Vol 13, No 4 (2022): CONTEMPORARY LINGUISTIC INTERPRETATION: TEXT AND CONTEXT

The authors address the needs of academicians in different fields of knowledge investigating collective memory and its discursive practices, its various manifestations in language subsystems, and the principles and mechanisms of social communication. Based on the significant potential of cognitive linguistics in this area due to the links between memory and language, the authors present this study аs to how social and cultural institutions regulate collective memory and apply different strategies, tactics, and linguistic means to create positive, negative, and neutralized images of the past in German mass media discourse. This study reveals the most relevant textproducer policies used to manipulate text-recipients and focuses on the most relevant argumentative and compositional tactics used in German mass media to re-actualize and form images of the collective past. The authors view re-actualization of collective memory in mass media in terms of social communication and media priming theories wherein collective memory is a phenomenon socially constructed in discursive practices, which perform selective, interpretive, and reversible functions. Managing the delivery of transformed images of the past to the addressee is aimed at cognitive and axiological changes in the communicative space of the addressee and forming the value judgment of the past. It is considered be possible due to the agent-object relationship of the addresser and addressee. The tactics applied by the addresser contribute not only to distributing and emphasizing some pieces of information but reducing criticism of the mass recipient perception.

The authors examine the interpretive meanings of phraseological units from the perspective of a cognitive approach and within the framework of the linguistic interpretation theory in order to study their role in ensuring conflict-free communication in future research. The undertaken study covers the material from the Russian, English and French languages. The authors argue that the interpretive nature of phraseological units is due to the fact that their meanings convey a certain interpretation of already existing and earlier verbalized knowledge about objects and events. This interpretation takes as a basis the postulated similarity with other objects and events from the same or another conceptual domain and knowledge about them. The method of cognitive modeling applied by the authors makes it possible to determine the type of relationships between different entities, that make up a conceptual basis for phraseological meaning construction. In authors’ opinion, conflict-free verbal communication is directly related to the choice of cognitive mechanisms for the construction of meaning, transmitted by phraseological units, that prevent its misunderstanding or misinterpretation. The analysis of the language material shows that the process of phraseological interpretive meaning construction employs cognitive mechanisms of profiling, conceptual metaphor, conceptual comparison (analogy), conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphtonymy, profiling being a universal cognitive mechanism that precedes all other cognitive operations.

The paper is devoted to the features of the functioning of the dominant verbalizers of ethical concepts in mass media, considered on the example of the words grace and gratitude . The purpose of the study is to trace the features of the semantic changes of words in modern use in comparison with their main ethical meaning. The article analyzes the data of the explanatory dictionaries of the Church Slavonic and Russian languages, establishes ethically loaded semes that unite verbalizers and testify to their exceptional value in the Russian mentality. The relevance of the study is determined by the analysis of the semantics of about 2000 uses of the words grace and gratitude in mass media, which made it possible to establish a common stylistic orientation - ironic and sarcastic - and the emasculation of the ethical load while maintaining the main denotative meaning. It is proved that the predominance of the material in the understanding of grace developed in the 20th century and is due to the denial of the religious picture of the world, which, however, does not exclude the preservation of ethical semantics in the internal field of ethical concept verbalizers. It was revealed that the ironic, sometimes anti-ethical inclusion of words in texts about topical issues levels their ethical significance and contributes to the spread of distorted semantics, influencing the value scale of native speakers, which is confirmed by a sociolinguistic survey.

Freedom is a concept with an extremely complex structure. Most of its components are concepts themselves with their own complex hierarchical structure. The authors discusse the components of the concept of “freedom” in the Ossetian and English languages, establishes its main conceptual, figurative-metaphorical and value characteristics in both languages and the specific meanings in each of these linguistic cultures separately. In the context of intensive intercultural communication, a comparative analysis of global languages and languages of small peoples makes it possible to establish the universal and national features of linguistic pictures of the world and contributes to the dialogue of cultures. The aim of the study is to identify the universal and unique components of the concept of freedom , represented in the Ossetian and English-language sociopolitical discourse. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the definition of the essential features of the concept of freedom in the Ossetian language on the example of the South Ossetian discourse, in which freedom plays a fundamental role in the formation of statehood, in the mentality of the people. Moreover, the given concept was for the first time compared in Ossetian and English, which allowed the authors to highlight the peculiarities of national self-identity of the speakers of both languages. The research was conducted on the basis of printed and electronic media of the Republic of South Ossetia, English press (both British and American), as well as Ossetian and English Dictionaries. A significant part of the material comes from the official bulletins and news from the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Ossetia, which is in Russian, Ossetian and English languages. The following research methods were used in the work: the method of conceptual analysis; method of contextual analysis; comparative method, the method of continuous sampling of material from the South Ossetian, British and American media. The results obtained indicate the similarity of a number of components of the concept of freedom in the minds of the American, British and Ossetian peoples, however, they emphasize that in the English language the concept of “freedom” has a binary character - the opposition of freedom - not freedom, while in the Ossetian linguistic culture, in addition to the main general meanings, saeribardzinad - freedom has a broader meaning and implies law, struggle, national freedom.

Internet texts represent the most mobile and eclectic type of a text. Therefore, the methodology of their analysis is integrative and polyparadigmatic; and for adequate interpretation it is required to consider them taking into account modern socio-cultural context and presuppositional knowledge. The article is devoted to the description of meme-creating components associated with modern sociocultural context in various forms of Internet memes: comics, demotivators, cartoons, presented in three segments of the Internet (Runet, French and Azerbaijani segments). The novelty of the research is based on the fact that for the first time, the meme-creating plots in the Russian, French and Azerbaijani segments of the Internet were identified and correlated; the authors carried out an analysis of the authentic material formed under the influence of the socio-cultural context - the influence of various external factors and cultural background. A continuous selection of network sources from various segments of the Internet allowed compiling an author’s card-file containing more than 2 500 Internet memes, the examples from which became an empirical basis for the study. The material was аnalysed with the use of a descriptive and analytical method that involves direct observation of the phenomena under analysis and their systematization, generalization of language material; we also used elements of discursive, componential and linguopragmatic analysis.A comparative analysis of memes in the Russian, French and Azerbaijani segments of the Internet showed, on the one hand, a quantitative asymmetry (Russian memes prevail), and on the other hand, differences in the forms of Internet memes (for example, demotivators prevail in Runet, comics and cartoons are commonly found in the French and Azerbaijani segments). The analyzed material showed that both words and phraseological units of different categories realize the functional potential in the verbal part of Internet memes of the three linguocultures under consideration. In a number of cases, there is an actualization and complete rethinking of lexical and precedent units. The nature of the presentation of images in the visual part may be associated with the cultural tradition of the nation. The study shows that such 21st century attraction events as migration and threat of coronavirus infection are reflected in Internet memes regardless of the system of values, religion and mentality. When creating national images and presenting artefacts, the role of ethno-linguistic markers perceived by a particular nation is decisive. The visual element can also be actualized in connection with ongoing socio-political events. All this proves that adequate interpretation of memes requires presuppositional knowledge, so that understanding such a polycode formation as an Internet meme does not become a communicative failure. Memes about labour migration and the coronavirus pandemic in the Belarusian segment of the Internet, content and forms of which are conditioned by the multicultural originality and socio-cultural openness of modern Belarus, confirm and typify the main provisions about the factors, conditions, methods and motivations of meme formation in Russian, French and Azerbaijani linguocultures.

The authors analyze the issue of the relationship between metaphoricity in informational media texts and its speech impact on the recipient on the example of Russian, English and Chinese sources. As an initial hypothesis, the authors use the assumption based on the fact that media texts which differ in pragmatic characteristics contain a different index of metaphoricity. To test the hypothesis, a method was developed for calculating the indices of metaphoricity: density, intensity, functions, and the relationship of metaphors with the external and internal structure of the text. The values of these indices were consistently calculated for news reports in three languages, conditionally divided into two groups: informational and evaluative. The analysis showed that, according to the values of all indices, the metaphoricity of texts with an influencing potential is higher than that of texts that perform mainly an informational function. The “evaluation” texts have on average one and a half times more metaphors, they are much more intense, and they use more structural metaphors. In such texts, metaphors are more often found not in the main part of the text, but in the water part and in the conclusion, but in relation to the structure of the text - in them, metaphors are more often concentrated around the rhema. The results confirm the initial hypothesis: metaphoricity is indeed associated with potential impact, and metaphors are used by the authors of media texts to form an assessment of the subject of speech utterance. The proposed method for calculating the metaphoricity indices can be used as an effective tool for calculating this speech impact.

This paper attempts to explain linguocultural connotations of phytonomen WILLOW by analyzing the results of process that Russian and Chinese perceive this object in our surrounding world and their aesthetic ideas about it. The relevance of the study is due to the need for an accurate understanding and transmission of the information received in the communication of representatives of different cultures, as well as insufficient knowledge of linguocultural connotations of phytonomen in Russian and Chinese, especially in comparative aspect. The aim of this paper is to study connotations of the lexeme WILLOW in Russian and Chinese linguocultures. The material of the study is proverbs and lyrical works containing the phytonomen WILLOW with special linguocultural connotations for the Russians and Chinese. The paper uses such methods as descriptive, paremiological, contextual, comparative, component analysis, cognitive modeling. The study belongs to the sphere of the current direction in linguistics - comparative linguoculturology and paremiology. The scientific novelty lies in clarification of the historical and cultural associative meanings of the lexeme WILLOW in Russian and Chinese linguocultures. The result of the study is establishing of the fact that WILLOW occupies an important position in both linguocultures. It symbolizes strong life and graceful female image in the two languages. In addition, WILLOW personifies grief, soreness and even funerals in Russian linguoculture and has connotations of «frivolous girl», «farewell», «longing for someone absent or the homeland» in Chinese. Hence follows the conclusion that linguocultural connotations of the lexeme WILLOW in Russian and Chinese do not completely coincide, they have both similarities and differences.

The study is devoted to the discussion of symbols and signs in the Topeng Malangan puppet mask show, which is a traditional heritage of the ancient Javanese society. The Wayang or mask show is described as a depiction of human nature. Its very existence gives rise to many interpretations of the symbolism and meanings contained in it, and these conflicting interpretations seek to convey to their public their own vision of human essence in various historical circumstances. The costumed show of masked characters, like the masks themselves, cannot be separated from historical stories, such as Malangan Topeng Wayang , which tells about the history of the kingdoms of Daha and Jenggala , where the conflicting interpretations contained in the narration of symbols and signs are fully observed. Using a semiotic approach based on the R. Barthes model, the article explores the mythologized mask show, analyzes the symbols rooted in ancient history, which have come down to us in the form of drawings documented on fabric painting, lontars - manuscripts on palm leaves or in ancient books. The results of the study proved that the symbolism of signs and ancient artifacts of Malangan Topeng Wayang is rooted in retold stories that turn into folk fantasy myths that celebrate the heroism and kindness of the people of Indonesia. Nevertheless, these stories also show the presence of shameful pages of the past, hushed up by the community, since they immanently have more negative connotations which contribute to the emergence of some semantic bias, that, if misinterpreted, can distort historical facts.