Articles

Although lexical competence is a part of communicative competence, it has not always been regarded as a priority in the field of language teaching and, therefore, it has failed to receive all the attention that it deserves. Moreover, the urgent need for training highly qualified specialists in language pedagogy places increasing demands on language teachers and their professional training. While a great amount of effort has concentrated on improving teachers’ language proficiency, little has been said and done on developing their skills in terms of professionally-oriented vocabulary. This article examines conceptual features of notions “lexical competence” and “professional lexical competence” concerning the process of training pre-service language teachers. The article also analyzes their actual definitions. Thus, a revised term “professional lexical competence of a language teacher” is introduced. Besides, the article depicts the content of lexical competence and its position within communicative competence of prospective language teachers. As a result of the analysis made, one can consider lexical competence and professional lexical competence regarding the process of training future language teachers as core, interdependent elements that contribute to the ongoing development of professional communicative competence and communicative competence respectively. Finally, steps for designing a training model for pre-service language teachers are enumerated.

This article presents an experiment which was aimed at determining the English Language Teaching (ELT) majors’ views on the pronunciation of a competent English teacher. The relationship among intelligibility, comprehensibility and competence was explored in order to evaluate the necessity and possibility of updating the recommendations for teaching practical phonetics as a consequence of the spread of English as a lingua franca. A questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were used in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The results revealed that English teachers who followed the Lingua Franca Core (LFC) were judged as significantly more intelligible and comprehensible to Russian ELT majors. This result proves the efficiency of LFC-based instruction if the goal is intelligibility. Native-sounding English teachers were rated as significantly more professionally competent despite their low intelligibility and comprehensibility, which supports the native-speaker bias previously described in scientific literature. The authors conclude that it is necessary to develop a new pronunciation model for the purposes of teaching phonetics to ELT majors, which would satisfy both their needs and desires by combining the LFC basis indispensable for intelligibility, with the features of native-speaker pronunciation, linked to the image of a competent professional.

The article is devoted to the prospect of conducting a foreign language internet-based exam at the Department of Biology and the Faculty of biotechnology at Lomonosov Moscow State University on the e-learning platform “University without Borders” (LMS MOODLE). The authors refer to the experience of authorized international English language test centers. The above mentioned faculties designed and gradually introduced their self-established format of the final “Foreign Language” exam for undergraduate students based on the international standard. The structure of the exam includes the following sections: Listening, Reading, Use of English, Writing and Speaking. Under the conditions of the urgently required shift to distant learning due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ways to introduce the online exam are presented. The LMS MOODLE platform allows assessing all types of tasks in Listening, Reading and Use of English in the automated mode, and tasks in the Writing and Speaking – in the manual mode. The authors analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the exam in the electronic format. Immediate and simultaneous coverage of a large audience of examinees, high speed and objectivity of assessment are distinguished among the advantages. However, a number of drawbacks of the technical and psychological sort were identified including students’ desire to cheat. The authors suggest using proctoring to monitor the examination process to prevent violation of the rules when taking the test. The authors come to the conclusion that the Internet-based exam is a worthy substitute for the traditional paper one and it allows for a successful assessment of the knowledge acquired by students.

Dialogic speech is the most prevalent form of communication. Teaching English dialogic skills at the university without modelling special situations is not an easy task. Communication within the class is different from the real one, therefore, it is important to create communicative situations similar to authentic situations. Since information technology is being actively integrated into the learning process, implementing game-based learning together with the use of information and communication technologies enable teachers to create situations close to real ones and thus immerse the learners in the experience. The article addresses a topical issue of integrating computer games in the process of foreign language teaching in the context of digitalization and gamification of education. The question of determining the criteria according to which computer games should be selected is discussed. In particular, the criteria of choosing digital games for teaching English dialogic speech to non-humanities students is described. Among them are a genre of the game, technical and didactic requirements as well as requirements to the content of the game. The given criteria are of practical importance due to the possibility of using them to select computer games for integrating them into the process of foreign language teaching at non-linguistic universities.

After the end of the war Germany was divided into four zones of occupation: British, American, French and Soviet. There were established military administrations, each of which pursued the policy of democratization, demilitarization, denazification and decentralization, which was specified in the Potsdam Agreement after the Potsdam Conference. When adopting a policy, it is necessary to realize that any region it is the people who live there and who form the main features of regional development, the same can be seen in Germany after the Second World War. In this regard dynamic cultural and social policy can be regarded as an essential part of the whole policy concerning the economy of Germany and political aspect in the divided country. However, the approaches to the sociocultural aspects differed in the Soviet military administration and in the American military administration. The article deals with these differences, the author makes a conclusion about the common and distinctive features of these approaches.

The article analyzes the dynamics of the development of sociocultural area studies as a branch of knowledge, and chronologizes this process with a separate indication of features of its three stages. The author focuses on the insufficiency of sources and on the attempts of researchers to deal with this problem. The second part of the article demonstrates the potential of the documents of the Soviet military administration in Germany as a source for sociocultural studies of interaction between Germany and the USSR after the war. The author dwells on the disclosure of the SMAG documents drawing on his own experience as well. The article includes the main documents available in the State archive of the Russian Federation. The author concludes that sociocultural studies are developing in accordance with the basic interdisciplinary laws and tendencies in the human sciences. The documents of the SMAG provide considerable opportunities for sociocultural analysis in order to more thoroughly understand the features of intercultural cooperation between Germany and the USSR in 1945–1949.

The article studies urban space as a text of culture, where various semiotic languages interact. With reference to this urban space can be perceived as a complex contexture of space, architecture, people, objects and names, as well as their interrelation in everyday life. The object of study in the article is a phenomenon of urban space landmarks and, on a large scale, the semiotics of landmarks as one of the codes which form and record the urban text. The author endeavors to interpret landmarks as a sign which constitutes a particular sign meta-system where a transmitted sign saves its appurtenance to its initial semiotics, but takes new features. This approach has enabled us to find out the changes in the pragmatics and semantics of signs and to characterize partly the specifics of the syntactics. The detection of semantically motivated correlation between this type of signs seems to contribute to the process of detection of new sense layers in urban texts and to result not only in the reinforcement of cultural memory, but also in the fulfillment of the creative function of the urban text.

Life-writing is increasingly coming into the focus of academic researchers, becoming the source of a better understanding of cultural categories and practices which go far beyond the biography of a specific individual. This article analyses the memoirs, diary entries and letters of the Russian artist Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin in order to examine his unique understanding of the category of space. Spatial perception lies at the basis of any cultural outlook, defining the worldview of its representatives. Petrov-Vodkin’s life-writing allows us to trace back the process of formation of his innovative perception of space, which is reflected in his artwork. The artist abandons the linear perspective and insists on a subjective and dynamic spatial perception, formulated in his theory of the ‘spherical perspective’. He examines the interaction between objects, people and the space around them. Petrov-Vodkin uses his private experience to interpret the laws of the universe and connects the future to a new cosmic understanding of spatiality.

The article revisits Karl Jaspers’ epoch-making work “The Origin and Goal of History” in a series of reflective prolegomena to a new reading of the key principles underlying one of the most significant historical and cultural conceptions of the 20th century. In the proposed hermeneutical perspective, Jaspers’ idea of culture as a historical unfolding of the vital fullness of human existence is analyzed by way of merging the interpretative horizons of psychology, soteriology and temporology in order to highlight the polyphonic counterpoint that is formed by the themes of fate, time, givenness and task, existence and transcendence. The resulting optics shows a path towards rethinking Jaspers’ fundamental concept of the Axial Age as the topos generated by the crossing of the temporal and the eternal, and, consequently, as a universal figure describing the transcendental conditions of culture in the space and time of human existence. Avoiding both the extremes of transcendentalism and the logic of immanentism, which is alien to the material, we eventually articulate an aspect of isomorphism of life and history that reveals the essence of culture as the constant effort of human self-transcending.

The article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of play culture in the works of the German thinker, philosopher, and religious leader of the 15th century Nichiolas of Cusa, the author of the book “De ludo globi” which influenced both the representatives of the German classical philosophy and literature (Goethe, F. Schlegel) and the Russian cultural figures (Vl. Solovyov). The cardinal’s desire to solve theosophical problems with the help of exact sciences and his focus on mathematical symbols determines the specific nature of play semantics in his works. In the conversation with his interlocutors in the book Nicholas of Cusa seeks to cultivate the highest stage of human understanding in them, the mystical transintelligent contemplation, by explaining the rules and the purposes of the game. The book is the cardinal’s attempt of comprehending reality through philosophy; he uses play to teach the human mind the philosophical understanding of the cosmos, life, and God. Play symbolizes the spiritual aspirations and cognitive abilities of a person, facilitates the search for identity and the moral formation of the personality, and stimulates the spiritual and intellectual growth. In the conversation with his interlocutors Nicholas of Cusa tries to clarify the symbolic and mystical meaning of play bringing them to the understanding of play as a phenomenon of human existence. The bowling game created by the philosopher serves as an allegorical explanation of the secrets of the Universe, the relationships between people, God and the Infinite, and draws a parallel between the creative act of a man and the actions of God.

The article is devoted to the activities of cultural institutions during the pandemic of COVID-19. It should be taken into account that this question is largely unexplored so far. The article consists of content analysis of official websites of theatres and their pages on social networks, as well as numerous statements by representatives of the authorities and leading figures of culture and theatre during the period of spread of the new virus around the world. The scientific hypothesis is that such communicative mechanisms of culture as visualization, digitalization, and netting have arisen and proved their full potential and a general therapeutic function that is vital for this period. Moreover, it turned out to be saving for people who were forced to stay self-isolated. In the process of analysis of the situation in which the cultural arts community found itself, the prospects of international cultural cooperation, as well as the consequences of a sharp step towards digitalization and forced Internet existence of theatres in an unpredictable epidemiological environment, are considered. The theoretical basis for the work are the works of M.M. Bakhtin, N. Bol’ts, A. Maslou (the so-called “hierarchy of needs”), M. McLuhan, and U. Maturana.

This article reviews linguo-pragmatic aspect of media discourse on healthy lifestyle (a case study of “Women’s Health” and “Stern. Gesundleben” magazines). Media discourse on healthy lifestyle is a complex of media texts whose subject matter is health and means and ways of its maintenance. Linguo-pragmatic aspect of this discourse is characterized by its addresant/addressee, intention, subject area, functions, verbal and non-verbal means. The intention of this discourse is to inform its addressee on health problems, make popular healthy lifestyle and advertise means and ways of health maintenance. Its main functions are to inform, influence, popularize, motivate, instruct and advertise. The media discourse on healthy lifestyle is of hybrid nature because of its many functions. It means the discourse on healthy lifestyle contains characteristics of many other discourses, namely: of publicistic, popular-scientific and motivational-instructive ones. Like publicistic discourse, it is evaluative, expressive, original and novel. Like the popular-scientific discourse, the media discourse of healthy lifestyle is objective, precise, logical, well-founded but simple, and scientific but nonetheless comprehensive. Like the instructive discourse, it motivates and recommends. The article also describes verbal and nonverbal means of this discourse and it shows how magazines “Women’s Health” and “Stern. Gesundleben” use these means to influence their target audience.

The article is devoted to the study of the semantic content of Russian ethnonyms in the written discourse of the French from the XVII century to the period of active cultural contacts. The object of the research is the ethnonymic lexeme Tartare(s), which is a constant of francophone testimonies, so its content can be considered as a part of the cultural representations of the French about the ethnic structure of Russia at this historical period. The semantic content is analyzed by taking into account the concept of the Russian linguist V.A. Nikonov, according to which the name of ethnic communities can be divided into several levels of meaning: pre-ethnonymic or etymological meaning; post-etnonymic, which may not develop; and ethnonymic itself, correlated with the designated object. The problematic aspect of determining the semantic content of ethnonyms is the ambiguity of the correlation between the name and the object designated by it. As a result the main components of the semantic content of the ethnonym Tartare(s) were identified as: appearance of the Mongoloid race; Muslim religion; sub-ethnic division into Kazan, Nogai, and Crimean Tatars; disunited territorial location; features of interaction with Russia. The analysis of dynamics revealed trends in changes in the semantic content of the ethnonym Tartare(s), whose connotations shift over the specified period towards positive values. The image of the enemy in the view of the French is changing to the image of an ally and a Russian national. The increase in the territorial and cultural disunity of the Tatars and the partial assimilation of the Tatar people in Russian culture contributed to this fact. The experience of direct or indirect cultural interaction allowed the French to identify the objects of the nomination of the ethnonym Tartare(s) and expand the scope of its additional meanings.

The article deals with the region of Southeast Asia – the former Indochina as part of the research of the Francophonie area. French is used and taught in almost all countries in the region, of which four countries – Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand – were selected for this study in accordance with their membership in the International Organization of Francophonie (OIF). The relevance of the article is due to the fact that the rates of development of the French language in the Asian region are falling because of many factors, including the domination of the English and Chinese languages, the lack of clear language policy strategies, the closure of programs which support teaching French, and as a result – a lack of resources. The materials used for the article are statistical data from different years, reports of the activities of educational organizations to assess the dynamics, the French-speaking mass media of Vietnam, blogs, statements by local representatives of the political and intellectual elite to analyze the linguistic situation in the region. It turns out that the French-speaking Asian society faces a number of challenges: improving the image of the French language, increasing the rate of spread of the language, developing a language policy designed to promote the language, and searching for invest- ment. The priorities of the Asian French-speaking community are identified, including: increasing motivation to learn French; determination of the status and functions of the French language in the region; coordination of the actions of the authorities involved in the promotion of the French language; initiation of teacher support and ICT programs.

Metaphor functioning in political communication is a widely investigated scientific field as this rhetorical device is able to influence the addressee’s opinions and attitudes and change the perception of reality. The purpose of this paper is to describe the pragmatic potential of metaphors in Christmas messages (which are considered the main instrument of communication of the Head of State with his citizens) made by Juan Carlos I from 1975 to 2013, analyzing three metaphorical models (“War”, “Construction”, and “Way”). The solution to the current problems of Spanish society is associated with national unity, which is the leitmotif of all the analyzed Christmas messages. The metaphorical model “War” calls for fighting against common “enemies” (unemployment and terrorism); the metaphorical model “Way” convinces the audience of the correctness of the chosen political course, which leads to the country’s prosperity; the metaphorical model “Construction” shows that every citizen needs to participate in the development of the state, based on democratic values, and to underscore the important role of Spain in the European integration process.