Vol 19, No 3 (2022)

The aim of this article is to identify lexical-semantic parallels in the names of traditional utensils in the Yakut and Khakass languages on the basis of lexicographic material. The main objectives of the research are: to identify Khakass and Yakut names of traditional tableware and utensils; to determine the semantic features of similar lexemes; to establish literary-normative and dialectal meanings. Bilingual, explanatory, and dialectological dictionaries of the Khakass and Yakut languages were used as the research material. The methods of this study are: generalization, systematization, comparative and comparative analysis. The lexical parallels in the group of names of dairy (koumiss) utensils and utensils are revealed. The principles of motivation of the names with the bases bysh- , pys- , bul- , pool- have been established: the process of preparation of a dairy dish (product) - stirring, mixing, churning; functional characteristics - moving (Yakut verb tas- , Khakass verb tazy- ‘tug, move’). By the example of the Khakassian names ( khamys , tazor , algai ) the dialectal zone of the Yakut lexemes is determined - it is the Akakaya dialectal zone of the Yakut language. The expansion of semantics in the Yakut names kүөrčekh ( kүөččekh ) ‘mutovka’ = kүөččekh ‘whipped cream’ is revealed, sүүmächtää ‘to strain sour milk to separate the guts’ = sүүmäch ‘cream in curdled milk, curd’. The most YakutHakassian parallels are in the normative-literary layer of the lexicon. There are dialectal words from the dialects of the Khakass language (Sagai and Kachin). The dialectal units of the Yakut language represent the central, Vilyui and northeastern zones of accents.

In modern linguistic science the study of nominative units is not limited to their consideration within the lexicological direction. Nowadays the research of secondary language nominations is becoming increasingly relevant as mental operations through which cognition, structuring and evaluation of knowledge about the world is carried out. Since cosmonyms can be correlated with similar units, then accordingly they have not only a certain cultural, value-semantic content and have a special type of connotative meaning, which is commonly called mythological, but they are also fully correlated with the units of cultural codes. In the paper, based on the consideration and comparison of numerous cosmonyms, as well as myths, legends and tales related to cosmonyms’ origin, which are recorded in the cultural traditions of the indigenous peoples of Russia. On the one hand an attempt was made to identify their national and cultural specifics and on the other to correlate these cosmonyms with the basic cultural codes, as well as to trace their connection with the deep layers of cultural space, which are correlated with the oldest human ideas about the world.

The authors of the article consider the conceptual dyad “Life-Death” from the position of a representative of the Chinese linguistic culture, seeking to enter a new cultural space for themselves - the so-called “Russian world”. The hypothesis of the study is that the carrier of a foreign cultural linguistic consciousness has an already formed cognitive base, which becomes a contrasting background for the perception of a new linguistic reality. Within the framework of the article, the authors analyzed the cultural context, which makes it possible to explicate the semantics of these concepts in the Chinese language picture of the world, and also conducted an experiment with a reference group, which made it possible to objectify their actual meanings. The essence of the experiment was the work of a receptive group with precedent texts that contain in their semantic field the conceptual core “Life” / “Death” or “Life-Death”. Precedent texts are obligatory formants of the cognitive base of an ethnos. We sought to obtain the most recurrent responses to these stimuli in order to differentiate the conceptual features of the dyad. The result of the experiment was a selection of precedent texts, commented on by the receptive group. Summarizing the empirical data, we came to the conclusion that for the bearer of the Chinese linguistic consciousness, the concepts “Life” and “Death” represent an ontological unity with the corresponding set of characteristics: Tao, the great middle path, destiny, happiness. In addition, linguo-ethnic standards were identified: “noble husband” and “perfect sage”.

The paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the status-discursive representation of the indigenous languages on the example of the Republics of Southern Siberia with the involvement of empirical sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic material. The presence of zones of social consensus in the conditions of the trilingual communicative space of the republics, which is organized according to a single model “two state languages (Russian and titular) + language/languages of the respective indigenous ethnic groups”, is revealed. They are due to the common legal support of indigenous nations and their languages in the international and Russian official discourse, as well as the positive perception of minority ethnic groups in associative portrayal by speakers of the respective republican state languages. The prospects for minimizing the exclusion zones of contacting peoples refer to the inclusion of measures of more active support of the indigenous idioms in the relevant legal acts of the republican level. Certain zones of problematizing of socio-cultural mutual understanding in the Altai Republic are associated with a higher level of adherence of the Chelkans to their native idiom compared to loyalty to the second state language of their republic (Altai), which may be due to the actualization of their need for a correlation of ethnic and linguistic status, which is absent among Shors and Tuvan Todzhans.

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the image of Vitebsk in the works of Russian-speaking poets of Belarus. The research material is poetic texts of Russian-speaking poets of Belarus, which touch upon the spiritual, natural, material, cultural, historical realities of Vitebsk. The main general scientific methods of observation, description, analysis and interpretation were used in the work. It is proved that the study of the concept of “city” is based, first of all, on the relationship of a particular person and social realities: the city as an extension of a person to the outside world - social, collective, cultural, the city as a “condensed” information and semantic space. Vitebsk is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. According to legend, the city was founded by the Kiev Princess Olga in 974. Dvina is often mentioned in poems. Vitebsk appeared at the confluence of two rivers - the Western Dvina and the Vitba, from which the name of the city came. The ancient name of the Dvina is Eridan, Homer, Hesiod, Nestor the chronicler wrote about it. In the poems of Belarusian poets, she appears in the image of a nurse, a protector, a wise and mysterious woman. The article says that Vitebsk is rightly called the cultural capital of Belarus. The works of Vitebsk poets reveal precedent names that are significant for the history and culture of Belarus, as well as for the world cultural space. Marc Chagall, Vasily Kandinsky, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, El Lisitsky, Kazimir Malevich worked in Vitebsk. Not far from Vitebsk, the Russian painter Ilya Repin lived in the Zdravnevo estate. I.I. Sollertinsky created his musical masterpieces, M.M. Bakhtin lived and worked in Vitebsk in the thirties. Thus, in Russian-speaking Belarusian poetry, the image of Vitebsk appears as an ancient city, a native home, a spiritual place, a city of creativity, art and inspiration. The study of a local text is a topical interdisciplinary problem that allows not only to outline the conceptually significant features of the semantic complex of a particular locus, but also to establish its etiological and teleological significance for an ethnic group. After analyzing the corpus of texts of Belarusian poets, we came to the conclusion that the image of Vitebsk is attributed to such semantic characteristics as “nurse city”, “protector”, “wise woman”. The paradox lies in the fact that a city with a masculine toponym absorbs alternative gender parameters, which expands the previously explored virgin cities and harlot cities by introducing the features of a beloved city.

The relevance of the research undertaken is connected with the current tendency of multiculturalism in fiction, which has been developing and transforming with the appearance of new writers, to be non-static. Many contemporary authors have already become impossible to be correlated with a specific national literature since they have had the experience of living in more than one country and have been the bearers of several cultural codes due to their encounter with diverse mentalities as well as the formation of their own identity in the situation of cultural interaction. Ipso facto, it is possible to dwell on a new turn in the development of multicultural fiction to date. Suchlike state of affairs provides an opportunity to claim the necessity of scholarly comprehension of the works by the new multicultural authors’ generation. One of them is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977), an African American female writer, whose creativity can be characterized as a sui generis phenomenon formed by the ‘fusion’ of African, British and American literary traditions. Her novel Americanah (2013) serves as the material for the study, the purpose of which is to consider the most significant peculiarities in the representation of racial and ethnic conflict in the text of contemporary multicultural fiction. Basing on the complex of historical and literary and social and cultural methods, the paper analyses the specifics of artistic embodiment of racial and ethnic and, consequently, cultural clash that influences on the main heroine’s self-identification process. The fact that the image of the central female character, a Nigerian immigrant to the US, is autobiographical substantiates the relevancy of biographical research method having been involved. The results obtained allow concluding that the only way out for the character, whose position mirrors the one of the writer herself, is hybridization, which allows including the experience of existence in American reality as well as self-realization as a part and parcel of the heroine’s native history, nation, tradition and culture.

The issue of female loneliness is observed in many works by Russian and Chinese women writers of the XX-XXI centuries. Attention to this problem reflects the deep concern of women authors for the fate of women. Lyudmila Petrushevskaya and Can Xue are representatives of Russian and Chinese women’s literature of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Despite the fact that the writings of Petrushevskaya and Can Xue belong to different cultural traditions and were created within the different artistic and aesthetic frameworks, attention to the fate of women, the dark sides of life and an attempt to rethink modern life values bring them together. This paper compares and contrasts the writings of Petrushevskaya and Can Xue on the subject of loneliness. The essence and causes of loneliness are revealed. Based on a thorough analysis of their works, it is concluded that each of them approaches this issue from different seemingly opposing perspectives. Petrushevskaya pays attention to the daily life, in her works she depicts the individual loneliness of women through the image of a terrible but entirely real life. While Can Xue is interested in existential being of all mankind, she reveals the inner emptiness of human existence through various metaphors and illusions.

The novelty of the approach of the famous Tuvan poet Eduard Mizhit to cognition and research of the world and the human soul, based on the dialogue of literary-philosophical, religious-mythological thought, is considered. For the first time in literary studies of Tuva, an attempt is made to comprehend philosophical lyrics using modern methods of hermeneutic analysis. The task is to interpret Mizhit’s philosophical reflections on the meaning of life, truth, free will and predestination. The present study analyzes the book of poems in prose by E. Mizhit “Kazyrgylyg kuduktung kyigyzy” (“The Call of the Whirling Well”, 2002), the collection of poems and poems “Bödüün oduruglar” (“Simple Lines”, 2006), the collection of free verse “The Broken Moment” ( 2011). Based on the material of the author’s poetic texts, we came to the conclusion that the poetics of E. Mizhit are distinguished by such features as dialectic, intertextuality, appeal to national roots. The key motif of the poetic universe of E. Mizhit is the search for truth, this search is transrational, and therefore the structure of the literary text becomes multi-layered, requiring significant epistemological efforts from the reader. The main questions posed in the analyzed works of Mizhit are mainly of an ontological nature, they are connected with the desire to comprehend the meaning of life. This trend is innovative for modern Tuvan poetry, which has not yet completely departed from the socialist realist paradigm.

Paper we analyzed the state of affairs and outlines the prospects for the study of Russian phraseology in the sixth grade of the Kyrgyz school. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that knowledge of phraseology by Kyrgyz students helps them to master the literary norms of word use, to make the most accurate choice of the optimal speech means of the language. Based on this, the purpose of this work is to study the content of Russian language programs and textbooks for the sixth grades of the Kyrgyz school, determine the availability and diversity of theoretical and practical material, as well as determine the level of proficiency in Russian phraseology by sixth grade students of the Kyrgyz school. To solve the problems of the study, the theoretical concept of “bilingualism” was analyzed, and the features of this linguistic phenomenon among representatives of the Kyrgyz culture were described. The results of the study made it possible to identify positive aspects that require improvement in the educational (theoretical and practical) material of textbooks on the topic “Phraseology”, as well as to determine the level of proficiency in Russian phraseology by sixth-graders of the Kyrgyz school. The study resulted in recommendations for building a methodological system for teaching Russian phraseology to Kyrgyz schoolchildren in order to improve their phraseological literacy.

This paper discusses some issues of the status of the Russian language for the CIS countries, and offers recommendations for the systematic organization of training in innovative practices. It is proposed, in particular, tuse the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) as a method for assessing the level of language proficiency in the learning process and defining the goals of each lesson. In the course of the study, we found that in the Republic of Armenia, out of 1350 schools, 65 are schools with in-depth study of the Russian language; 45 with Russian as the language of instruction for ethnically non-Russian children; 30 - for densely residing national minorities. Armenia is a monoethnic country. Only Russian is used by 5% of the population. Thus, the method of teaching the Russian language in schools with the Armenian language of instruction has become a kind of indicator for determining the quality of teaching Russian as a foreign language (or ILV) and identifying the problems of mutual influence of languages - invariable processes of transposition and interference. After analyzing the body of textbooks for schools developed in the last decade, we come to the conclusion that modern textbooks cognitively enrich students in various fields of knowledge and familiarize them with examples of high artistry, thereby fulfilling the aesthetic and educational task.