Vol 10, No 3 (2019): Functional Semantics Paradigms of the 21st century

In the late 20th century, in linguistics, inevitable changes were felt which were connected with the necessity in the transition of the science about language onto an absolutely new stage of its development. L.A. Novikov was one of the first among those who understood it. In the 80-s of the previous century he presented a new idea of semantics with deep philosophic understanding of its problem field, with the aspiration to seek solutions through the language interdisciplinary links. For the contemporary linguistics L.A. Novikov’s approaches are evident; however, they are not deprived of urgency and can become a clue to the solution of many problems especially in the field of terminology studies. In the present paper, on the basis of L.A. Novikov’s theory, an attempt is made to give the definition for the category of intentionality from the point of view of legal linguistics since the application of the available in the theory of law ideas for the new integrated direction is already insufficient. Legal linguistics has entered the development phase when there is an urgent necessity in shaping its own terminological vocabulary. This process can’t be “closed” and be limited by the approaches of the theory of law and theory of language: the shaping of the notion apparatus must be based on the ideas available in philosophy, psychology, physiology, education etc. This understanding of the problem finds its reflection in the present paper which makes it possible to define intentionality as a form of the implementation of the deliberateness of the act which is determined by the motive.

The diplomatic communications represents complex system consisting of various components. The article deals with the examples of elements presentation in this system on a site of diplomatic services of Russia subject to communicative tactics, a level of polycode and multimodality in information wars. Characteristic semiotics features of the information presentation are highlighted.

This article discusses the degree and usefulness of the applicability of the semiotic method in science, philosophy and academic theology. The philosophy of the semiotic method and its relationship with Orthodox theology are considered. A specific case of application of the semiotic method in Russian science in the study of theological texts in the works of S.S. Averintsev is presented and studied. It is concluded that the extensional universality of the semiotic method in all spheres of knowledge and its limitations in the ability to adequately reflect reality.

This article is dedicated to the analysis of a lexico-semantic transformation in translation of fiction. The aim of the paper is to identify frequently and less frequently used translation transformations that we treat as cross-language transformations. These transformations are based on selection of the lexical units in target language closed in sematic meaning to those used in source language. V.M. Shukshin’s texts are used as the linguistic material for the conducted research. The translations are prepared by R. Daglish, L. Michael and J. Givens. The study shows that the most difficult units for translation are those having specific meaning due to cultural factors. Cultural associations in V.M. Shukshin’s texts are based on territorial and ethnographic information. Items actively participate in formation of the cultural code. They can be considered as a marker of cultural feature of a text. Translators’ functions include the pragmatic adaptation of texts and different comments. The phenomenon can be explained by the fact that the translator does not always possess enough background knowledge (as far as dialectal words are concerned) or in other words associative links between the object and the name it identifies. The results of the research explain the necessity of a new approach in professional practice.

This article presents a brief overview of the language means of the German used in modern media discourse. Currently, the role of political communication, mediated by media discourse, is becoming increasingly important and attracting more and more attention of linguists. The language of the media is dynamic, imaginative, expressive, at the same time it is subject to the general principles of the functioning of the language system. A good example of this is the use in the texts of German-language online editions of the names of proper and derived lexical units. The focus is on deonyms, formed from the names of famous political figures of Germany and Austria. The results of the analysis show that proper names have an associative potential; in the process of use in speech, they can undergo semantic changes, lose touch with the designation of a specific person, and become a derivational basis for new lexical units. Thus, in the German language, thanks to the structure of anthroponyms and typical word-formation models, there appear deonyms-verbs, deonyms-participles, deonyms-adverbs, deonyms-adjectives, deonyms-nouns. They are designed to perform suggestive and manipulative functions in media discourse. This language phenomenon is of interest from the point of view of cognitive science, semantics, translation studies, comparative linguistics.

For the first time the article analyzes the semantics of the word conviction in the words and teachings of Russian saints of the twentieth century. The material is extracted from symphonies in the works of saints and from collections of sayings of Russian elders of the twentieth century. The article analyzes the semantics of the use of this word in religious texts as the implementation of religious discourse in comparison with the codified meaning of modern dictionaries. It is shown that the lexeme conviction is included in the etymological-word formative nest of semantics of different words in the modern Russian language ( court, judge, condemn, reason, judgment, fate, judicial , etc.) of the Indo-European root *dhe- (: *-dh-o: *dh-i-) with the semantics of establishment, action, and in addition with the prefix su- , which means combining or mixing, has negative appraisal and is Church Slavism in the Russian language not only by phonetic and orthographic signs, but primarily by semantic signs. The semantic difference in the religious and non-religious use of this word in the Russian and Church Slavonic language element is in the significative side, since in the Orthodox concept-sphere and the Russian religious discourse, conviction is associated with a number of conceptual ideas about the inner life of a person. Conviction is semantized as a destructive state of a person, violating the integrity of his personality and alienating him from God (the article identifies at least three semantic-cognitive features). Such semantic content clearly differs from lexicographical data in modern language, therefore the meaning of a word in Church Slavonic text space is understood as basic, and modern usage is understood as a narrowing of the original semantics.

The article focuses on one - the key, in the author’s opinion - aspect of the analysis of the modern dramatic work, which allows to demonstrate the peculiarities of the aesthetic function in the works belonging to this literary genus: the consideration of the principles of the organization of the playwright of the compositional and speech zone of the characters. It is this part of the dramaturgic discourse, leading in the content-conceptual plan and prevailing in the spatial relation, that is seen as the most significant for the interpretation of the play as a fact of verbal art with the unconditional consideration of the syncretic character of dramaturgic form. The relevance of this topic is due to the fact that, despite the significant success of modern philology in the study of the specifics of artistic speech, dramatic speech is still the least studied of its sphere. The purpose of research - analysis of dialogical spheres of contemporary plays versus not artistic dialogue and partly as a dialogue in prose, allowing you to set the number of features forming the identity of contemporary dramatic dialogue speech. The material for the observations was the play of the modern author E. Cherlak «Mortgage and Vera, her mother» (2011). In the interpretation of the materials used methods: observation, compositional, contextual and semantic-stylistic analysis. In addition, the conducted observations suggest that the analysis of the manifestations of aesthetic function in the works of drama should be carried out taking into account the textual nature of this compositional and speech sphere, as well as paying special attention to the author’s principles of its system organization, since this approach helps to identify not only the distinctive characteristics of dramatic speech, but also the features of the individual author’s handwriting of the playwright.

Recently, human capital (HC) has acquired special relevance in response to digital economy development. A semantic study of HC is significant for its linguistic description and practical purposes of teaching business English to students, specializing in economics and management. The aims of the research were to analyze dictionary definitions, compare them with contextual interpretations, and identify syntagmatic relations and lexical collocability of the term HC in scientific discourse. 340 article titles and their abstracts from 18 journals on economics and management served as the material for the research. The methods included continuous sampling, analysis of contextual relations, semantic classification, and componential analysis. The results of definition analysis showed that HC has intangible components of meaning and partly overlaps with resources , in opposition to capital which has monetary nature. Contextual interpretations disclose more semantic aspects of HC. Monetary relations and production factors make it closer to capital . Considerable attention is paid to HC formation and measurement. Terms, related to HC, embrace a wide variety of phenomena from almost all functional areas of business, which indicate the importance of HC for sustainable development, increasing profit and competitiveness. Semantic classification of collocations shows that HC is considered at the personal, organizational and national levels. The most frequent syntagmatic sequences include HC+N , N+Prep.+HC , and Adj.+HC . Objective valency type: V+HC is more common than subjective: HC+V . The most frequent collocations are HC accumulation , HC investments , and the role of HC .