Articles

In the domain of world intellectual history, the Sephardic language, otherwise called Judeo-Spanish or Ladino, occupies a special place. The article deals with terminological nominations corresponding to the language, accepted in the paradigm of modern philological studies; the concept of Judeo-Spanish which implies a heterogeneous dialect continuum, including various geographical varieties that formed outside the Spanish-speaking area and independently of the Spanish language; the multifaceted nature of the Jewish-Spanish in the projection on its history as a repository of collective memory and cultural heritage; the religious context of the appearance of Ladino; a certain tradition of understanding the Jewish-Spanish language as a place of memory and a metaphor for a lost home, which has developed in the ethnic mentality of the descendants of Sephardic Jews and has been fixed in the artistic and documentary narrative; conventional and institutional status of the Hebrew-Spanish language; modern formats and strategies for its promotion, as well as features of its positioning in the ethnic mentality of the descendants of Sephardim expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492/1496. Currently the language of Sephardic Jews, transmitted to different continents along with its native speakers, continues to be a powerful means of legitimizing the symbolic unity (based on maintaining a sense of secondary identity) of representatives of this traditional community. Despite active divergent processes, Judeo-Spanish or Ladino has a special status in the world intellectual history in accordance with its historical, social and cultural context and serves as a traditional basis in the structure of historical ethnic memory.

The course “Language and geographical space” is aimed at the study of modern dynamic linguistic and geographical situations associated with new political and cultural realities. At the same time, the approaches of cultural geography and critical toponymy are the main ones in the course. The key to the course is the problem of renaming geographical objects based on new ideologies and political attitudes. A comprehensive cultural and geographical approach considers renaming as an innovative and adaptive socio-cultural process. Mass renaming in cities leads to the replacement of one cultural and linguistic landscape with another, and widespread renaming of cities leads to the creation of a new geocultural space of the country. It is important to have an idea of the geographical picture of the world, which is solved on the basis of attracting various maps of the world; for linguists, familiarity with the possibilities of the cartographic method is useful. As a result, the course expands the scientific horizons and methodological arsenal of Master’s degree students.

The article examines the semantic organization of text-work by means of textual units, which convey meaning, unlike linguistic units, which convey significance. Textual units differ: a) in structure — simple (indivisible in meaning) and complex; b) by origin — unoriginal (quotations) and original; c) by function — neutral and marked: key units that accumulate meaning, and unit-keys that reveal meaning; d) by semantic volume — intratextual and intertextual; e) by position in the text — structurally marked and structurally unmarked. Certain formal and functional ways of their use in a text allow to identify textual units: repetition, their use for explanation or replication. In the Russian philological tradition, these units were called “symbols” [Vinogradov, 1980], “abbreviations of meaning” [Bakhtin, 1986], “narrative keys” [Toporov, 1983; Nikolaeva, 2012]. The author of the present article introduces the term “textforms” (“key textforms” and “textform keys”) which makes it possible to view textual forms as units of text grammar and grammatical forms as units of language grammar. The article presents an analysis of textforms that organize the semantic dimension of texts of confessional culture (“The Tale of Boris and Gleb”) and texts of secular culture that differ in artistic principles and forms of presentation of these principles (Pushkin’s novel “The Captain’s Daughter” and Brodsky’s poem “December in Florence”).

The article is aimed at finding ways for a systematically grounded determination of the causes of diachronic changes in any language, i.e. at the creation a way to explain any linguistic changes not by arbitrarily chosen single causes, but as a result of the interaction of social factors and intralinguistic factors caused by them. The article focuses on two processes taking place in the modern Russian language: the loss of declension by toponyms ending in -in(o), -ov(o) (for example, Ya zhivu v Pushkino / Butovo instead of Ya zhivu v Pushkine / Butove) and the replacement of the toponymic model Pushkinskaya ulitsa (ʻPushkin streetʼ) with the model ulitsa Pushkina (ʻthe street of Pushkinʼ). It is shown that the initial cause of both phenomena is social. It consists in strengthening the internal migration of the Russian population, as well as in the widespread dissemination of the media. As a result, the language community begins to consist of such native speakers who previously lived in different regions of the country or belonged to different social groups and therefore have mismatched background knowledge. The inability to rely on the knowledge of the recipients forces senders of messages, firstly, to avoid using am- biguous case forms (for example, when following the old norm in the sentence Ya zhivu v Pushkine, it remains unclear what the initial form of the toponym is: Pushkin or Pushkino), and secondly, to avoid using idiomatic toponymic models, since they do not make it possible to determine from which word the toponym is derived (the modern non-idiomatic toponym ulitsa Akademika Komarova (ʻStreet of Academician Komarovʼ) is much more unambiguous than the toponyms Komarovskaya ulitsa (ʻKomarovskaya Streetʼ) or ulitsa Komarovka (ʻKomarovka Streetʼ) built according to the old model).

Fable is the oldest literary genre, fundamentally studied by the humanities, but, at the same time, its relevance in modern life is obvious, and the prospects for its development have not been sufficiently studied. Fable is an international genre, but it is deeply national. A comparative study of languages and cultures is especially promising if we take into consideration their common foundations. French and Russian fables (La Fontaine and Krylov) are a clear illustration of this thesis. Using the most common universal subjects, fabulists inevitably develop the most nationally specific features of their linguistic cultures. This is the deep dialectic of their creativity. Lafontaine and Krylov are one of the key figures in Russian and French linguocultures. Their archetypal influence on the further development of not only literary processes, but also the general cultural dialogue between France and Russia is very strong. The “healthy” spirit of these writers, their “common sense” in the highest sense of this phrase make their heritage highly relevant today, when both Russian and French cultures in some way are increasingly striving for so-called traditional values. The French and Russian fabulists with their creativity seem to build a positive perspective for the development of our cultures.

The study of the phenomenon of plurality / diversity is a relevant topic related to the interaction of language, society and culture cf. the concept of “multiple modernities”; “multiple sociality”; “multiple person”, “plurality of culture and language”, etc. The phenomenon of plurality / diversity in language and culture has several interpretations and terms corresponding to these interpretations, which are close but not identical to those adopted in Russian and French-speaking scientific literature: pluriculturalism / plurilingualism; multiculturalism / multilingualism; pluriculturalisme/plurilinguisme; multiculturalisme / multilinguisme. Considering the concepts of D.V. Ivanov, Z. Bauman, B. Lahir V. Feussi, M. Bernardot et al., the article discusses the concept of multiple heterogeneous formations reflected in the language, the components of which do not have clear boundaries and freely flow into one another. The article examines the functioning and interconnection of a number of French lexemes: pluralité, diversité, hétérogénéité, mobilité, mobiliser, motilité, immobilité, hybridité, métissage, mélange, liquidité, fluidification. It is confirmed that these lexemes are interconnected and form a “linguistic node”, reflecting / forming the factor of plurality in the discourse about modernity, which is developing in the context of globalization and glocalization. As a research perspective, an assumption is made about the allocation of discrete “territories” in the streams of words, terms and concepts, including the sphere of language education.

L1 learning consists not only in acquiring phonological, grammatical, lexical, etc. prescriptions of a Saussurean ‘langue’ as a system of signs, but also in subconscious inferences concerning prototypical usage and creativity measures of linguistic signs actually used by adult native speakers in communication. L2 acquisition by adults differs from L1 acquisition due to practical limitations. Multilingual text corpora are helpful as a means of overcoming this deficit of information. Non-native speakers relying on statistics of the right-hand and left-hand contexts of lexical items, and not only on frequency of separate lexical items, can measure the degree of creativity of original texts and of their own linguistic production in a foreign language. Thus, the English phrase ‘highly likely’ is used in English texts rather differently from the way it is cited and understood outside English texts proper, e. g. in Russian mass media. The paper analyzes statistics and semantics of the contexts of the English expression ‘highly likely’ and its synonyms in a big English corpus of original texts. Thus, in my English corpus, ‘highly likely’ is less frequent than ‘highly unlikely’, which signals negative rather than positive expectations of the propositions supplied with such hedges. These and similar data are compared with the use of their correspondences in a big Russian corpus of original texts. Pragmatic and semantic differences of these expressions in Russian and in English have to do with expectations, connotations and ‘implied inferences’ not always immediately perceived by Russian speakers citing the fashionable English phrase in their Russian discourse. The Russian transliteration of the English phrase, and not the literal translation, may be the only adequate way of rendering irony in trans-cultural communication.

The article discusses the problem of productivity in culture and language in its positive (derivative) and negative (secondary) aspects. The author focuses on the role of derivative (secondary) mental and linguistic structures from the perspective of a cognitive approach. He analyses secondary functions, elements, systems, as well as the principles and mechanisms of their formation in the contexts of conceptual and language derivation and in terms of two main trends in language change: conceptual-linguistic (the structure and content change in the encyclopedic and linguistic knowledge) and formal-linguistic (new language units and expressions construction). The author argues the positive or negative effect of productivity regarding the nature of the associated processes of manipulation by primary verbal structures, taking into account the collective and individual aspects of these processes, as well as from the point of view of the primary and secondary interpretation of the world and knowledge of the world in language. As an example of the positive aspect of productivity the author considers creativity, the emergence of new meaning, the reproduction of any ideas in a new form and connects it with the construction of new knowledge about the world of the collective level or with re-structuring of the previously obtained knowledge. To the negative aspects the author attributes the processes of manipulation by verbal and non-verbal structures using illegal or not entirely legal means which are manifested in plagiarism, compilation of parts of the works of other authors, non-legitimate borrowings, kitsch in culture, science and language.

The article is devoted to the problem of the emergence of new words, and together with them concepts and new symbols in the language. The semantic meanings of words may symbolize different concepts in different linguistic cultures. A special role in this process belongs to the cognitive functions of the language, while communication and cognition exist in the indissoluble connection and depend directly on cultural-historical, socio-political, economic, industrial characteristics of the society.

The paper deals with absurdity treated as the absence of meaning in the situation where the meaning should be present. Four communicative types of absurdity have been singled out (ontological, fideistic, problem oriented and comical), the first one is an emotional protest against the loss of the meaning of life, the second one is based upon the principal incomprehensibility of the reasons of existence, the third one signifies the necessity of solving a problem in a radically new way, and the fourth one makes people turn upside down standard routines of everyday life. Four modes of absurdity as a cognitive obstacle have been specified: ostensive absurdity is understood as a collision between the known and the given situation, logical absurdity is a rational incongruity between descriptions or propositions, semantic absurdity may be qualified as blurring of the standard meaning of a linguistic unit and unlimited extension of its associative potential, pragmatic absurdity signals the impossibility of understanding why people behave in a particular way. Three functions of absurdity have been described: its destructive function expresses the speaker’s intention to break the common stereotypes of communication, its ritual function serves as a password uniting the group identity, its ludic function consists in a replacement of a natural interpretation of the situation by an unexpected interpretation. Relevant features of absurdity may be characterized as deviations from common sense, or from rational approach to reality, or from congruity of interpretative scenarios.

The paper presents a study of cross-modal iconicity which is viewed as a semiotic process of mutual assimilation of signs from different modalities via similarity. The research questions are as follows: Are there differences in cross-modal iconicity that can be observed between discourses with different combinations of semiotic systems and channels? How is iconicity revealed across signs belonging to verbal and non-verbal modalities in oral speech with gestures and in written texts with visual components. Relying on multimodal discourse analyses, the author investigates the interplay of verbal and non-verbal (gestural and pictorial) modalities and compares iconicity in two types of Russian and English discourse — spoken discourse (narratives, descriptions of paintings, and recipes) and written discourse (hybrid texts for news apps). It is demonstrated that irrespective of the type of discourse cross-modal iconicity follows the general principles outlined earlier for iconicity in language — i.e., “form mimes form and structure”, and “form mimes form”. The specific nature of iconicity in the two types of discourse (i.e., “form mimes function”) is linked to the character of semiotic heterogeneity, and, for the news app texts, to the affordances of the gadget, namely, to the scroll technology that determines the vertical movement of the main story, the limited nature of hypertextuality, and the compression of some parts of discourse into headings.

The article concentrates on the study of the contact of two cultures within the triad ‘real world — mental models — world of language’. Each of the worlds is viewed through the dichotomy ‘universal vs culture-specific’. The main emphasis is on the cognitive mechanisms underlying intercultural dialogue. We come to the conclusion that at the level of cognitive systems of two cultures the mechanisms of interactive alignment and inference are prevailing, at the level of mental spaces of the participants of the dialogue the mechanism of conceptual integration is at work. The contact of two cultures involves three mental spaces: 1) the mental space of one’s own culture; 2) the mental space of “other” culture; 3) integrated intercultural mental space. The latter inherits the roles and qualities of the two input mental spaces. The integrated mental space has its own emerging structure. Each of the three mental spaces is structured by its own frame. The third mental space is a result of the conceptual blending. This mental space is at the basis of intercultural discourse. The frame of this mental space structures and builds intercultural discourse. It helps to understand other culture, to infer conceptual information and find corresponding linguistic representations in each of the two cultures. All the above mentioned cognitive mechanisms providing the basis of two cultures contact involve knowledge of mental cultural models.

The paper is devoted to the survey of chronological classifications that had been offered by the cognitive and communicative approaches to the theory of generation boundaries. These include sorting out two types of data: 1) Russian generational chronology consisting of siх generations according to the classification by V. Radayev (2019): “generation of mobilization” (1941–1955); “generation of Thaw” (1956–1963); “generation of stagnancy” (1964–1984), “generation of reforms” (1985–1999); “millennials” (2000–2016), “centennials” (reached the stage of emerging adulthood after 2017). 2) American generational chronology consisting of four generations according to the classification by J.M. Twenge: Baby-boomers (1946–1964); generation Х (1965–1979); millennials (1980–1994); centennials or I-Genners (Internet generation) (1995–2012). On the basis of these, we outline some social and cultural characteristics of the two great cultures and their young New Generation representatives.

Linguistics of information and psychological warfare explores various strategies, tactics and methods of information and psychological warfare that are meant to be verbalized in political media discourse. Special importance should be attached to manifold methods of ideological influence and manipulation of public consciousness, among which semantic manipulation represents a subject for particular scrutiny. This method implies “careful selection of words that cause either positive or negative associations and thus affect the overall perception of information”. Obviously, such lexical units that have contextually determined negative or positive connotations and generate corresponding associations include, among others, ideologemes. Thus, ideologically-bound units are an integral linguistic component of information and psychological warfare. Due to their inherent semantic ambivalence and a high degree of associativity, ideologemes become an effective tool of semantic manipulation, which can give a definitive advantage to one of the parties in the ideological struggle. Moreover, ideologemes represent an undeniable challenge for simultaneous interpreters, who turn out to become immediate participants in the unfolding information and psychological war on a par with leading politicians who are supposed to voice the official position of the state.

The article provides a study of the components of gender neutrality, which are reflected in textbooks on the English language. As an aspect of political correctness, the concept of gender neutrality in English began to develop in the second half of the last century, and, as a result, various national and international organisations began to issue guidelines on the use of gender-neutral language. The focus of these guidelines is mainly on the use of gender-neutral grammatical and lexical strategies, as well as avoiding the use of gender stereotypes. Foreign researchers in the field of TESOL consider that teachers of English should not only use these strategies in the classroom, but also analyse the materials used in the classroom according to the aforementioned criteria, as well as pay attention to the equal representation of male and female characters, personalities and case names. The article analyses 10 text-books on the English language compiled by Russian and foreign authors for their compliance with the criteria of gender neutrality. In conclusion, the article presents the results of the content analysis and concludes that it is possible to make special recommendations for authors-compilers of English-language educational literature, which would take into account some aspects of gender neutrality.