Articles

Political speech (hereinafter PS) is a monological public speech of a political figure, which relies on a written text, the informative component of which is created at the lexico-grammatical level by the speechwriter, and the task of the politician is to ensure that the information is adequately understood by the listening audience. One way of doing this is to reduce the distance between the speaker and the audience. To achieve this “understanding”, the speaker uses the opportunities provided by the oral channel of communication both at the verbal level — the means of phonetic expression that create the prosody of the address — and at the non-verbal level — from body posture to gestures and eye expressions. In linguistics and psycholinguistics the synergetic interaction between prosody and kinesics is increasingly discussed today. How is this interaction realised in PS and what is its effectiveness? Is it possible to consider the realised PS as a multimodal speech utterance? In order to answer these questions this article examines the current approaches to the study of French PS presented in corpus linguistics [Goldman et al., 2009; Simon et al., 2010, 2013] and interdisciplinary linguistics [Kibrik, 2018; Guaitella, 2014] and discusses the relevance of their results to describe the prosody of address as a strategic component of PS.

The article is devoted to the study of models of training Russianists in China within the framework of “one belt and one path”. It examines the issues of testing, compiling textbooks, creating a system of academic subjects, forming the structure of the teaching staff in the Russian language in China. Recently, China’s cooperation with the countries of the Russian-speaking zone has reached a record high. Based on the current situation, teaching Russian in China should internationalize the concept of teaching, the model of teaching Russian, teaching materials, forms and types of testing, teaching staff and teaching methods. It is also necessary to constantly adjust the strategy of pedagogical activities to adapt China to external activities with the countries of the Russian-speaking zone. The article discusses such issues as the goal of training specialists in the Russian language, the system of subjects, testing, compilation of textbooks, the structure of the teaching staff in the Russian language in China.

The paper discusses the issues of a language teacher professional growth and improvement and increasing his/her competence in line with modern trends in education. It addresses the topic of self-development and its impact on the quality of teaching foreign languages. Self-development of language teaching staff is shown to be the main factor of their professional competence. The work provides a rationale for the relevance of the chosen topic and discusses the significance of teacher self-development in the modern world. Possible ways to improve his/her professional skills are considered. They involve a critical reflective analysis by the teacher of his/her professional competencies, the quality of teaching students a foreign language and prospects for personal growth. It is shown that the process of professional development should be ever-lasting, assume collegiality and provide mentoring within a single educational organization. Self-development and improvement of professional competence implies collaboration with foreign colleagues and experts in the professional field. The paper proposes a scheme of self-development for a language teacher, based on a reflective analysis of his/her professional competence and place in the profession.

Although by now the need to create a problem-oriented educational environment in higher education when mastering academic disciplines (including FL as a university subject) has already been proven both theoretically and experimentally, nevertheless, the Linguodidactic analysis of 100 syllabuses in a foreign language as an academic discipline and 100 FL course-books (written by Russian university teachers & published in 2019–2023) shows the lack of orientation among most of their authors towards its creation due to their lack of awareness of the linguodidactic foundations of modeling a problem-oriented educational environment in a university educational context, integrating communicative-approach, problembased approach and sociocultural approach in teaching & learning a foreign language as a tool of intercultural communication. The article briefly summarizes the results of scientific understanding of the problem-based approach in education, its general and specific features with the view to the linguodidactic interpretation of the concepts of “problem-based learning”, “problem-based teaching”, “problem-based mastering of the discipline” in relation to teaching a foreign language the learner and his/her socialization by means of a foreign language, gives a description of a system of interconnected cultural and linguocultural problem-solving tasks and assignments, problem-oriented types of learners’ monolingual and bilingual activities, creative types of university students’ verbal activities in co-learning languages, including recommendations for the methodological design of cultural problem-solving tasks, with which the teacher starts forming a problem-oriented educational environment in the FL classroom and outside it.

An ideologically-bound unit is a reference to a specific ideology that exists in the context of a particular epoch, and can be explored as an intrinsic element of the global vertical context. Undoubtedly, ideologemes represent a certain challenge for simultaneous interpreters who are not always able to adequately perceive the global vertical context of the source utterance and to properly convey the associative and connotative potential of these units. The present study is undertaken to pinpoint the peculiarities of the modern American political discourse, namely the public speeches of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and their simultaneous interpretation into Russian, carried out by media interpreters of “Voice of America”, an international multimedia news network of the USA. The research is aimed at identifying and comparing interpreting strategies employed to achieve the required level of rendition appropriateness and usability. The findings further reveal that the global vertical context of the source utterance and the communicative pragmatics of the interpreter-mediated event seem to impact the choice of an interpreting strategy that encompasses specific techniques. It is noteworthy that in order to render an ideologically-bound unit and its derivatives, an interpreter is expected to use corresponding equivalents in the target language, which do not distort the speaker’s intentions and voiced position, as well as convey the communicative effect of the source utterance and fit into the recipient’s ideological picture of the world.

V.N. Komissarov as a famous theoretician in the sphere of translation was introduced to his Chinese colleagues in 1984, when modern translation theory just started in China. For forty years now, his translation theories have been disseminated, adopted, and developed. V.N. Komissarov’s major works, including Questions of Translation Theory in Foreign Linguistics (1978), Linguistics of Translation (1980), Translation Theory (Linguistic Aspects) (1990) and Modern Translation Studies (1999), have been reviewed in Chinese academic journals. His last monograph, Modern Translation Studies (2004), was translated into Chinese. Chinese translation studies introduced his theoretical ideas in the sphere of translation, such as the nature of translation, translation equivalence, translation models, translation correspondences, translation norms, translation pragmatics, textological aspects of translation studies, cultural and sociological aspects of translation studies, translation teaching methodology, etc. Certain ideas, such as pragmatic translation adaptation, have been further developed. In general, V.N. Komissarov’s theoretical viewpoints have been studied and summarized in many scientific papers and various works, which contributed to the development of Chinese translation theory. Moreover, his translation thoughts are widely used by Chinese scholars for theoretical research and the training of future translators. Some of V.N. Komissarov’s views are applied to the study of the function of cultural translation, translation adaptation, the definition of translation, translation of the national style of speech and other theoretical problems. The scholar’s theory of translation is most often used to address a variety of issues in translation practice. The most influential theory is undoubtedly the theory of translation equivalence. While using this theory, numerous master theses and translation reports analyze issues in both fiction and information translation, as well as problems in interpretation and audiovisual translation.

Science popularization is undergoing significant transformations, including changes among popularizers themselves, which leads to the diversification of communication strategies and a shift in functional potential. The article deals with the strategies employed by the journalist author in the text of a book on law as a genre of popular science legal discourse. Two key popularization strategies that contribute to the implementation of the author’s communicative intention, and enable the agent not only to activate background knowledge of the target recipient, but also influence their axiological attitudes are analyzed and described. The right choice of popularization strategies makes special information accessible to the recipient and directly affects the effectiveness of the perception of a popular science text. The informative-explanatory strategy is used by the popularizer to interpret key legal concepts. The strategy of manipulative influence enables the agent to influence the target recipient by presenting special information from a certain angle. The conclusion is drawn that a contemporary popular science book on law does not only contribute to the public legal education but also shapes a reader’s ideology.

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.