Vol 23, No 1 (2019)

The article approaches textual foreground specifics of indirect non-entrenched names and nominal groups in the Russian language. These constructions reveal the results of particular focus shifts with both identifying and characterizing or classifying components as part of their referent representation. To foreground them, the author uses a group of linguistic markers or means of expression with the intention of bringing forward their relevant character and helping the reader recognize the referent. The research is corpus-based, featuring Russian narrative prose texts, which serve to define the linguistic (lexical and syntactic) means of expressing indirect non-entrenched textual names and nominal groups. The data help reveal the salience criteria where salience is defined through significantly higher frequency of expression means. It also uncovers some resonance dependencies of these salience criteria (with graphical criteria role considered as well), which are manifested to foreground indirect non-entrenched names. The work shows that apart from general salience markers (rhematic position of names, mononuclear syntactic phrase, featuring the author’s perspective, etc.), which have become the research issue in the works of T. Givón, B. Wårwik, A. Siewierska, M. Ariel, O. Iriskhanova and some other linguists, there may be distinguished the salience criteria specific for the textual indirect non-entrenched names and nominal groups. Relative frequency analysis of 28 test parameters values revealed the group of these salience criteria, among which are the textual markers of embodied construal, the presence of a direct name in pre-position, a discreet or single referent marking, null propositional distance between direct and indirect names, coordinative chain of direct and indirect names, predicative position and position in mononuclear sentences, the presence of identifying attributes and rhematic markers in co-referent indirect names.

This contribution explores the representation of the verbal image of aggression in the texts of the English-language digital mass media. The research is based on the quantitative and qualitative semantic analyses of 174 authentic English texts (journalistic reports and newspaper articles) produced during the period of 2013-2015 and selected on the basis of special criteria, which were elaborated in our previous works on detecting descriptors of aggression in written texts. The aim of the research is to reveal the structural components of the verbal image of aggression reproduced in the worldview of Russian native speakers after reading English texts (British and American digital newspapers articles) and to find out if the resulting cognitive model refers to the real act of aggression. The paper contributes to the research field of psycholinguistics, emphasizing the need to support people’s psychological health in the context of an aggressive media environment, which produces high psychological tension. The research methodology is based on a modified associative experiment procedure, which involves 98 native speakers of Russian (university students majoring in linguistics and translation). The obtained results demonstrate a great variability of the structural elements of aggression verbalized in mass media texts. They also indicate that the focus of the reader’s attention is deliberately shifted towards the formation of a hostile cognitive model of the world, with the aggressor and the third party involved in the aggressive act in the center of the battlefield, and the victim of aggression on the periphery. The findings are illustrated by textual examples from authentic British and American newspaper articles and supplied with the author’s commentaries.

The aim of the article is the analysis of the language of information technologies, the identification and description of its main features and its formation process. Lexical units of the language of information technologies and computer terms are studied on the basis of academic, technical and popular Russian and English scientific texts. Unlike the language of mass media, business, scientific, advertising, political, pedagogical, artistic, domestic and other discourses, the language of information technologies has not been sufficiently researched. There are practically no systematic and consistent works devoted to its formation. The relevance of the research topic is determined by the focus on the study of modern language tools that reflect the development of information and communication technologies for the effective implementation of professional communication in the context of globalization. The research employs general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis and generalization, as well as the method of electronic search in multimedia dictionaries and Internet resources. The article reveals the process of the formation of the language of information technologies: the emergence of the English neologisms and the adaptation of English-language borrowings in the Russian language. It also analyses the general use of modern computer terminology and its functioning in scientific discourse. The author concludes that the language in the field of information technology is constantly contributing to the lexical and phraseological systems of Russian and other languages, borrowing and accumulating English terms through replication, transliteration, transcription and other means of translation. In the process of the formation of the IT language, the appearance of numerous slang and jargon terms is observed.

The article focuses on the analysis of the Value System which constitutes part of a cultural code from the perspective of culturally oriented lexicography. The analysis is based on the comparison of the Russian and Mongolian languages. The authors of the article discuss a number of closely connected theoretical and practical issues, which include: the essence of the Value System from the point of view of linguistics, culture studies and psychology; the functioning of this system; its influence on the formation of speech behavior and communicative competences; the possibility of using the knowledge about the Value System in the teaching of foreign languages and cultures. The article also touches upon the issues of linguistic lexicography aimed at compiling dictionaries, which explain the culture-specific meanings of its units. The authors give a survey of a culturally-oriented dictionary of Russian language and culture for the citizens of Mongolia where the material will be presented on a comparative basis. The core of dictionaries of this kind will be the Value System as a linguocognitive phenomenon. The idea is illustrated by the analysis of the semantics of three basic human values: health, family and education. The research provides an opportunity to state both similarities and differences in the meaning of the verbalized value orientations in the Russian and Mongolian languages and cultures. The analysis allows us to emphasize the significance of mapping the dynamics of the linguistic worldview as part of the ethnic mentality, which reflects both its cognitive and emotional components. The research develops basic postulates of cognitive linguistics, cultural linguistics, intercultural communication and culture studies.

The review deals with the spread of the English language in the Turkic-speaking states of Eurasia (e.g. Uzbekistan) and is based on G.H. Rakhimov’s monograph and the author's personal observations. The spread of English in the Turkic-speaking world is studied in comparison with the spread of the Russian language and culture in Central Asia (e.g. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan). The Turkic world of Eurasia is characterized by centuries-old traditions of bilingualism and multilingualism. Contacts with the Arabic, Persian, Russian languages and cultures influenced the development of local languages and cultures. In G.H. Rakhimov’s monograph the spread of English in the spheres of social life (e.g. education, science, business, trade, diplomacy, etc.) is seen as a positive phenomenon with favourable effects on the further realization of the country’s potential in the international community. An ethnic language is a constant category in the past, present and future; therefore the influences of other languages and cultures have to be regulated by the government, because language and culture contact has both positive and negative effects, which have been proved by the history of human development. The English language in the Turkic world of Eurasia (e.g. Uzbekistan) as well as the Russian language might have a positive tendency for contacts with the local language. The Uzbek and Kazakh languages and cultures are formed within the status of constant categories characterized by positive dynamics of their development.