No 2 (2014)

The article is devoted to the analysis of some semantic shifts from Latin to Romance languages and in Romance languages per se in lexemes denominating kinship ties and age of a person in the Italo-Romanic area. The article reviews formation of meaning of words denoting a child. in Italian and Italian dialects with due consideration of Romance parallels.

The article is devoted to un urgent problem of modern linguistics: variability («multi-variant») of the Russian language, which has its supporters and opponents. The author of the article offers a third way - a way of combining criticism of episteme supporters of this idea and knowledge production from accumulated experience in the science of language.

The article examines the role of the English language in Nigeria, a major West African country with a highly diverse ethnic composition of the population and a very complex linguistic situation. While English is the official language, there are more than 500 indigenous languages in Nigeria. Nigerian Pidgin English is a popular means of interethnic communication and a marker of solidarity between the various groups. The article analyzes the role of English in introducing Nigerians to modern knowledge, creating new types of thinking and contributing to the development of national self-awareness. At the same time, the paper points out how the English language is adapted to reflect African mentality and African world view.

While comparing styles of discourse in academic settings across cultures a scholar faces a number of problems since structural similarity of linguistic units does not result in their stylistic equivalence. The paper examines the nature of the problems that arose in the course of comparing three articles on television discourse written in English and Russian by native and non-native speakers. It argues that the ways in which these linguistic units function in academic discourse of a particular culture can be determined only as a result of careful analysis of context and in view of a whole gamut of culturally specific means of realizing communicative meanings.

The article describes the spectral characteristics of stressed front vowels in the French speech of native speakers, Russian, Hill and Meadow Mari speakers under conditions of «artificial» bilingualism. Vowel spectra were determined by the F-picture (the first two formants). The research revealed that Russian and Mari native speakers demonstrate an ability to differentiate the rise of French vowels more frequently. Correct pronunciation of a number of French vowels is observed more frequently in the speech of the Hill Mari, more rarely- in the speech of the Meadow Mari. Russian speakers hardly differentiate vowel rows. However, the "poor" quality of speech in a foreign language does not prevent one from good understanding due to the fact that for a bilingual speaker the sounding of tokens on the morphemic level becomes less relevant than the meaning. Sufficiently deep immersion into lifestyle, behavior of speakers of another language can help achieve a real image of the picture of another language.

Intercultural communicative competence is one of the integral parts of translators’ skills. The article analyses national and cultural peculiarities of English and Russian communicative styles in the advertisement speech genre in university on-line communication to address the problem of translatability of lexical units. Furthermore, the study explains the use of particular linguistic means and communication strategies as related to the specific features of Anglo-Saxon and Russian linguistic cultures.

The problem of defining the structure of national identity takes central place in current research. The paper examines the category of national identity through the lens of the linguo-cultural paradigm. Specifically, the content of the concepts identity , Quebec , Quebecois , the French language and distinct society are analyzed. The results of the experiments demonstrate that historic traditions, national self-identity and the value of the French language are the most important characteristics of Quebec national identity.

The article covers the metaphorical modeling in a political discourse as one of linguistic manipulation impact means. Political speech exercising a motivation function use symbols in order to link concepts which are not often even adjoined. And it’s a metaphor that plays one of leading roles in this process. Communication needs stable metaphors. It’s very important to use this linguistic means in a political discourse as it’s able to form a positive stock phrase and a negative figure. The summation of metaphors in a definitive conceptual domaine of a political discourse form part of a metaphorical model that is an universal epistemological category expressing a general discourse semantics and organizing special mentality stereotypes for a message recipient. The article is designed for students and post-graduate students specialized in philology, lecturers and professors of linguistics and foreign languages, scientists and amateurs.

This article is dedicated to “Diálogo de la lengua” (1535) by a Spanish grammarian of the Renaissance Juan de Valdés whose personality and works are not so widely known in Russia. “Diálogo de la lengua” represents the Renaissance dialogue, heir to the Greek-Latin traditions and is dedicated to the Castilian language, the interrelation of its norms and Language Usage, stylistic and lexical issues. The attention is focused on the genre features of “Diálogo” and the relationship of the author and the character to represent him in the dialogue. The analysis is conducted in terms of a combination of various stylistic and genres features of the language in the “Diálogo” making it possible to distinguish the traits of scientific style in the work (and to consider the “Diálogo de la lengua” as a grammar of the Castilian language and linguistic comment), as well as a work of art (scenic or philosophical Socratic dialogue).