examines the signs of poetic discourse in a non-fiction literature, expressed in the metaphorization of the image of the city. Among the conceptual metaphors composing the components of the myth of Paris, there are metaphors of Nature (ocean), the metaphor of personification, centralization and the author’s appeal to the ancient name “Lutetia”. The idea of centralization is particularly clear, which reflected the goals of Napoleon III regarding the improvements of the French capital and its transformation into a “State in a State”. The text of the memoirs, on the one hand, describes historical events taking place in the second half of the 19th century. On the other hand, it expresses the author’s ideas about Paris and the author’s intention, thus combining the characteristics of non-fiction with the elements of fiction. The similiarity between the metaphors form the myth of Paris, used in the novels of the 19th century and the metaphors found in the memoirs of Baron J.-E. Osman are revealed. The conclusion about the spread of the myth of Paris to the texts of non-fiction is made.

The following article is devoted to the problem of speech acts within the frame-work of business negotiations and deals with the investigation of business discourse. The chief purpose of this article is to outline a range of speech acts with various illocutionary aims, which has been reached in the course of the research. The work is primarily based on the classification of speech acts, advanced by J. Searle, that encompasses representatives, directives, commissives, declarations and expressives. Later it has been expanded by A. Wierzbicka and M.A. Shelyakin, who added to the list interrogatives and vocatives respectively. In the analysis undertaken the following methods were applied: the method of discourse analysis (which gave an opportunity to highlight common for business discourse linguistic units), a continuous sampling method (which allowed to single out the speech acts, which contain performative verbs), and the method of analysis of visual material (which made it possible to value cinematography episodes as a reliable source of information on business talks). All the examples used in the article were taken from the following movies: 1) “The Big Short” (2015) directed by Adam McKay, “Wall Street” (1987) directed by Oliver Stone, and its sequel “Wall Street: Money never sleeps” (2010). As a result, it has become possible to consider illocutionary acts, which are used in the communicative situation of business negotiations, as well as illocutionary goals driving the communicants.

The article deals with the foreign literary geography development history, starting from the beginning of the XX century, the moment in which the first works on literary space and literary places appear. Works on literary mapping are an important part of all foreign literary geography studies. In the presented article by “foreign literary geography” the author means all works within literary geography that were published beyond Russia in the English language. The author attempts to present an overview of the establishment and history of foreign literary geography with special emphasis on the history of the development of its key areas. The author endeavors to analyze these key areas by the change of their content, authors and the geography. The presented timeline includes sporadic works at the beginning and the middle of the XX century, rapid growth in the number of works in 1970s, gradual rise in the quantity and quality of research in 1980s and 1990s and a significant increase in research in 2000s. The number of works in literary geography in the XXI century in estimated in hundreds. In the XXI century due to the change from printed maps to electronic maps the features of literary mapping method have changed.

In this article the role of military-political myths in the formation and development of Montenegrin statehood in the 19th and early 20th centuries is discussed. In the second half of the twentieth century the interest in political mythology in the humanities and social sciences increased. Scientists drew attention to how quickly myths fused with modern political ideologies and how successfully they were used in public life to achieve political goals. This popularity of myths was explained by the fact that myths affect not only the consciousness, but also the subconscious of the electorate, referring to the ancient archetypes that underlie different cultures. This is the power of modern political mythology. It is invulnerable to rational arguments, often appealing to historical feelings, and not to reason. History knows many examples when myths rooted in the deep past brought politicians substantial dividends in the present. In the XIX – early XX centuries such an active “exploitation” of military-political myths could be observed in the Montenegrin principality. The myth of the invincibility of Montenegrin warriors became an incentive for an irreconcilable struggle with the Ottoman Empire. The heroic epic created by the people over several centuries justified the need to build their own national state. Myths helped strengthen the authority of the ruler, gave him the opportunity to keep the country in a state of strict discipline and unconditional submission to the monarch. Montenegrin military historical myths also helped to strengthen the authority of the principality in the international arena. The leaders of the Russian Empire were determined to use the unique fighting qualities of the Montenegrins to achieve their own goals in the Balkans and therefore did not spare the funds for the modernization of the armed forces of Montenegro. However the result of modernization was unexpectedly small compared to the size of Russian subsidies.

Russian Language teachers are currently facing the most important pedagogical task – the effective organization of not only the learning process, but also the process of adaptation and integration of Asian students into the modern Russian socio-cultural space. In order to identify problems associated with the adaptation of Asian students and their subsequent integration into Russian society, the authors of the article conducted a study that helped to identify the main problems of respondents being in a natural language and new academic environment. The article analyzes the results of a survey of Asian students, on the basis of which the authors were able to identify and describe a number of problems of the surveyed group, which are primarily related to the communication process and, as a result, the socialization of foreign students. The survey data helped the authors identify possible effective steps to overcome the difficulties of intercultural communication in the academic environment. We conclude that the gradual mastering of the norms of Russian culture, values and patterns of behavior, as well as establishing contact with Russians by Asian students is gradually being achieved, therefore at this moment it is possible to talk about a positive trend in the adaptation and integration process.

In the context of modern globalization processes, cultures do not always come to dialogue. The subject of this article is the conflict on the territory of modern Belgium, which dates back to about the III century AD. The object of the study is modern manifestations of the Franco-Flemish conflict. At the heart of the Franco-Flemish conflict lies, first of all, the language confrontation, on which factors of a social, economic and especially political nature have been layered. The attitude of the Belgian population towards the conflict is reflected in various resources: scientific articles, encyclopedic data, journalistic publications, mass-media of Wallonia and Flanders, in corpus data, social networks, fiction and in the comments on the above sources. The goal set in this article is to investigate a multidimensional conflict, its causes, its course, the current status, and to draw a conclusion on its development trends. The hypothesis of the study is that the current status of the Franco-Flemish conflict is determined by recession or deliberate silence, as well as deterrence by the political elites of the kingdom of Belgium.

The article is devoted to the problem of preserving cultural heritage through its reproduction in cultural memory based on the Quebec documentary cinema of the first half of the 20th century. The aim of the research is to identify and to justify the features of films related to “direct cinema” as an important part of cultural heritage, a creative memory carrier. A memory’s need for self-identification in space leads to the creation of places that are for any group not only a scene of joint activity, but also symbols of identity and important points of memories. The appearance of a light and silent camera in the cinematograph in the second half of the 50s contributed to the birth of the “new wave”. The center of “direct cinema” in North America was the French-Canadian province of Quebec. The article analyzes the relationship between cinema and society, cinema language is considered a means of reflecting the characteristics of identity. These characteristics model cultural identity and illustrate the alliance of cultural bearers about ethno-integrating and ethnodifferentiating characters. The article clarifies the contribution of the first priestsfilmmakers to the formation of the collective memory of Quebec. The specificity of the visual solution and dramaturgy of “direct cinema” is analyzed on the basis of the film by Michel Brault, Gilles Groulx and Marcel Carrière. The conclusion about the peculiarities of innovative aesthetics and the significance of films of direct cinema as effective translators of the values of Quebec culture and generators of new meanings of cultural memory is made.

The article describes the urgency of creating a scientific anthology dedicated to the Russian Old Believers. Russian Old Believers are one of the most important spiritual, social, economic and cultural phenomena in the history of Russia. Attention to the Old Believer intellectual heritage is relevant for clarifying the course of Russia’s development in the world community of civilizations. Over the centuries of coexistence with the Russian Empire, the Old Believers developed their own counteractions to the Western path. Nowadays the Old Believers are an arsenal of spiritual, intellectual and cultural methods of resistance to Westernization. A selection of Old Believer texts should illustrate the various trends of Old Believer thought in different epochs, to see the Old Believers as ideology, as a world view, as a men- tality, as a way of life. The collection of texts on the Old Believership should give an objective picture of the place of the Ancient Orthodoxy in the history and the present of Russia. Editorial work should be based on a special methodology, so as not to perceive the Old Believers in an ethnographic or historical-museum format. Old Believership should be presented to the reader in the light of its current opportunities for building a new great culture.

The article deals with the evolution of ruins motif and ruin perception in Spanish poetry, from the Golden Age to contemporary poets. The starting point of the research is the perception of the ruins, after M.M. Bakhtin, as a chronotop, the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships. The ruins became an aesthetic category, whose reflection in the form and the content of a poetic work agreed with the ideology of a particular period – Renaissance, Barocco, Enlightenment, Romanticism, or Postmodernism. Studying the ruins topos in the context of Iberian mentality allows us to see the local tendencies in the perception of the ruins. The Renaissance poets were the first to draw attention to the ancient remnants, from Carthage later refocusing towards the Roman ruins and the Iberian space. Thus, in Renaissance Spanish poetry Garcilaso de La Vega and Gutierre de Cetina were the first to devote the sonnets to the Carthaginian ruins, while the 16th century Seville poets took a broader view, both geographically and historically. The two functions of the ruins established in the early poetic tradition emerged in the later works both individually and in their inseparable unity, to be interpreted in the 20th century poetry by Aníbal Núñez (1944–1987).

The subject of this study was the axiological aspects of the content of Russian classical literature, manifested in the genre and stylistic specificity of artistic works, the purpose of which is to reveal the peculiarities of the content of N.V. Gogol ‘s poem “Dead Souls”, to study the ideological and moral representations of the writer and the ways of their implementation in the text. The work uses relatively historical, system-typological, historical-functional methods, which allow us to consider a complex literary phenomenon in an integrated manner. The results of the work show that the poetry of “Dead Souls” is formed on the basis of the religious world view of the writer, the novelty of the work is that for the first time the topic of mercy is considered as key in the realization of the author ‘s plan in order to show the spiritual values of the Russian people. The results of the study can be used in lectures on Russian classical literature in higher and secondary schools, at seminars and practical classes, the work is of interest to all those interested in the problems of Russian spirituality.

Russian love-knowledge verbs are analyzed in the article, which reveal the specifics of Russian ideas about love - to admit, explain, and open up. The verb “to confess” gives love to a crime, “to explain” - to a riddle, incongruity, “to open” - to a secret. Each of these similes has a mythological and cultural-historical origin, and none of these uses is accidental. So behind the verb “explain” is an ancient (ancient Greek) myth that explains why two people feel a sudden strong attraction to each other, passion. The article explains the origin of the typical Russian representations of a couple of lovers and then spouses as two halves. We are talking here about a story from Plato’s “Feast” (a dialogue dedicated to the issues of love), about people who once lived, according to this myth, of three genders: men, women and androgynes, who had incredible power. It was for this that the last ones were cut into two halves by the will of the gods. “And when”, we read in Plato, “the bodies were thus dissected, each half longing for the other half, they embraced, intertwined, longing to grow together, and died of hunger and inactivity, because they did not want to do anything apart... From such a long time ago, people have a love attraction for each other, which, by connecting the former halves, tries to make one of the two and thereby heal human nature”. Aristophanes writes the same story about androgynes. He says that “love is called the thirst for wholeness and the desire for it.

To the same story, the “crime” of love is being built. A crime in the desire to unite contrary to the will of the gods. The etymologies of the words “gender” and “sex” indicate the same situation. The word “gender” (male and female), came from the Old Slavic “half” – half. The same picture is observed in other Slavic languages, where the root is associated with the concepts of “side”, “half”, “cut”. The situation of cutting off, separation is behind the word “sex”, which came to Russian from English, and there – from Latin. “Sexus” originally meant “separation”, “dissection” (see the single-root “section”, “segment”, “secateur. “Sexus”, like the Latin – the line of separation, separation, which was once separated, hence the attraction of the sexes, the sexual attraction, which, under any ideological tendencies, has never been questioned. The same subject constitutes a mystery, which must be hidden, and the decision to open requires courage and readiness to take risks. First of all, because it is the Slavs who love, would-be wife and would-be husband – parts of fate. Unlike the European destiny (Fortune), the Slavonic Sudzhenitsy, coming to the house to the newborn, is sure to discuss the issues of his future heart life. The article lists and analyzes examples from the love explanations contained in Russian classical literature, or rather, in Russian prose.