Vol 11, No 3 (2020)

The paper is timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the birth of Valery M. Mokienko, Doctor of Letters, Professor of Slavic Philology, Philology Department, St Petersburg State University, Honorary Chairman of the Phraseological Commission of the International Committee of Slavists. The paper reviews focal areas of the scholar’s research, lists his academic interests, the main of those being phraseology and phraseography. V.M. Mokienko proposed to detect dynamic interactions of contradictory properties of the phraseological system, to reveal the mechanism of phrase formation involving broad genetic and typological parallels to determine the nature of a phraseological unit. The method of structural and semantic modeling based on a detailed comparison of dialectal, Slavic and non-Slavic European idiomacy is the basis of modern theoretical and practical studies of the scientist’s followers. The trilogy of dictionaries edited by V.M. Mokienko distinguishes precise certification of units, references to synonymous turns, which makes it easier for the reader to navigate in the huge source material, outlines the parameters of the phraseological space close to the certified expression, and makes it possible to show the wealth of images of folk speech conveying the same semantics.

The article describes aphoristics as an integral part of the language and culture studies reflecting the value system of the people's mentality diachronically and synchronically. Russian aphoristics has been preserving national identity, morale and values throughout centuries, for generations transferring cultural and historic memory of the people. However, aphoristics reflects not only unique, specific features of Russian culture and mentality but also demonstrates unanimity of the culture codes and the universal character of human values. The study specially focuses on the Russian aphoristics’ sphere of concepts whereas, possible to outline and depict dozens of concepts specified on the level of culture as well. The concept LANGUAGE represents one of the key concepts of the human cognitive system, hence it is widely and diversely exposed in the corpus of the Russian aphoristics of the 18th-21st centuries. In aphoristics, LANGUAGE emerges in different ways. In Russian aphoristics, the specification of the concept LANGUAGE has got an ambivalent nature. Here LANGUAGE is realized in the homonymic phraseo-semantic field being verbalized by means of the most frequent components of the core and periphery of the phraseo-semantic field: LANGUAGE (Russian language, native tongue), foreign LANGUAGE, word, parole, syllable, etc.

The article deals with the specific features of the functioning of winged expressions in the poetry of Dmitry Bykov. Analyzing the poetic work of Dmitry Lvovich Bykov, a modern Russian writer, poet, public figure, publicist, it is impossible not to notice that the poet uses a “winged” language arsenal in all its diversity. These are biblical winged words and quotations ( мафусаилов век, ищите и обрящете, геенна огненная ), quotations from works, Russian and European literature ( Через четыре года здесь будет город-сад! Прощай, свободная стихия! Офелия, О нимфа! Помяни грехи мои в молитвах! ), winged words, dating back to antiquity ( Жребий брошен! белая ворона ), quotes from modern and Soviet songs ( Я люблю тебя жизнь и надеюсь, что это взаимно! ). In addition, the question of the specific stylistic functions of winged expressions, which Dmitry Bykov uses in his poetry, is considered. Among the most significant and most frequent and expressive can be distinguished satirical and compositional functions. In Russia, Dmitry Bykov is known as a writer, a satirist poet, writing mainly on acute political and socially significant topics. Therefore, it is completely understandable why one of the favorite winged words functions that he uses is depathetic. An important artistic language means in D. Bykov’s poetic satire is his author’s transformations of winged expressions. In the poetry of Dmitry Bykov, you can find the use of almost the whole range of individual-author transformations. Both semantic and structural-semantic. Dmitry Bykov is a master of a deep, complex image. In his poems, he creates complex allegories, his images are metaphorical, full of sarcasm. And in order to reach this depth of the image, the author most often uses not one, but several methods of transforming winged words within one context, which is, in our opinion, another specific feature of the writer's artistic style.

The article is devoted to the current problem of creating a Russian language phraseological minimum. The topic of lexical (including phraseological) minimums is one of the oldest and most discussed problems both in linguistics and in the methodology of foreign languages teaching. The study of the subject goes in two main directions: searching for the core of the lexical (phraseological) system and creating minimums for learning foreign languages. The main method used in this work is the method of analytical and synthetic processing of information and the statistical method. Both scientific sources and language material are selected from lexicographic sources, Russian National Corpus, textbooks and texts of modern Russian criminal prose which served as the material for the research. The article provides a brief overview of the main lexical, phraseological and paremiological minimums of Russian language, analyzes the basic principles of their creation and offers a way to solve the problem. Some principles of selecting units for the minimum are clarified. Special attention is paid to the problem of creating a phraseological minimum for teaching Russian to foreign students. The current minimums are created mainly on the basis of methodological principles, since the linguistic principles, as the authors of minimums for foreign students write, are not sufficiently developed. It is proposed to start by creating a phraseological minimum of the average native speaker on the basis of research of dictionary materials and sequential processing of a list of texts on certain topics. This work was started by the author on the material of texts of modern Russian criminal prose when writing the “Phraseological dictionary of modern Russian detective” and will be continued.

This article discusses features of the implementation of linguistic norms in international treaties.The proposed study has a purpose to identify linguistic means present in international document texts, i.e. treaties that are to fix the agreement that parties achieve with a view to establishing relations and regulating them in future. The research material is 1000 texts of international treaties. The total amount of factual material analyzed is over 6000 pages. Our methodology is based on the works by domestic and foreign authors on general theory of speech activity, laws of perception and understanding of speech, and the peculiarities of the generation of a statement, translation theory, and international law. One of the most important means of expressing information in a text is its lexical composition. International treaties texts comprise different types of vocabulary (common, terminological, specialized, etc.) that performs text- and style forming functions. From the point of view of grammar, compiling international treaties involves using particular grammatical forms and categories, syntactic structures and types of phrases. The essence of international treaties texts implies the presence of special clichés of a business style. In the preparation and editing of international treaties, the adequate use of appropriate vocabulary and grammatical means leads to a reduction of ambiguities and discrepancies in the texts of these documents.

The article is devoted to identifying the explanatory potential of the text semantic field method as a system method in understanding the nature of connections between different levels of a literary text. It allows us to reach the super-category of the author's image, which acts as the organizing beginning of a literary text. Thus, the text semantic field is both the object and the method of the research. The method of comparative analysis revealed that the overcoming of natural language oppositions, inherent in the artistic text, can be manifested to a greater or lesser extent: from the weakening of semantic oppositions of natural language due to the enhanced semantic convergence of implicitly related semantic units, which can be observed, as shown by the study, in the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Home of the Gentry”, to the complete destruction of natural language oppositions, originally inherent, as it was proved in the works of O.I. Valentinova, in the aesthetics of polyphony. The comparison made possible to clarify that the principles of the organization of text semantic fields in artistic texts can perform opposite functions: to increase the semiotic significance of the image category, as it happens in the novel analyzed by I.S. Turgenev, or, on the contrary, as proved in the research of O.I. Valentinova, to indicate a decrease in the semiotic significance of the image category, which is a constitutive property of polyphonic texts. The use of the comparative method also allowed us to show that overcoming the oppositions of natural language, as a mechanism for the formation of text semantic fields not only of a literary text, but also semiotically complex texts of a different etiology, performs different functions. A comparison of character education text semantic fields of literary texts with the study of E.Yu. Medvedev the principle of formation of the text fields in the Orthodox liturgical sermons have clarified that if the destruction of the oppositions of natural language in a literary text generates occasional oppositions, will appear on the ‘me’ of the artist, overcoming the oppositions of natural language in liturgical preaching brings to the ontological meanings that exist outside of the will and consciousness of the preacher.

The article deals with comparative analysis of the Russian-Swedish parallel texts of the Convention between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden about mutual assistance in the fight against the violation of the tax legislation (Avtal mellan konungariket Sveriges regering och Ryska federationens regering om ömsesidigt bistånd vid bekämpning av vissa fiskala brott). The Swedish and Russian texts differ immensely in their lexical and grammatical structure. The reason for these discrepancies is rooted, firstly, in typological distinctions between Russian and Swedish as languages of different groups and, secondly, in those processes of conscious simplification and regulation that the Swedish Language of formal business communication have been affected by during the last fifty years particularly in relation to clear language policy (klarspråk). In spite of some innovations the Russian Language of formal business communication in many ways continues to be traditional enough. The article is focused on a narrow range of issues relating to differences in grammatical structure of a sentence and prevailing nominal structures in the Russian text as compared with the verb oriented Swedish one. The juxtaposition of parallel texts and further systematization of differences between the Russian and Swedish Languages of formal and business communication makes it possible to give a comparative characteristic of this functional style existing in Russia and Sweden. The research is carried out by means of the continuous sampling method using the method of linguistic description to characterize utterance structure in grammar. Research results can be used in courses on a comparative typology of Russian and Swedish, stylistics, the theory and practice of translation.

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