Articles

A comparison of the treatment of three culturally significant concepts, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, in dictionaries of several languages, in the hope of learning about dictionaries and the dictionarate cultures that produce and use them – and in order to encourage my colleagues to undertake such comparisons.

At the beginning of this century, which is known as the century of globalization, learning a foreign language is inevitable. Therefore, almost a large part of society partly have to deal with foreign languages. Learning a foreign language is associated with many problems. Not only grammatical and lexical problem in both languages, but also the phonetic system in all their aspects such as acoustic and articulation characteristics, accent, intonation and stress. Such problems should be solved in order to realize the main purpose of the education, which means communicativeness with maximum approximation to the original language. The experiment was aimed at improving the acoustic and pronunciation skills of Persian-speaking students. The purpose of the analysis is to eliminate the interfering influence of phonetic phenomena of the native language on the target language as well as to correct and improve students’ pronunciation and using special instrumentation techniques bring it closer to the normative pronunciation of modern Russian literary language. The results of this study show that mistakes in pronouncing consonants depend directly on the characteristics of the consonant systems of the Russian and Persian languages. A comparison of articulatory movements of speech organs involved in the production of speech (both active and passive) of Persian and Russian fricative consonants revealed the fact that there is no similarity between them.

Auditory speech perception is the most important type of human speech activity carried out in the process of language existence. What cognitive procedures does a person use when moving from a chain of sounds to the meaning of a message? What units are created by a complex interaction of lexical-grammatical and phonetic means? Segmentation of the speech flow is now the focus of linguists working with orally generated speech (hereinafter-UPR). The segmentation basis is recognized as semantic predicates of N.I. Zhinkin, clause of W. Cheif, syntagma of L.V. Shcherba, accent-melodic pattern, prosodic breaks. It is known that the study of UPR is impossible without spelling fixation, the creation of which turns the sounding substance into a graphic one, and the process into a product. The methods of creating transcription, as well as the methods of using it, depend on the task set in the study. The article presents segmentation performed in three modes: auditory analysis without visual transcription support, auditory analysis with transcription support, and transcription analysis without sound support. The obtained results indicate that the main unit of UPR reliably isolated from the sound continuum is the phonation period, segmented on the basis of two perceptual-auditory features: the tonal design of the terminal syllable and the phonation break.

Switzerland’s multilingualism is a rich material for geopolitical, regional studies, (socio) linguistic research. In particular, the notion of the border between the areas of the French and German languages, called “Röstigraben”, is a phenomenon that has been superficially covered in domestic and foreign literature. The article shows how “Röstigraben” is used in the French-speaking press in Switzerland, what image it has and for what purpose the French-speaking population of the country use this term.

The term “Röstigraben” means “Rösti foss”, where “Rösti” is a potato dish native to Bern, the German-speaking canton of Switzerland. Overcoming the boundaries of the German area “Röstigraben” is used by the Swiss people to ironically denote the border between French-speaking and German-speaking areas in the context of culture and language. “Röstigraben” is used by the Swiss people to ironically denote the border between French-speaking and German-speaking areas in the context of culture and language. However, the expansion of the meaning of the concept under study indicates that the “Röstigraben” also has political, economic and social components. “Röstigraben” is a popular lexeme in the French-speaking media in Switzerland, and in the process of semantic derivation it undergoes some changes, preserving the archiseme “border” and acquiring the additional meaning of “difference”.

The article aims to analyze the word and the concept of mobilité / mobility in the language education discourse. This question is part of the broader issues related to the study of “discourse of modernity” and its markers – keywords, images, metaphors, reflecting the processes of globalization and glocalization which take place in society. The article shows that the field of teaching foreign languages is included in the streams, that M. Bernardo designated by the triad of keywords: mobility (mobilité), hybridity (hybridité), fluidity (liquidité). Meanwhile, this sphere is a special “territory” of culture because of the exclusive development of the term and concept of mobility / mobilité, as well as a complex of related lexemes that form a connotative knot: motilité – mobilizer – motiver – motivation. The subjects of mobility in this area are a foreign student / étudiant international and their teacher. Taking into consideration the works of Russian, French and Quebec authors, we conducted our own survey of teachers and master program students from China working under the program “Russian and French languages and cultures”. The parameters of mobility, the peculiarities of its perception as social capital are identified, and the assessment of its results as a social imperative and the main condition for the formation of the “third area” formed during the socialization of a person in a foreign language is given.

The objective of this action research is twofold, first, to work out the possible ways of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) integration in a blended CLIL course and to analyze the pedagogical impact of this intervention on developing student language and collaboration skills. The theoretical framework of the intervention is based on current MOOC theories, connectivism (G. Siemens, 2005) and SAMR model by R. Puentedura (2011) for implementing new technologies and open educational resources into teaching. Thirty bachelor students from Lomonosov Moscow State University enrolled in a blended course Methodology of English Language Teaching participated in the first cycle of the research. Student participation in the MOOC Understanding language: Learning and Teaching (Southampton University, UK) was evaluated using two assignments: the e-portfolios that reflected their participation in the MOOC forums and the course blog peer collaboration where they could comment on each other’s contributions and experience. The analysis based on the qualitative and quantitative data (post-intervention questionnaire) demonstrated the learners’ positive attitude to this intervention due to the following possibilities: getting familiar with the theories and terminology on EFL teaching and learning, sharing ideas and experiences on the MOOC forums with the learners from all over the world, and finally, improving their writing skills, digital literacies and EFL terminology knowledge.

The article considers parenthetical insertions and inversion as signals of emotivity of a literary text. Parenthetical insertions, inversion, and interjections refer to such significant words or phrases that do not carry a syntactic load, but they express the attitude of the speakers to the utterance, give them a certain assessment, and characterize the ways of their design. According to the author, they fit perfectly into the scheme that organizes the emotional space of a literary text. The main goal of the work is to identify the role of such language tools as inversion and parenthetical insertions as some “signaling” of the emotivity of a literary text. As a result of the research, fragments from the novel by Ch. Abdullayev “The Court of the Wrongs” were identified in which these linguistic means in total charge the text with expression. At the same time, it is taken into account that, on the one hand, they differentiate feelings and emotions that are part of the semantics of the emotive field. On the other hand, they are unified according to certain criteria. The results of the research can be used in courses of lectures on linguistics, analysis of literary text at seminars and workshops. This article will be of interest to linguists dealing with the problems of parenthetical insertions and inversion. В результате исследования были выделены фрагменты из романа Ч. Абдуллаева «Суд неправых», в которых данные языковые средства в совокупности заряжают текст экспрессией.

The syllabus of the discipline “Language situation and language policy in European countries” is an interdisciplinary review of key issues related to the problems of language policy in European countries and the current language situation in Europe. Classical methodological approaches to the study of these categories (sociolinguistic, legislative, institutional, medial, language teaching, etc.) as well as new ones (discursive, politically correct, pluricentric, economic, etc.) are analyzed. In addition, the course focuses on the specificity of language policy in some European countries, considering the variety of pluricentric European languages (e.g. the German language and German-speaking countries). The content of the program includes materials on the following topics: relationship between language and the state, language and society, language and power, definitions and typologies of language situations and language policies, language planning, language regime, minority languages, language rights, language contacts and conflicts. The course analyzes in detail the practices of language policies in European countries in various socio-discursive areas: legal regulation, language education, science, economics, media, applied terminology and others. The influence of the theory of political correctness on the development of language policies of European states is also discussed. The program is based on the author’s experience of lecturing at the Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication and the Translation Department of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University.

For texts produced in any natural human language and translated into other natural languages, translation theory has developed a reliable conceptual apparatus and terminology that allow their unbiased comparative analysis leading to valid conclusions as to the merits and demerits of the translations. Although the concept of intersemiotic translation was introduced into translation studies as early as 1959, it has been much less studied than interlingual translation: it is not even very clear to what extent the traditional concepts and metalanguage of translation theory apply to this type of translation. Having analyzed the illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass made by different artists, as well as television commercials and film adaptations of literary works, we show that interactions of semiotically heterogeneous strata within multimodal texts could be viewed as varieties of intersemiotic translation and their study could be based on the traditional categorical and conceptual apparatus of translation theory (the notions of equivalence, adequacy, domestication / foreignization, cultural adaptation, literal / freestyle translation, translation transformations, etc.). It has been revealed, however, that in certain types of multimodal (polycodal) texts the interaction of semiotic codes of different nature has obvious specificities that do not fit into the familiar theoretical paradigm and require an expansion of the framework of translation theory, thus contributing to its further development.

A linguistic representation of ethnic ideas of the French about the peoples of the Russian territories which were formed in the initial period of Russian-French cultural contacts are considered in the article. The material of the study is written French-language documentary records about the representatives of Russia of the XVI–XVII centuries. The research is carried out taking into account the main approaches to understanding the phenomenon of ethnicity, developed by Russian and foreign scholars of the XX–XXI centuries. The presence of shared ideas of the members of the ethnic community about the common origin, language, material and spiritual culture, the recognition of the important role of ethnic identity for the self- expression of the community and its recognition by others are taken into consideration. As a result of the analysis of the material, the following ethnic characteristics of the peoples of Russia were noted: language, territories of settlement, behavior patterns, religion, clothing, appearance. The main features of the formation of ethnic ideas of the French about the ethnic communities inhabiting Russia were also identified, such as: background knowledge of large ethnic groups whose names were reflected on the European maps; differentiation of known ethnic communities into sub-ethnic groups; special attention to peoples who successfully master military techniques; uncertainty in determining the ethnicity of a group; substitution of ethnic identity for regional; interest in areas of interaction between ethnic groups. The specificities of the formation of ethnic representations are reflected in the language in the following processes: adaptation of the French orthography of the ethnonym to the acoustic form of the Russian word; expansion of the list of ethnonymic lexemes, taking into account the differentiation into sub-ethnic groups; creation of ethnonyms-occasionalisms; use of ethnically unmarked substitutes instead of ethnonyms.

In this article the question of representation of the global scholastically common concept COVID-19 is described. The author gives reasons for considering the medical term COVID-19 as the conceptual sphere. The predominant role of the buzzwords is highlighted, as they reflect the changes in socio-economic and political areas. The author resorts to the methods of cognitive linguistics, ligvo-pragmatics and semantics analyzing the research material, which help to establish connections between cognition and perception, understanding of the existing socio-economic and political realities to trace the implementation of new meanings in the language. Applying the above mentioned methods to the material under analysis enabled the author to single out dominant color characteristics of the studied concepts, its verbal and non-verbal (“quarantine etiquette”, creolized text etc.) means of describing the conceptual sphere, the key buzzwords and lexico-semantic fields they comprise, and lingvo-stylistic means and devices, such as parody, pun etc.

The article is devoted to the Soviet influence on work of Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine according to the memoirs of its member Bartley Crum, who in 1947 published a book “Behind the Silken Curtain”. Anglo-American Committee’s work took part in Europe and the Near East in 1945–1946 and, as a result, the committee came to the conclusion that the solution of the refugees’ problem is to permit Jewish refugees to go to Palestine. The Soviet Union was excluded from the work, and even though some officials from the State Department and lots of British officials were afraid of the Soviet expansion and the increase of Soviet influence in the Middle East, the real impact was rather small. However, the deep distrust between former alliances made the solution of the Palestine problem uncompleted, the report of the Committee evoked the protest in the Arab world and the negative reaction of the Soviet government. Arab-Israeli conflict has not been settled yet. Although the relations between European Jews, Muslims and European nations have changed drastically, the new challenges in foreign relations connected with refugees’ problem and the Middle East conflicts demand the contribution of all main actors.