Moscow University Bulletin. Series 19. Linguistics and Intercultural Communication. 2026. 2.

The current stage of digitalization in education, characterized by the dominance of generative AI, requires scientific understanding and the development of didactic principles and ethical strategies. These are designed to ensure the methodologically sound application of generative models for assessment and evaluation, unlocking their pedagogical potential in a personalized environment, minimizing risks, and preserving the teacher’s leading role. In response to methodological and ethical challenges, basic principles (double verification, human-centeredness, adaptability) have been formulated, and ethical strategies (validity, fairness, transparency) have been systematized. The proposed multi-level model for integrating neural networks into language assessment is based on a cyclical sequence of stages, where each stage corresponds to teacher actions, didactic principles, and ethical strategies.

The didactic and language didactic potential of artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies enables students to solve a wide range of research problems at all three stages of university study: undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate. However, AI’s hallucinatory propensity, bias, and unipolarity of provided feedback can inevitably lead to data falsification and destructive consequences. In this article, the authors (a) present a list of universal research objectives, some of which can be fully delegated to AI, some of which should be solved jointly by the teacher, students, and AI, and some of which students should solve independently; (b) present a list of specialized research objectives solved by specialists in foreign language teaching methods; and (c) present the conditions for students at three levels of education to effectively prepare research papers using AI tools. Universal research skills are aimed at solving a fairly wide range of tasks — from developing a work plan and statistical data processing to editing and visualizing data. Narrow-profile research tasks reflect the specifics of foreign language teaching methods and include the development of training exercises and communicative tasks, control materials and questionnaires, processing large arrays of texts, etc. These tasks are often completed by students when preparing the practical sections of qualification papers and in empirical studies. According to the authors, the effectiveness of AI integration into research work is ensured by considering the following conditions: a) when performing research work AI does not replace a human researcher, rather it assumes responsibility for the performance of routine or technical tasks, freeing up the user’s time to solve other, higher-level cognitive tasks. At the same time, students must adhere to the principles of academic ethics; b) all material from generative AI must be subject to critical analysis and verification; c) users must master the ability to correctly formulate prompts to AI in order to receive high-quality and expected feedback; d) the selection of generative AI tools used in research work must be determined by the regulatory framework; d) the student bears full responsibility for the process and results of the research using AI.

The aim of the study represented in this article is to single out and describe the most important socio-cultural meanings, reflecting dynamics of the notion “culture” in contemporary Anglo-American public discourse as reflected in the language. Noticeable transformations in socio-political sphere in Great Britain and the US in the first quarter of the 21st century have had a great impact on general architecture of the semantic space of the notion “culture”. In recent years the number of collocations with the word “culture” continues to increase. Unrestricted ability of the word “culture” to produce new collocations indicates its high degree of lexical valence. The article focuses on the analysis of four collocations, denoting socially significant phenomena in Anglo-American society of the 21st-century — woke culture, gun culture, cancel culture, Zoom culture. The main criterion for the choice of these particular collocations was their intensive discussion in Anglo-American public discourse, including mass media. The complex analysis of the chosen collocations leads to the conclusion that the semantic space of the notion “culture” in the 21st century Anglo-American public discourse demonstrates a noticeable expansion, which reflects dramatic changes in socio-cultural and information-technological spheres.

The focus of the study is pre-election discourse in Latin America, considered as a dynamic system of communication strategies and tactics implemented by subjects of the electoral process, who develop their own communication patterns within the framework of a generally accepted conceptual base oriented towards the national mentality of the electorate. Studying the characteristics of the pre-election discourse of Latin American politicians, given its roughly identical and generally accepted strategic and genre spectrum, requires focusing on the choice of tactical techniques and themes of speeches that ensure the most effective impact on the local electorate. Moreover, during an election campaign, the political identity of a Latin American politician is clearly manifested at the level of his idiostyle, which involves a set of linguistic, stylistic, and rhetorical means that participate in the formation of his image and are associated with a unique set of key ideologemes, concepts, individual metaphors, precedent names, as well as a special syntactic construction of statements. The article attempts to systematically understand the national and cultural characteristics of Latin American pre-election discourse (taking into account their projection onto the invariant structure of electoral communication as a whole). These characteristics, however, can be expanded upon for each specific political figure, allowing for an assessment of the peculiarities of unconventional communicative behavior depending on the election campaign scenario.

The article reveals the linguistic and pragmatic potential of mythologisms — precedent phenomena found in informational and analytical articles in the mass media of socio-political nature as a universal linguistic tool characterised by functional multi-vectoring. First and foremost, mythologisms serve as a means of describing and evaluating contemporary political realities in Germany. As stable, widely known images, plots, and names, mythologisms contribute to the implementation of key communication strategies: informing, attracting attention, evaluating, persuading, appealing to values, contrasting and contrasting, manipulating, etc.

Furthermore, the article illustrates the potential of mythologisms as an effective means of argumentation: mythological references, sourced from the legends and myths of Ancient Greece, are regularly reproduced in analytical media articles. With their rich imagery, mythologisms effectively realise their argumentative component in both formal and substantive terms. It is shown that, formally, mythologisms manifest themselves both as a component of the theses put forward and as part of the arguments presented, often illustrating topoi commonly accepted in rhetoric and serving as a means of concrete illustration. From the content point of view, these linguistic means function as components of various types of argumentation: factual, rational, authoritative, and emotional etc.

Finally, mythologisms traditionally characterise the individual style of a journalist who, with the help of this precedent phenomenon, not only describes, evaluates and persuades, but also realises his artistic and aesthetic intent. The article emphasises the stylistic component of mythologies as a text-forming factor, which also contributes to the transmission of complex meanings in a concise form within the framework of contemporary political discourse, influencing readers’ perception and shaping and transforming public opinion.

The article examines the functions of phraseological units in political discourse using the contrastive method and methods of observation, semantic and distributional analysis. The aim is to identify the linguistic and extralinguistic reasons for the use of phraseology in different genres of political discourse. Based on a broad understanding of phraseology, idioms and low idiomaticity collocations are studied, which are particularly difficult to translate, since when choosing an equivalent, it is necessary to correctly assess the internal form of a phraseological unit, its semantic and expressive potential, distributive characteristics, and stylistic labeling in order to avoid distortions of meaning or inaccuracies. In texts of analytical and journalistic genres, idioms are used as a tool of political struggle, in particular, phraseological units with negative connotations serve to form a toxic image of Russia. In modern Serbian society, outright Russophobia can cause rejection, while the associative and expressive potential of idioms allows you to achieve the desired effect unnoticed by the consumer of information. Low idiomaticity collocations are characteristic of the official business style, which is one of the components of diplomatic discourse. The conclusion is made about the high degree of interlanguage idiomaticity of the considered phrases, which confirms the effectiveness of the contrastive approach to the object of this study.

The article examines the vectors of spatial variation of multinational languages, including the French language; the area of the Francophonie includes several subregions, including the North African subarea. The aim of the study is to clarify the state and functioning of the French language in Tunisia, one of the bilingual subareas of the Maghreb. The theoretical basis is J.-B. Marcellesi’s theory of the polynomial development of languages as a multidirectional movement of variants that are not reducible to normative ones, as well as G. Manessi’s concept of the interaction between exogenous (external) norms and endogenous (internal) norms. The practical analysis includes a comprehensive examination of the Tunisian variety as one of the specific implementations of the French language system. The article examines the internal structural (lexical-semantic, morphological, and syntactic), sociolinguistic, and sociocultural features of the French language in Tunisia in the context of Franco-Arabic bilingualism, interaction, and competition between the French and Arabic languages and their varieties. The interaction between the reference French norm, the Franco-Tunisian local norms, and the hybridized youth forms based on the French language is examined. The priorities of collective perceptions of the reference language and local speech forms, including their status, are identified. Based on these aspects, it is concluded that the French language functions in Tunisia in a polyphonic manner, but not in a polyphonic manner in general. The direction and results of the study can be used in the study of other areas of the French language outside of France and in clarifying the issue of the polynominal functioning of the French language.

Traditional conceptualizations of linguistic giftedness have focused primarily on the psychometric measurement of cognitive abilities, often overlooking the real pedagogical formats in which this potential is actualized and developed. However, such an approach fails to fully capture the specific ways in which exceptional linguistic abilities manifest within the competitive contexts of intellectual competitions, where students are required to demonstrate not only a high level of language proficiency but also the capacity for creative, strategic, and reflective action. The aim of this paper is to develop an integrative model of linguistic giftedness in the context of academic olympiads, introducing the concept of “competitive agency” [or: competitive subjectivity] as a key factor in realizing linguistic potential and as a foundation for designing methodological solutions in olympiad preparation systems. The proposed multilevel model integrates cognitive-linguistic, communicative-pragmatic, and personality-motivational components and is interpreted as a framework for selecting content, types of olympiad tasks, and forms of organizing training activities. The central concept of “competitive agency” is examined as a specific form of agency emerging at the intersection of individual potential, competence development under competitive conditions, and institutional opportunities that define the format and assessment criteria. The study synthesizes Western approaches to language aptitude and academic giftedness with the Russian cultural-historical tradition and contemporary theories of giftedness, translating them into the domain of foreign language teaching methodology and student preparation for olympiads.

One of the challenges for foreign language education is achieving communication-oriented teaching. The article addresses this challenge by proposing that precedent — reconceptualised as a linguistic and methodological concept — be integrated into educational content as one of the components. As a holistic construct, precedent can align both foreign language teaching and teacher training with the research-based requirements of educational standards while reflecting the nature of real-world communication. Tracing the evolution of “precedent” across law, economics, and linguistics, the article identifies its core features. Moving beyond its traditional role as an object of linguistic analysis, precedent is redefined here as a linguistic and methodological concept: a deliberately selected or designed component of educational content in both foreign language teaching and teacher training. The author identifies three key functions of using precedents in educational settings — they may serve to inform or be analysed as the objects of study, to be applied in new contexts, or to stimulate creative solutions. A flexible algorithm for working with precedents is proposed, applicable across diverse contexts — from learners solving communicative and content-based communicative tasks to pre-service teachers addressing professional and professional communication tasks. These theoretical claims are illustrated by examples of precedents used in practice. The value of integrating precedents into teaching, this article has shown, lies in its potential to facilitate a shift from discrete skill development towards a more holistic approach to both foreign language learning and teacher professional training.

The proposed article is devoted to the analysis of the features of the representation of grammatical variability in the modern German language. The theoretical basis of the study is based on works on variability in general and grammatical variability in particular. The emergence of a new linguistic field, grammocography, is substantiated, which includes practical and theoretical grammocography. For the first time, the author introduces the term grammocographic method, or the method of grammocographic analysis, which involves an integral, or holistic, study of grammatical codifiers, or normative grammars.

The purpose of the study is to identify, systematize, analyze, and describe the grammaticographic codification of various aspects of grammatical variability in contemporary German. The analysis of the representation of variability of grammatical phenomena is carried out primarily on the material of the 10th edition of the Duden grammar reference 2022 (“Duden. Die Grammatik”). A rief description of the structure and content of the grammar reference book is provided. The study reveals ways of representing the variability of the form and content of grammatical units at the morphological and syntactic levels; key qualities and reasons for the emergence of variability are highlighted. The conclusions emphasize the prospects of theoretical research in the field of grammaticography with respect to contemporary grammar reference books.

The article focuses on the study of the heritage of a creative individual as a factor in shaping the style and form of biographical research in the context of Culture Studies. Using the life and work of film director Renita A. Grigorieva as a case study, the article reveals the conceptual foundations of writing a biography based on diary entries, letters, manuscripts and other ego documents employing the field anthropology methods (videos, audio recordings, conversations). Subjective human experience is considered as an internal form of the biographical structure — that in which a person lives, in which his integral life and inner activity of comprehending experience manifest themselves. The author considers the following methodological positions in the work on the biography of a creative individual, which helps to move towards a voluminous, vivid and deep understanding of the phenomenon. These positions are the following: relying on the stylistics of life, activity, spoken and written word of the individual; taking into account the distinctive intonation structure of their diary and autobiographical notes, conversations, oral speech; taking into account the special worldview and attitude of the creative individual to life. In structuring biographical material, it seems appropriate to use a non-linear approach. It means dividing a biography into chapters and paragraphs not by the number of years lived, but by the semantic stages of a person’s inner activity, by the eventfulness, the depth and intensity of their comprehension in diaries; taking into account the periods of life that the author of the ego documents highlights, as well as his semantic accents in understanding facts; the way a creative individual’s work is integrated into the annual cycle of the cultural tradition to which they belong; the value of the “sound” of a historical epoch in the study of ego documents. Special attention is paid to ethical issues in working with personal diaries, letters and manuscripts, which can be solved by: the moral code of the researcher and internal questioning in making a decision towards publication or non-publication of materials; the principle of co-authorship, collegiality and unanimity in writing a biography to preserve respect for the inner life of the individual. A necessary condition for achieving the integrity of the study of creative individual is to look at them through the prism of the qualities of a mythological hero that they inherits in culture. In this context it is important for the scholar to search for the “testament” or the “last word” as the result of a life path before passing into eternity. The considered vectors of building a biography of a creative individual can enrich the approaches available in this field and get further development in examining the cultural foundations of this phenomenon.

Defining the concept of the “unit of translation” remains one of the most debated and complex issues in modern translation theory. Researchers’ opinions on the unit of translation diverge, which sometimes causes confusion. In this paper, the translated text is regarded as the system for interpreting the meanings of the source text (speech works), and the translation unit is defined as a unit of speech which possesses an integral meaning and is not further divisible. These translation units are speech fragments in a text, although they are expressed by means of language. The translator can use the thematic segment as the orientation unit to understand each speech meaning unit, and determine the unit of artistic image translation based on the whole text understanding, and find the semantically complete and inseparable sentence (clause, hypersentence) translation unit based on functional sentence perspective. The concepts of translation unit, orientation unit, language unit and meaning unit are different and interrelated, and they constitute a complex sub-system in the process of translation. Researchers’ perspectives on the translation unit vary significantly depending on the theoretical and methodological frameworks of specific linguistic schools.