Vol 18, No 2 (2020)

The article reflects the main directions in scientific activity of Valery Mokienko, Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Department of Slavic Philology and Scientific Director of the Interdepartmental Dictionary Office of Saint Petersburg University, who is celebrating his 80th anniversary. The author traces the scientific career of this slavist, phraseologist, lexicographer, the founder of a scientific school and organizer of young researchers, presents his main monographs and lexicographic works. The total number of V.M. Mokienko’s works is more than 1200. The report refers to the unique dictionary projects implemented under the guidance of V.M. Mokienko that have no analogues in the world lexicographic practice. The results of V.M. Mokienko's scientific cooperation with foreign universities and international scientific communities, highly appreciated by foreign awards, are shown. Special attention is paid to the achievements of V.M. Mokienko in the field of phraseography, for which he was awarded the Gold Medal named after V.I. Dal.

Learning a new language comes with its own set of challenges, even the brigh-test students can find the new language to be difficult to understand. Looking at the progress already made in the field of studying Russian in Nigeria in the last fifty-nine years, the language presents some noticeable challenges. This paper is aimed at examining the difficulties of learning the Russian language in the University of Nigeria. A descriptive method was used, and the data were collected as a result of the survey of 36 students studying Russian. The findings revealed that different social and economic factors affect Russian language learning in Nigeria. Also, there was no significant difference in the answers of male and female students about the difficulties in learning the Russian language in Nigeria. Based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that different factors (especially level of education, parents’ occupation and level of income) are among the major difficulties of learning Russian in Nigerian universities. Thus, the study recommends that Nigeria government should encourage the respective universities to teach Russian with better funding and sponsorship of some programs, such as conferences and seminars.

The relevance of the article is connected with the prevalence of aggressive materials in the media space, the significance of their role in influencing the audience. The purpose of the work is to identify and describe the lexical means of expressing speech aggression in the Russian-language press of the Soviet era. The research material consists of 500 articles on international topics published from 1946 to 1989 in the newspaper “Soviet Belarus”, published in Belarus in Russian. The methods of semantic, contextual and discursive analysis have been used. In the course of the study, the semantic groups of words used in the press of the indicated time to express speech aggression have been identified. The theoretical significance of the study lies in the fact that determining the specifics of aggression explication in the newspaper texts of a particular period contributes to understanding the characteristics of media discourse as a type of institutional communication. The practical significance lies in identifying aggressive semantic dominants of the post-war Soviet press. It has been established that speech aggression in analyzed texts is expressed with the help of lexemes denoting certain ideologies, aggressive and military actions, crimes and criminals, desire for enrichment, non-compliance with law, violation of communicative behavior, social and economic problems, negative emotions and negative evaluation. The prospects for further studies in the direction are indicated: identifying language means of expressing aggression in the press of other periods, as well as studying strategic and tactical dominants of aggressive speech behavior in the articles of different genres and on different topics.

Various aspects of teaching children of compatriots abroad are considered. These aspects can increase motivation to learn the Russian language and maintain their interest in the future. The relevance of the article is connected both with the needs of Russian-speaking compatriots and with a social request from the Russian Federation. The purpose of this study is to identify and summarize relevant and effective practices for teaching children the Russian language in the near and far abroad. The authors used the following research methods: analysis of scientific literature, observation and generalization of pedagogical experience. The theoretical significance of the study consists in analyzing facts from scientific sources and formulating some conceptual conclusions: for teachers and educators working abroad, it is necessary to form their students’ value-based attitude to the Russian language and a desire not only to communicate, but also to learn the world in the Russian language (simultaneously with learning the world in the language of the country of residence). The author also briefly presents the conceptual provisions of the developed new direction in the methodology - meta-subject teaching of the Russian language, gives recommendations on implementing this kind of training while teaching children of compatriots abroad. The analysis of specific types and forms of training aimed at increasing motivation for teaching the Russian language (including specific examples of working with teachers from Italy, Switzerland and Malta, kindergarten teachers from Oregon, USA) is of practical importance. The study proves the expediency of using the author’s recommendations to increase motivation for learning the Russian language: mastering the language in the process of learning different subjects and design and research linguistic activities in different areas of life.

This study of modern media devoted to the problems of motherhood discourse is significant and relevant due to both the axiological nature of motherhood phenomenon and socio-cultural features of the existing (present day) media space. Problems of motherhood are of enduring importance. The variety of issues concerning motherhood raised in modern media indicate the relevance and importance of all manifestations of this phenomenon for contemporary society. The purpose of the present study is to identify and reveal the features of media discourse of motherhood in socio-political media (which is a product of cognitive activity of modern Russian society) through the category of interdiscursivity. The material for this research was obtained from media texts of Internet versions of Russian socio-political media “Arguments and Facts”, “Izvestia”, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, and “Kommersant”, published from 2001 to 2019. The research methodology includes content analysis of online publications, classification and systematization of the research material: media texts, media text studies and description of media discourse on motherhood in the form of a cognitive structure (concept sphere). The present study is the first attempt to interpret “maternal” media discourse through the category of interdiscursiveness, a fusion of various discourses. The author presents media discourse on motherhood in contemporary Russian socio-political media as a combination of institutional media discourses (political, economic, legal, medical, and religious), each manifesting its own aims and using own linguistic means of presenting information. This approach to describing media discourse emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the study and indicates the relevance of its results for various fields of scientific knowledge, primarily journalism and cognitive linguistics.