RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics

The question of the relationship between meaning and sense has repeatedly become the subject of both - linguistic and philosophical discussions, because of the difference in conceptual approaches, and as a typical in the history of science result of the synonymous use of these terms in some works and differentiated use in others. The systemic linguistics has drawn attention to the accuracy of linguistic terminology and the value of precisely differentiated use of synonymous terms. The relevance of the undertaken study is determined by the significance of this problem for the further development of the linguistic theory, semiotics, and semantics. The problem of meaning and sense in relation to the sign was generally discussed in the works of G. Frege and representatives of the analytical philosophy of the 20th century (R. Carnap, G. Ryle, W. Quine). The issue of the meaning of a sign as an element of a linguistic (or any other semiotic) system was firstly brought to the fore by F. de Saussure. It was the subject of active discussion in Russian linguistics - in the 19th century in the works of A.A. Potebnya, I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, in the 20th century - in the works of V.A. Zvegintsev, A.F. Losev, Ju.M. Lotman, V.M. Solntsev, Ju.S. Stepanov. In relation to grammar, the issue of meaning and sense was posed much less frequently; its detailed analysis is available in the systemic linguistics of G.P. Melnikov, and the functional grammar of A.V. Bondarko. The purpose is to study the possibilities of using the terms “meaning” and “sense”, consistently distinguished in systemic linguistics referring to the linguistic sign, for a particular case - the analysis of the semantics of case forms as a specific type of grammatical signs.

The study provides a brief overview of the Mnema Theory, a bibliopsychological theory based on the achievements in physiology and evolutionary biology formulated by Russian bibliographer, book critic, popularizer of science and writer Nikolai Alexandrovich Rubakin (Nicholas Rubakin), and the one which allows consistently and vividly reveal the structure of the human psyche, and show the mechanisms associated with understanding in general and understanding words and text, in particular. The Theory of Mnema, although presented to the scientific community at the beginning of the 20th century, is nevertheless highly relevant after a hundred years, and there continues to be more and more evidence pointing to the veracity and credibility of its provisions from modern humanitarian and natural sciences. Nikolay A. Rubakin’s Theory of Mnema is formulated on the basis of three laws of bibliopsychology: Zemon’s Law, Humboldt-Potebnya’s Law and Teng’s Law, and shows the structure of the human psyche in the form of mnema, which is a system of records received from external stimuli. According to Nikolay A. Rubakin’s theory, the mnema are a complex open system that is in a state of permanent development, and is always being added to and is continually changing. The complex composition of the reader’s mnema determines the perception and interpretation of a text, which is also understood as the external stimulus that generates a set of engrams and their activation leading to their subsequent ecphorias, as well as the projections that a reader receives when understanding texts. The validity of Nikolay A. Rubakin’s Theory of Mnema is confirmed by psychophysiological experiments aimed at measuring the semantic proximity of words (experiments of A.R. Luria and O.S. Vinogradova), psychological and psycholinguistic experiments (for example, Rorschach tests and various kinds of associative experiments), as well as the achievements of the philological science itself with regard to the study of the space of artistic and non-artistic text, the actual images of the author and the characteristics of the interpretations of the text by readers and researchers.

The concepts developed by Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, a Russian theoretiсian of the 20th century, have had an important impact on the evolution of paradigms in humanities. However, his later works on literary theory continue to be far better known than his early essays on philosophical anthropology despite their key role in shaping Bakhtin’s thought. Published achronologically and imbued with innovative terms, Bakhtin’s works were sometimes translated by those who were unfamiliar with his concepts. The purpose of this study is to examine one of the earliest Bakhtin’s essays, Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity , through a comparative perspective. The analysis is based on its French (1984) and English (1990) translations. It aims at revealing how the mechanisms of text cohesion and rhetoric are rendered in translation in order to convey the author’s ideas. The analysis has shown that the strategies chosen by the translators into French and English do not coincide and vary from ellipsis in French to amplification in English. The choice of coreferential models turns out to play a crucial role in structuring ideas in the target texts.

The study presents the results of a study of the fragments of the journalistic conceptual worldview. This phenomenon is gradually emerging in the minds of future journalists in course of their studies at Russian universities. The key position in the work is occupied by the concept of FREEDOM. This concept was analyzed for its structural and semantic content. The relevance of the study is due to the continuously ongoing transformations in the world and the media. Such changes inevitably affect the worldview of future specialists and their ideas about the basic value for this profession - freedom . The purpose of the work is to determine the linguistic content of the concept under consideration by highlighting and analyzing its elements of the nuclear, near-nuclear and peripheral zones. The study is based on an associative experiment using a cinquain technique. The associative questionnaire made it possible to select and analyze from the point of view of semantic content the most frequent representing the concept of FREEDOM in the journalistic worldview of foreign students. The experiment was attended by the 3rd-4th year foreign students-journalists studying in RUDN University. As a result, it was concluded that the concept in question appears in the minds of foreign students studying journalism at Russian universities, primarily as a basic value associated with life and happiness, and not as a professional term fixed in dictionaries.

The study is devoted to the issue of developing a typology of synesthesia. In our card index there are 40,000 examples from the works of Russian writers, in the story “Childhood Luvers” (“Childhood Eyelets”) there are about 200 of them, there are 32 types of synesthesia in the story, and, if synaesthesia is included in synesthesia, there are about 40. The study is written on the material of the story “Childhood of Eyelets” by B. Pasternak “, since the story reveals rare types of synesthesia, without which the typology of synesthesia would be incomplete. The lack of a consensus on the mechanism of synesthesia, a generally accepted definition of synesthesia, a generally accepted typology, and the discovery of new forms by psychologists determine the relevance of our work. The purpose of the study is to describe synesthesia in the story “Childhood Luvers” (“Childhood Eyelets”). Scientific novelty is determined by the development of a new typology of synesthesia, the introduction of original linguistic material into linguistic use, since previously synesthesia in the prose of B. Pasternak was not the subject of linguistic research, a description of occasional synesthesia (In the works of predecessors, the subject of analysis was mainly usual synesthesia). The peculiarity of the typology of synesthesia proposed in the article is the synthesis of typologies of synesthesia existing in linguistics and psychology. The need for such a synthesis is substantiated; The signs of occasional synesthesia are listed. The set goal determined the choice of integrative analysis of linguistic and psychological data as a research method. This method made it possible to describe occasional synesthesia, which is the cornerstone of B. Pasternak’s poetics; establish that the heroine of the story is a synesthete of visual touch; and also to identify in the story types of synesthesia that were not previously identified in linguistics: the sensation of a person in color, in geometric form, the sensation of a word in color, the sensation of a word by weight, taste, smoothness-roughness, moisture-dryness, as having a temperature, etc. Verbal Synesthesia is highlighted in our article for the first time in linguistics and psychology.

In the critical literature devoted to the L.N. Tolstoy’s novel «War and Peace», the contradictory contexts of usage of the lexemes мiръ / миръ / мир and their relation to homonymy, were repeatedly discussed. The study is a comparative analysis of the contexts of usage of the lexems мiръ/ миръ / мир in Russian in the texts of the «War and Peace» novel by L.N. Tolstoy, as well as their translation into Spanish. The author refers to two editions of the novel - in 1912, before the spelling reform of 1918, and mid-20th century, as part of the 90-volume edition of the works of L.N. Tolstoy. The aim of the study is the comparative analysis of the semantics of the мiръ / миръ / мир in connection with the idea of the novel-epic. It is determined in what context and why L.N. Tolstoy prefers the lexemes of мiръ / миръ / мир , and also considered the use of the word глобус ‘globe’, meaning the ‘world’. The conclusions of the work are a proposal to introduce in the commentary to the novel interpretations of the meaning of the word peace in accordance with the context of the media world , in the curricula of students-philologists, as well as to take into consideration the data in translations into foreign languages, Spanish in particular,. Taking into account the specificity of semantics of words Mir and Worlds in the pre-revolutionary edition and the word world in the modern editions of the novel-epic «War and Peace» and their functioning with the literary text under the consideration contributes to revealing the idea of the multi-layered work, a special place in the artistic heritage of L.N. Tolstoy.

The study deals with NLP procedures on the material of the fiction texts in German and in English, which are considered as strong cultural texts. The aim of the study is to develop a model of such a technical device to process, analyze and interpret a fiction text, which would reveal the full potential of popular NLP tools within the corpus approach. The general methods used in the study are analysis and synthesis. Special methods are additionally used to solve certain specific issues: descriptive method, modelling and qualitative and quantitative analysis. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the authors apply the crucial principles of the classical theories of text interpretation according to the latest methods and tools of the applied linguistics. As a practical result, special software has been developed, which is able to process SQL based linguistic corpora, automatically built with spaCy NLP library and Python programming language. This software can be used for a fiction text interpretation, as well as for compiling learning materials in Home Reading. It is assumed that the development of special software for strong cultural texts stimulates the search for scientific solutions and at the same time allows one to understand the essential differences that exist between natural and artificial intelligence.

Under the conditions of modern realities, among linguists, there exists an interestingness in studying political texts. By transmitting the abundant information to millions of people, it is possible to have a significant impact not only on public opinion, but also to influence everyday life, relationships between individuals, and shape the behavior of a society. Phraseological units functioning in political communication are able to express a thought most vividly, carry an evaluative meaning, and have a manipulative effect on an addressee. The relevance of the study is due to the relatively weak coverage of studies of phraseology as a component of the political discursive and communicative space based on the comparative material of speeches by Russian and Kazakh politicians. The purpose of this study is to examine the phraseological units of public speech, containing an evaluative component, delivered by politicians of the two countries. The study uses a continuous sampling technique, content analysis, as well as a descriptive and analytical method. The result of the study is an analysis of distinctive features, a comparison of the appliance of political phraseology in the political space of Russia and Kazakhstan. However, it should be noted that there has not been formed a unified classification of evaluative phraseological units in political discourse. The authors of the article distinguish the regularity of separating phraseological units into negative and positive contexts, and political phraseology is most often provided in the form of the opposition good - bad // self - other . Special attention is drawn to the analysis of proverbs and sayings in political speech. The authors marked the tendency self - other opposition in political speech on a rigid axiological basis, which is associated with the opposition of good - bad . In the course of the study, we noted that Kazakh politicians are less likely to turn to the categorical assessment of others, and do not use specific subjects of political activity as opponents. The description of the methods of transformation of phraseological units on the material of public speeches makes it possible for the addressee to formulate a point of view on any subject or phenomenon, evaluate it or give it a new stylistic nuance.

The emergence and existence of a systemic-structural texts’ unity, defined as a center of translation attraction and formed by a “strong” text of fiction and its secondary versions of various semiotic nature, are considered in the article. The study is addressed to the hypothesis of formation of a “supertext” within the boundaries of the above mentioned center, which has polylingual, polycode, multimodal and polyauthory parameters. Being a multidimensional information object, a “supertext” unites the variations of the original information in translation, which increases the limits of its translatability and degree of its translatedness. The formation and functioning of a center and the corresponding “supertext” are defined as a prolonged, continuous and limitless semiosis, described primarily through the interpretation and adaptation. As a complex semiotic object, a “supertext” is formed as interpretations continuum of a “strong” original information potential, which makes it possible to reveal its aesthetic resources and contribute to its preservation in spatio-temporal coordinates of culture. The hypothesis of “supertext” is considered on the material of a “strong” text of W. Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, which is world culture heritage, and its numerous secondary versions generated for more than 400 years. In accordance with the Jakobsonian types of translation, main attention is paid to the interlingual and intersemiotic versions of the original. A brief history of play’s Russian translations covering the period of the 18th-21st centuries is given. As one of the most filmed literary texts, “Hamlet” has numerous screen adaptations, revealing their close connection with the world cinema history. There are cases of the Shakespeare’s text retranslation (In the broad sense of the process of original information reinterpretation by means of one foreign language or one semiotic system), as well as shifts in the ontological categories of primacy and secondarity related to verbal, nonverbal and not only verbal secondary texts belonging to the center of translation attraction. The analysis of “Hamlet” as a “supertext” presupposes its consideration in the trajectories of description and prescription and can contribute to the emergence of the history and theory of “supertext” as an object of translation semiotics.

The study analyzes the birth myth from the symbolic point of view as a way to indicate the beginning of any existence, real or fictional: the birth of the Universe and a man, which sets out the primary understanding of the world and a man, time and space. The purpose of the analysis is to study the semantics of the birth myth, which reflects the archaic ideas of a person about birth, which made it possible to present the typology of the birth myth as a cultural code. The methodology of the study is based on the works by foreign and domestic scientists in the field of studying the notion “cultural code” as a semiotic system in linguoculturology and ethnolinguistics. The popular science works by Barbara S. Sproul “Primitive Myths. Creation Myths from Around the World” and “The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to Da Vinci, From Sharks’ Teeth to Frogs’ Pants, the Long and Strange Quest Where Babies Come From” by Edward Dolnik, which contain a large collection of creation stories of the universe and a man, relating to the most different eras and cultures, including the ancient Egyptian and Hindu served as the material for the research. It shows that birth myths contain value orientations for representatives of a certain linguocultural society, which is manifested in cosmogonic, ritual, ancient and Bible myths. It analyses the means of representation of the birth myth as a cultural code. The given language means make possible to describe the process of birth more vividly and emotionally. It concludes that the birth myth represents a fragment of the linguistic view of the world through a mythological text, which helps introduce a man to sacred values that are inaccessible to human understanding, and besides the birth myth personifies natural phenomena, endowing them with anthropocentric properties.