Moscow University Bulletin. Series 19. Linguistics and Intercultural Communication. 2025. 2.

The article, based on reference documentation, professional standards, and translation studies research, examines the applied and theoretical-methodological aspects of studying post-editing in machine translation. The requirements of professional standards for a specialist’s readiness for this type of activity are analyzed, and the key competences of a translator-post-editor are identified. Particular attention is given to the types of post-editing and their functional characteristics. The article highlights the problematic situation in the scholarly research of machine translation post-editing. It states that despite the large array of data accumulated by applied translation studies, there is a clear lack of theoretical and methodological substantiation of the universal principles of machine translation post-editing, as well as an absence of general theoretical models of its quality. The author discusses the need to consider the process and outcome of post-editing from a descriptive-normative perspective in translation studies and proposes a descriptive-normative framework for conceptualizing a full post-editing of machine translation. This framework reveals the essence of four interrelated aspects of a post-editor’s activity in relation to the translation norms implemented and the actions taken to ensure the appropriate quality of the edited text. In conclusion, prospects for further research are outlined, including the use of cognitive methods in translation analysis of post-editing of machine translation.

The article discusses indirect loanwords that differ from direct loans in the fact that they exist not in two languages, which is characteristic of usual language contacts, but they go through at least three languages. It is not infrequent that a complex language filter that indirect loanwords pass through changes their forms, as the words have to adapt to a new language system, and their meanings, that most frequently become narrower. Very often indirect loanwords reveal the participation of English as a global language in the process of borrowing. The article analyzes indirect loanwords of East Asian origin which are borrowed into Russian via English. Attention is focused on comparatively new words, coined recently through shortening (abbreviation, blending, cutting). They are often used as names for technological phenomena and are frequently found to name subcultural phenomena in the young people’s discourse. Unlike the indirect loans, initial abbreviations used in formal texts for quite a long time are direct loanwords translated as structural calques.

Modern literate individuals exist, speak, and write in an environment where oral and written language forms constantly interact, a topic extensively covered in linguistic literature.

The aim of this study is to explore the functioning of the prosodic component in the discursive interaction of these two materially distinct forms, each possessing its own cognitive mechanism for meaning production and specific ways of its encoding.

The objective of the article is to identify and describe the prosodic means used by speakers during the oral and written channels interaction. The experimental research is based on a French radio broadcast discussing a current social issue with professionals who have publications and public speeches on the topic. It is reasonable to assume that generated in this context oral speech can be considered a kind of oral-written hybridization. According to our hypothesis, prosodic means play a significant role in this process, operating at both perceptual (continuous) and linguistic (discrete) levels of representation, thus possessing cognitive status.

The results of the study can be applied in foreign language teaching practices.

The article concerns the problems of analyzing and classifying the means of expression for the category of impersonality in the French language. The relevance of the research is determined, on the one hand, by the incompleteness of the scientific picture in this area, and, on the other hand, by the scale and synthetic nature of the material under study. The difficulties of defining the concept of «impersonal» and related terms are described. These difficulties are caused by the existence of a large number of word combinations with the lexeme «impersonal» and the intersections that arise when interpreting them. The principles of classifying the means of expression for the category of impersonality are also outlined: for this purpose, the approaches of some French grammarians with their common features and differences are presented. Related to these issues is the problem of determining the language level to analyze the means of expression for the category of impersonality. The work used general scientific methods of analysis, comparison, generalization, as well as the analysis of dictionary definitions of terms, co-lexemic and contextual analysis. The indicated difficulties give grounds for attempts to further classifying the means of expression for the category of impersonality using alternative approaches, one of which could be the construction grammar.

The interest in African issues is explained not only by the political and economic factors behind the rise of the “great South”, but also by the scholarly need to systematize the principles of studying French, used in African countries as a “reserve” of Francophonie. The purpose of the article is to consider the approaches developed by French-speaking authors of the second half of the XX — beginning of the XXI century. Taking into account the concepts of P. Wald, K. Blanche-Benveniste, B.A. Boutin, F. Gade, A. Lanly, G. Manessi, R. Chaudenson, J. Segui and others a transition is observed from targeted case studies to the exploration of broader linguistic spaces, with attention to the development trends of non-standard French speech and the interaction between exogenous norms and Franco-African endogenous norms. The approaches to the classification of African French are examined, including the shift from the three-level model of basilect–mesolect–acrolect to criteria based on the study of the image, functions, status, and modes of appropriation of the French language. The development of French language skills is analyzed: official (international sphere, school); local (rural areas and small towns); interethnic communication (large cities, megacities). Th e dynamics of studying the functional system of the language and the degree of its variation are traced, along with the interaction between local and common African features of French. Emphasis is placed on the growing role of metropolises in the development of hybrid and mixed forms that include elements of linguistic play. Special attention is given to the instability and situational nature of variation, which is based on the categorization of the interlocutor, speech act, and communicative context.

The article is devoted to the current problems of changing language norms under the influence of information and communication technologies. Some theoretical provisions on the specifics of linguistic norms in functional (i.e. norms widely used in speech) and codification aspects (i.e. norms fixed in normative legal acts, dictionaries, reference books, textbooks and grammars) are considered. Some distinctive parameters of the linguistic norms are described as a heterogeneous category characterized, on the one hand, by conservatism, stability, commitment, exemplary, directive and other constant features, on the other hand, by dynamism, instability and variability. The last ones often lead to linguistic deviations. Transformations of linguistic norms in the Internet give an impetus to the emergence of new concepts and the formation of new terms such as “Russian digital literary language” (A.V. Kozulyaev), “criticism of the Internet language” (K. Durscheid), “grammar nazi” and others. The article contains some examples of violations and changes of the norms of the Russian and German languages in the electronic communication. Two areas of criticism of the Internet language are considered: writing (or written texts) and communicative behavior in the Web. Deviations of linguistic norms at different levels (graphic, spelling, lexical, syntactic) in Russian-language online communication are revealed. There are also some prospects for research in this area.

The phenomenon of a politician’s linguistic personality is of particular interest in modern political linguistics. The reference to the speech of the former Prime Minister of Great Britain Rishi Sunak, related to the sphere of political communication, is made, as it allows us to form an evaluative idea of the persuasiveness of a politician as a public figure. Th e object of this study is the use of hedge processing tools in the American political discourse. Hedges, representing an open set of speech fencing tools actualized in the context (lexical, grammatical, syntactic, stylistic, prosodic), are actively used by politicians in various genres and subgenres of political discourse and serve to more fully reveal the portrait of the linguistic personality. An appeal to the pragmatics of speech fencing tools as discursive markers of idiostyle in the structure of a specific linguistic personality allows us to identify various types of discursive markers in the idiodiscourse of the former Prime Minister of Great Britain and determine their communicative and pragmatic function. An analysis of the main discursive markers of speech fencing allowed us to conclude that the choice of one or another hedge marker is influenced by the personal characteristics of the politician, his psychological state, as well as the extralinguistic context.

The article is devoted to the study of ideological modality in contemporary English press discourse. From a wide spectrum of modal-evaluative relations the category of ideological modality deals with the attitudes that reflect certain political views and ideological values. In press discourse this category is constituted on the basis of textual components, used to transmit ideologically charged meanings and interpretations, thus making it possible to describe objectively the level of ideological intensity of a text on the basis of the analysis of its linguistic and textual characteristics. The author analyzes the category of ideological modality within the theoretical frameworks of media linguistics, proceeding from the key definition of a media text as a consistent combination of verbal and media components actualized in a certain format and integrated by common message. The study of ideological modality has been conducted on the material of the news and analytical commentary texts from the British and American quality press representing different political orientation (liberal and conservative), which allows us to single out and describe substantial differences in the use of language means for the actualization of the category in question. On the verbal level, ways of expressing ideological modality embrace a wide spectrum of language means, including the use of evaluative words and word-combinations, lexical units with negative and positive connotations and ideologically charged nominations.

The research focuses on a pragmalinguistic analysis of popular legal discourse texts and identifying their communicative tonality determined by the communication situation and individual features of the speaker’s linguistic personality. It is revealed that the model tonality of the hybrid discourse under consideration is the informative communicative tonality, aimed at providing the non-expert addressee with patterns of behavior in specific legal situations. However, unlike the pre-programmed tonality of the basic legal discourse, the dominant tonality of popular legal discourse is often subject to re-accentuation. Thus, the invariant informative tonality can be combined with humorous, ideological, fascinative and other types of tonality as “overtones” of the dominant tonality. It is shown that irony based on the contrast between the explicit and implicit meanings of the author’s statement is the most frequent mode of re-accentuation in the texts of the discourse under analysis. A change in tonality, which engages the emotional memory, facilitates the perception by the non-expert addressee of complex specialized information during its linear unfolding in the text. The author also establishes a direct connection between the ideological tonality of popular legal discourse and Russian cultural values.

M.Y. Lermontov’s poem “The Village”, published in 1841, presents two conceptually different geographical images — the image of a small Homeland (a picture-image) and the image of greater Russia (a map-image). However, a number of researchers of the poet’s work overlooked this distinction, assuming that the second image is merely a generalization of the first.

The article discusses the problem of figurative dichotomy, its origins and the fundamental difference between the two types of geographical images of the country conceived by the writer.

A picture-image, or a literary landscape, presupposes a vertical type of perception by the artist of the surrounding world (perception of a person standing on the ground). A literary landscape, unlike a painted landscape, is not a separate genre, although individual works of the so-called “nature lyrics” may have independent significance. An important spatial characteristic of the literary landscape is its pronounced locality: as a rule, it encompasses a range of several kilometers from the observer’s vantage point.

The map-image suggests a different type of perception of the surrounding world. This is an image of the world from above, from a bird’s-eye view. Therefore, this geographical image is bounded not by the limits of sight, but by the author’s thought.

While the landscape image represents the nearby world, the small homeland, the spatial image — or map-image — represents the vast expanse of greater Russia.

Bernhard Schlink’s novel “The Reader” belongs to the kind of works of fiction that are referred to as “remembrance and reminders” literature, thus this narrative fits into the commemorative discourse, particularly in the dimension explored by the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. This pertains to the congruence of such concepts as individual memory and collective memory, or in other words, autobiographical and historical memory. Later, Halbwachs’s theory would be further developed by German Egyptologist Jan Assmann, who distinguished between “living” memory, which is born in the process of direct communication, and symbolically cultural, existing within the framework of societal representations. The idea of overlapping two memory types and the possibility of their “ratification” by the memory bearer was formulated by the French researcher in the book “Les Cadres Sociaux de la Memoire” a hundred years ago, in 1925. However, the relevance of this book is obvious today and more than at the time of its publication. B. Schlink’s novel becomes a vivid illustration of the problem of the rejection of the young generation of Germany in the first decade after World War II of collective memory in favor of individual memory, as well as an attempt to comprehend this socio-historical discourse. The aim of the work is to study the process of collective memory formation in post-war Germany depicted in the novel, refracted through the prism of personal perception of the cultural narrative.

The article discusses the changes in the state final certification program for students in the field of “Linguistics,” profile “Intercultural Communication,” that occurred in the 2023-2024 academic year. In the context of globalization and the increasing significance of intercultural communication, the relevance of using portfolios as an assessment tool is emphasized, as it allows for an expanded testing construct and a deeper reflection of students’ knowledge and skills. A detailed description of the new structure of the state final exam is provided, which includes all communicative activities: reception, mediation, interaction, as well as production, representing both oral and written speech. These changes are aimed at developing comprehensive skills in students that are necessary for successful interaction in a multilingual environment.

The article also addresses changes in the procedures and assessment criteria, which allow for a more objective evaluation of students’ achievements. Key stages of the exam preparation course are analyzed in detail, highlighting potential organizational, methodological, and psychological challenges that both students and instructors may encounter. The experience of conducting the exam is summarized, including feedback from the subject-examining commission and students, as well as a discussion of the impact of format changes on learning and exam preparation, underscoring the importance of adapting the educational process to contemporary requirements.

Today the need to teach a foreign language in the context of a dialogue of cultures and civilizations is obvious. Therefore, a deep linguodidactic study of culture-specific aspects of a studied language is necessary. Idioms, as a storage of a culture’s memory and means of increasing expressiveness of a statement, are an important part of a student’s linguistic repertoire on the level of communicative proficiency C1-C1+. That level generally corresponds to the level of Master’s degree students majoring in ‘Linguistics’. 

This paper gives an insight into developing Master’s degree students’ idiomatic competence, as well as clarifies the term ‘idiomatic competence’ for the field of higher education. Linguodidactic analysis of 10 student books on idioms shows a lack of problem-solving tasks. In addition, the necessity of implementing communicative training for contextually acceptable use of idiomatic expressions in professional oral and written foreign language speech is substantiated. In the end, the author presents methodological fundamentals for idiomatic enrichment of Master’s degree students’ public speech, and describes the principles of organizing a system of interconnected cultural and linguocultural problem-solving tasks and assignments.