Moscow University Bulletin. Series 19. Linguistics and Intercultural Communication. 2023. 1.

The sound [ǝ] refers to one of the most complex and variable phenomena observed in the French speech stream. One of the most important features of [ǝ] is its ability to be both a sound and an absence of sound in almost the same context, i.e. without changing the informative content of the message. The specificity of French [ǝ] also lies in the fact that it is pronounced as a labialized vowel. As a result, three rounded vowels of the front row and middle rise are pronounced in an unstressed syllable: fluent [ǝ] and harmonized [oe] and [ø]. Taking into account the acoustic and articulatory similarity of these sounds and the law of least effort, the [ǝ] ability for complete reduction could be expected to be transferred to [oe] and [ø], especially in rapid speech. Do these facts indicate the French unstressed vocalism tendency towards simplification? How is this variability tracked by the speaker while understanding and generating speech? The article summarizes empirical data (acoustic, articulatory and perceptual) on the [ǝ] variability from phonetic, sociolinguistic and neuro-linguistic studies. It highlights major challenges and open issues that should be addressed in further research.

The article investigates the issue of whether emphatic particles exist in the English language as well as looks into the ways of distinguishing these particles from similar phenomena including discourse markers and function words. Though particles cannot always be easily identified among other parts of speech, emphatic particles are quite distinct from other types of particles presented in grammar studies — structural, negative or adverbial ones — as well as discourse markers. To clarify the point, the authors dwell on the emphatic particles of the Russian language in order to highlight their main purpose — they help the speaker convey the full message to the addressee without adding any semantic connotations to an utterance. Thus, emphatic particles, along with other discursive elements, are used by the speaker to carry out a complex and multidimensional operation of controlling the understanding of the text on the part of the addressee. As emphatic particles fall into three functional classes — attention markers, background information markers, topic and focus markers — the paper provides a frame for presenting their semantic composition in lexicographic sources. Another objective is to distinguish between discourse markers, discourse particles and emphatic particles in the English language. As various languages prefer different parts of speech as the source of producing particles (prepositions, adverbs, interjections, etc.), there is great terminological variability in the number and purpose of particles used in communication. The findings reveal that in the English language words that are not essentially emphatic particles, such as adverbials or compound discourse particles derived from idiomatic word combinations, often perform the emphatic function. The outcome of the research proves the hypothesis that the English words ‘just’, ‘simply’ and some others are equal to Russian emphatic particles.

The article discusses the terminology of cultural memory research — the designations of reference points and/or vectors of culture that are important for the identification of a person and a collective. It is shown that the symbolization of culture can occur in different forms: the author examines the nominations that are used in the French-language scientific literature when developing the concepts of places (lieux): places of memory, places of knowledge, not places, places of transition. Most of the names with the place component are still close to metaphors and are not well known to the Russian-speaking audience. The article aims to trace the evolution of a number of designations proposed by the French-speaking authors of the second half of the XX–XXI centuries within the framework of theories of places of culture that can find wider application in domestic science. Based on the material of France and Quebec, it is established that in the French-speaking scientific discourse, the reference points of culture can be associated with the symbolism of places and reflect two sides of the existence of culture itself: static and dynamic. These sides are mutually reversible: in the process of the development of culture and language, new references arise, while “old” references are stored in memory, forgotten and resurface, revised and processed. The interchange and reinterpretation of old and new reference points, places of memory and places of transition are a sign and condition for the development of society, culture and discourses about society and culture at different stages of history.

The article is devoted to one of the relevant problems of understanding francophonie — the consideration of this phenomenon as a special literary field, where several texts in different languages (one of which is French) coexist. Francophone literature outside of France emerged as an independent phenomenon in the middle of the 20th century (with the exception of the province of Quebec and the historical francophone areas, such as — Switzerland, Belgium) and the study of these literatures has its own history. The purpose of the study is to consider several approaches to interpreting the problems of French-language literatures that are formed at the intersection of cultures. The article gives a brief overview of the concepts and theories used in the context of literary francophonie: the traditional “center-periphery” dichotomy, the concept of cultural miscegenation, post-colonial discourse and the theory of creolization. The research describes such markers of the borderland as the representation of a mestizo identity by French-speaking authors, the poetics of postmodernism, and the hybridity of the language code. The conclusion is made about the inextricable connection of French-language literary texts that exist on the border of two worldviews — “one’s own” and “alien”, simultaneously with the local and world literary heritage, as well as the relationship between the postmodern concept and postcolonial studies.

The article discusses linguistic and cultural values at the time of “cancel culture” within PR communications framework. The relevance of the research is determined by the need to trace the logical development of Political Correctness, the socio-cultural policy of Postmodernism, aimed at the transformation of the language and likewise the mode of thinking and lifestyle. Cancel culture is a policy of intimidation of all those who disagree with the abolition of traditional and the introduction of new universal values of the collective West, aimed at people’s dehumanization. The objective of this work is to identify the features of PR communication technologies aimed at shaping new ideas in society. The novelty of the research is determined by an attempt to characterize new values formation features of the Anglo-Saxon mentality that affect the whole world. The research methodology is based on the academic achievements in studying language, culture and spiritual and moral values, analysed from the philosophical and linguistic views. The research methods consist in the analysis and synthesis of the material on the chosen topic and its philological analysis. The study reveals that the social and cultural processes taking place in the Western world are aimed at completely replacing traditional values rooted in world religions, which may pose a threat to the rest of the world. The search for new values that are currently observed in modern society is directly related to the shift of paradigms.

This article is devoted to the study of the structure of the extralinguistic meaning of a proper name, the layers of information that it includes and the circumstances for their actualization. Onym possesses both linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of meaning, which makes possible the development and dynamics of information represented by the non-linguistic component of meaning. In its structure, archetypal, mythological, religious, scientific, historical, geographical, sociocultural, literary and aesthetic types of information are distinguished, the actualization of which depends both on the context of the use of a proper name and on the background knowledge of the recipient. The existence of several information layers in the structure of the meaning of the onym is analyzed from the standpoint of the theory of spiral development of the meaning of the proper name. The cumulative function of onomastic units and their ability to act as components of cultural memory, representative of the cultural and historical heritage is emphasized. The analysis of the functioning of proper names in a popular science text is illustrated with the examples from the work of Lynne Truss “Eats, Shoots & Leaves”. The interpretive potential of onyms is analyzed, the specifics of dynamics of certain information is singled out in the structure of the meaning of a name in order to achieve the goal of communication both from the point of view of transmitting a certain message, and from the point of view of the expressiveness of the use of linguistic material, which is underlined with the help of the ironic function as realized in it.

The present paper focuses on the cognitive modelling of literary text space. The aim of the research was to conduct a comparative study of the cognitive proxemic models of the subconcepts “virtual space” and “real space”, as represented in the multicultural novel «Walking in Two Worlds» by W. Kinew. In accordance with E.A. Ogneva’s research, a cognitive model of literary text space is defined as a construct which demonstrates the correlation between various constituents of the nominative field of the literary concept “space”, which is perceived and comprehended by the reader. The term “proxeme” is used to denote a word or a word combination that is semantically related to parameters of space. The article presents data on the quantitative relation between the types of thematic proxemic models which comprise the nominative field of the literary subconcepts “virtual space” and “real space”, namely, models of personalised anthropocentrically marked literary text space, models of non-personalised anthropocentrically marked literary text space, as well as those of non-personalised anthropocentrically unmarked literary text space. For each of the abovementioned categories of proxemic models the most common types of proxemes are identified. In addition to this, the representation of dynamic literary text space and the spatial axes is examined. The results obtained highlight the qualitative differences between the significance of the virtual literary text space and the real literary text space, as conceived by the author of the novel. Despite the fact that the characters perceive real life as less salient and important than their performance in the virtual space, the real literary text space turns out to be more intense in terms of human activity than the virtual literary text space and, therefore, not less meaningful, whereas the virtual text space is represented as an environment conducive to creativity alongside revival and/or preservation of traditional culture.

The article explores creation of new fictional realia as a translation technique. Fictional realia are defined as a special kind of linguistic realia, also known as quasirealia or irrelia, which describes various aspects of fictional worlds: flora and fauna, everyday life, social and political structure, etc. New realia creation involves incorporation of new lexical units in a translated text, which may remain semantically connected with the original realia and its referent or eliminate the connection completely. When the new realia preserve the connection with the original lexical units and their referents, we observe the creation of a new realia-word, which may be categorized as an attempt to redesignate the original realia, rather than a direct translation. This type of realia creation is somewhat similar to modulation, but differs from it due to the impossibility to establish direct logical links, such as “part and whole”, “cause and effect”, etc. Elimination of the aforementioned connections leads to the creation of a new realia-object, the translator’s own invention, which is absent is the original text and the corresponding fictional world. Creation of a new realia-word may resemble adaptation, but it does not necessarily share the same goal. In both cases, creation of new realia is a creative process, which is heavily dependent on the translator’s personality, their own vision. Creation of new realia is demonstrated through the analysis of the translations of fictional realia from “We” by Y. Zamyatin, “Brave New World” by A. Huxley, and “1984” by G. Orwell.

Since the end of 2019, due to the ongoing epidemiological measures, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China was forced to transfer all educational institutions in China to distance learning. Distance learning, being a dynamically progressive method of teaching, has already been considered in many educational institutions of the world as an independent form, that can be used as an alternative to traditional face-to-face education, or integrated into the general system of the educational process. During the pandemic it was able to fully demonstrate its effectiveness, significantly expanding the contingent of students, increasing their motivation for self-educational activities, and developing their professional competence. Today, China is one of the leaders in the use of Information and Communication Technologies in education. This article examines the experience in the use of ICT in the process of teaching Chinese through the example of two universities from southern and northern China: Xi’an Jiaotong University and Shenzhen MSU-BIT University. Both Universities try using a personality-oriented approach in the learning process, which reflects the trend of development of modern education in China and around the world — lifelong learning. Special attention is paid to the teaching tools used, new methods of interaction between teachers and students, and other transformations of the Chinese education system in the era of digitalization.

The article analyzes the methodological approaches and strategies of the textbook “English for natural sciences (A2-B1)” in the system of preparing bachelors for the certification exam in a foreign language at level B2. The rationale for the structure of the manual and the logic of selecting textual material is given, the principles for developing training tasks and exercises are concretized. The author concludes the relevance of systematic and consistent training of bachelors to fulfill the complex task of improving the level of English language proficiency raising it to the upper-intermediate level (B2) in all types of speech activity, as well as mastering professional vocabulary and scientific discourse skills on specialized topics. Thus, it is required to strictly adhere to the verified logical structure of the manual, to increase the interest and motivation of students for self-education, to calculate the time to complete various types of tasks, to have modern technical equipment, and also to conduct regular testing.

The language of naive painting, like verbal, is a universal communicative system, which gives reason to use a diachronic approach to explore its content arising from the depths of human nature. Being a combination of historical experience and psychological energy, the archetype becomes a symbolic unit of the analysis of naive paintings. The universality of the archetype is manifested in its ability to be realized in different time contexts, which makes it a very attractive subject of research in the works of naive artists of the second half of the XX century. Repeated reference to the archetype of the “ideal city” accelerates its adaptation to new cultural realities, becoming a method of interaction of a self-taught artist with the world. The relevance of the research is related to the interest in the implementation of the utopian project of the city within the framework of modern art space. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time the archetype of the ideal city will be considered in the works of naive painting by artists V.E. Sakiyan and Yu.D. Deev. The research is aimed at studying the diachronic aspect of the creative interpretation of the «ideal city» archetype in the images of Russian artistic culture.

Despite the fact that the main ideas of P.A. Florensky were formulated more than a hundred years ago, they remain relevant to this day. Their great influence on his contemporary writers is therefore obvious. Among those, we are primarily interested in writers such as D.S. Merezhkovsky, whose work is largely congruent with the religious tenets of the philosopher, and M.A. Bulgakov, who dedicated his “cherished novel” to Yeshua Ha-Notsri, but was not considered a religious writer either in the 30s of the 20th century, or today. It is known that the two pillars of Pavel Florensky’s work were religion and mathematics, but he wasn’t the pioneer of the idea of a scientific approach to the study of the foundations of Christianity; even Nicholas of Cusa, a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, a theologian and mathematician of the 15th century, was sure that it was possible to learn to understand the grand design with the help of the exact sciences. The report attempts to reveal the manifestation (consonance) of the ideas formulated by P.A. Florensky in his books “Imaginaries in Geometry” and “Iconostasis” in the works of D. Merezhkovsky and M. Bulgakov.

Studying the city as a text of culture on the material of literary works is usually associated with the identification of its “inner meaning”, “feeling” and / or the main “idea”. We proceed from understanding objectification as fixation of the author’s perception of urban space in a literary text which leads us to the question of the ways and linguistic means that allow turning the thoughtform into a holistic, visible, in some cases almost tangible image determining the possibility of transmitting the author’s vision of the city to the readership. “Tales of Old Vilnius” by Max Frei has been chosen as a source for the research because it can be regarded as one of the most interesting urban texts which have appeared in the 21st century, where the characteristics of the existing city are combined with the author’s fantasy, as a result of which there appears a literary version of urban space which differs greatly from its invariant. The methods of linguostylistic analysis (with elements of linguosemiotic analysis) have been chosen, which enable us to reveal not only verbal, but also visual ways and means of objectivization of the city in fiction. As the analysis has shown, the specifics of the Tales are stipulated by its composition and the combination of verbal and visual ways of author’s objectivisation: they are implemented with the help of linguistic means of different semiotics, however, they complement each other in the process of creating the image of the city, where the real and the imaginary are closely connected. As a result, it can be concluded that not only the urban supertext can be enriched by the creation of a new literary image of the city, but that the new fictional image as well has the potential to foster the real future development of urban space.

The sociocultural space of the UK, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was in a state of flux. During the time, the norms and values of two different epochs were in sharp conflict, bringing to light such phenomena as conformism and nonconformism. In “The Forsyte Saga”, John Galsworthy masterfully described the interaction between people from different social classes and their different mindsets. Strict compliance with acceptable norms and values, in the case of “The Forsyte Saga”, is what conformism refers to. Nonconformism refers to the struggle for freedom, love and happiness. It was a revolution against the ethos of the Forsytes, an ethos based on cold calculations and a need for profit. Based on the analysis of this phenomenon, the dynamics of the development of society can be traced. The Victorian era faded into the past. The Forsytes, the embodiment of the passing era, were the representatives of a society in which there was nothing more important than an impeccable reputation and a stable income. The new era belonged to those who put family, art and beauty above money and public opinion. Their aim was to determine the basis of a new sociocultural space.

The article examines the concept of “cultural revolution” in Russian science, the relationship between two cultural transformations in Russia and the term “Cultural revolution” in China. The author points out that the main consequences of the second cultural revolution in the USSR / Russia were as follows: 1. Condemnation of an ossified and unified ideology; 2. Erosion of cultural absolutism; 3. Cessation of the policy of strong active pressure on intellectuals. Based on the assessments of Chinese people from all strata of Chinese society, a number of cultural and mass movements, pluralism in the development of culture are described: autochthonous culture, religion, literature, art, etc. Based on the analysis carried out, it is possible to indicate a clear direction for the perception of the culture and image of Russia in the new era by the Chinese masses.