Vol 16, No 3 (2025): Phraseology. Paremiology. Culture: on the anniversary of V.M. Mokienko

The relevance of research is related to the development of anthropocentric paradigm in linguistics and the need to describe the metalanguage of modern linguistic theories, in particular, the new direction of linguistics - linguistics. The purpose of the study is to determine the range of basic terms and term combinations used to describe the system of values and their verbalization. The source of modern linguaxiology is shown - the philosophy of knowledge; the influence of the type of culture on the understanding of values is proven. Two groups of terms are distinguished: 1) more common ( value - antivalue; value picture of the world; axiogenic situations; axiosphere; value orientations , etc.); 2) terms tested on paremiological material ( linguaxiological potential of paremias; value constants - value variables; axiological valence; axiological syncretism ). Particular attention is paid to the difficulties in determining the types of values; the mutual influence of values and evaluation. A plan for the linguaxiological analysis of proverbs is proposed. The author’s vision in solving problematic issues of axiology is shown using paremiological units as an example; types of linguaxiological markers are presented. The term multicultural linguaxiological marker is introduced, its definition is given, and examples of proverbs that include these units are given.

The relevance of the study of the discharge of stable units with intensifying semantics, indicating the intensity of the manifestation of a sign or the course of an action, as well as the study of phraseologisms formed according to the model “up to + noun in Gen.” is determined by the fact that it is one of the actively replenished groups of phrases in the Russian language of the newest period. These units cause difficulties in lexicographic, and in particular ideographic, description due to semantic syncretism - combining direct meaning with a new new intensifying meaning and the impossibility of their clear differentiation in context. According to the data of historical dictionaries, the semantic feature of turns is shown already at the stage of the formation of the national language. The article shows how and in what categories of stable verbal complexes of the Russian language is manifested in the XVI-XVII centuries intensifying semantics, presented changes that undergo a stable combination up to death on the way to consolidation of intensifying соmponent in its meaning. Appeal to the contexts of the National Corps of the Russian language of the late XX - early XXI centuries and the preparation of materials for the dictionary of the latest phraseological neology, allow us to state, firstly, the productivity of the structural-semantic model used in phraseology and a significant increase in the number of such units with intensifying semantics. Secondly, the use of intensifier phraseologisms in a wide variety of thematic areas and the expansion of the circle of accompanying verbs at adverbial phrases are noted, which indicates the maximum concentration in the semantics of a unit of the intensifying component. Thirdly, the activity of using intensifiers in contexts of different stylistic coloring indicates the transition of some of them from a layer of vernacular units to colloquial ones. In general, these phenomena indicate a general tendency to expressivize the speech of contemporaries.

The authors examine the lexemes included in the semantic group united by a common conceptual meaning and conceptual idea of герой ‘hero’ in the Slavic languages. In historical and cultural terms, the process of transformation of the internal lexical content of such words as Russian герой and богатырь , as well as their equivalents in other Slavic languages, is highlighted. Due to their philosophical, ethnocultural, semantic-pragmatic and functional-stylistic potential, they can be considered discursive concepts that contain important behavioral, moral, philosophical and other foundations that form the general conceptual sphere of world culture; such concepts are formed over centuries due to the national extralinguistic features of each individual ethnic entity. Based on the material of Slavic languages, the etymological and semantic development of these words and their meanings is demonstrated, and their conceptuality in language and culture against a pan-European background is briefly presented. At the same time, both the general and nationalspecific aspects in understanding and interpreting the basic concepts expressed by these lexemes are shown.

The purpose and objectives of research is to derive the essence of the phenomena called meaning and sense how they appear in systemic linguistics (G.P. Melnikov). The systemdeterminant approach is to demonstrate the special job of meaning and sense for communication as a base for any language type specific character being the guarantor for mutual understanding between members of a particular language community. A comparative analysis of the concept of internal form in W. von Humboldt, A.A. Potebnya, I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay and G.P. Melnikov the interpretation is presented in the form of tables. It shows the dynamics of progress in grasp the essence of internal form as a mediator between the sign and the final content of the utterance. Several examples demonstrate how the proposed understanding of phenomena could enrich any research in the field of semantics and lead to the path of studying the quantum neural properties of human thinking.

Modality is a challenging phenomenon for translators since languages have modality systems that differ in terms of the degree of grammaticalization. The article aims to analyze and summarize strategies used in translating deontic modal operators from Russian into English. Based on the theory of modality developed within Functional Linguistics, the article is intended to analyze the deontic modal forms in the presidential addresses delivered in 2015-2022 in an attempt to explore formal and semantic convergences and discrepancies between the Russian and English parallel texts. To achieve this purpose, the research seeks to identify modal operators used to express deontic meanings in Russian and English, to reveal semantic and formal similarities and discrepancies between the deontic modal forms in the parallel texts, and to summarize translation strategies employed to render the Russian deontic modal forms into English. The novelty of the research is due to scrutinizing discrepancies between deontic modal forms in the Russian and English texts and analyzing translation choices. The article contributes to the research on deontic modal operators that need to be thoroughly investigated in Russian and English due to semantic and syntactic differences among the Germanic and Slavic languages. Three types of translation strategies were identified: semantic and grammatical equivalence, grammatical transformation, semantic and grammatical transformation. The results can be used in training translators and preparing manuals for translation courses.

Onomastic periphrases, which are cognitively motivated variants of official onyms (toponyms and anthroponyms), form important cultural codes of an ethnic community and shape the linguistic parameters of its national identity. The goal of this article is to interpret the cognitive mechanisms of the formation of periphrases of Latin American toponyms and to present their cognitive schemes. The hypothesis is that toponymic periphrases play the role of knowledge transfer. The author examines the periphrases of Latin American geographical names, primarily the names of Latin American capitals, and proposes their typology. It has been established that the main cognitive schemes of the periphrases include reification and personification. National attribution of periphrases is between uniqueness and polyreferentiality. Moreover, the more abstract is the periphrase, the greater is the probability of its polyreferentiality. Toponymic periphrases are included in the toponymic concepts of the corresponding geographical objects. The obtained results clarify the mechanisms of linguistic creativity and discursive identity of speakers of various Latin American varieties of the Spanish language, and demonstrate the trends in the linguistic parameters of national identity and linguistic creativity in the field of place names.

The paper presents the research conducted to assess and contrast linguistic and cognitive complexity of primary (fiction) and secondary (leveled to teach Russian as a foreign language) texts. The research dataset comprises dataset of texts with the total amount of 22,232 tokens. Measurement of linguistic complexity performed with Rulingva (rulingva.kpfu.ru) revealed 14 statistically significant parameters discriminating the primary and secondary (leveled) texts. The parametersdiscriminators fall into three groups: morphological (the number of two-syllabic words, verbs, nouns, numerals, the average number of nouns, verbs and adverbs per sentence, ‘descriptivity’, ‘narrativity’), lexical (hapax legomena, Abstractness) and syntactic (readability, sentence length, word length in syllables or in characters). Assessment of cognitive complexity of the contrasted pairs of texts included the two-step algorithm: propositional analysis and information density measurement. The propositional analysis (by W. Kintsch) was aimed at identifying and calculating the number propositions, while the information density measurement implied normalization of the number of propositions by the length of the text (In words) followed by the contrastive analysis. The study revealed increase in the normalized information density in 7 out of 9 leveled texts and confirmed the hypothesis that though leveled texts have a lower degree of linguistic complexity they retain a higher degree of normalized information density inherent in the primary text.

The relevance of the work has been determined by the necessity to study the features of derivative transformations that do not correspond to the ritually expected grammatical mechanisms (grammar mistakes (inconsistency)) of the euphemism explication in the language (In media discourse, in particular), which has a peculiar scientific appeal in the context of the analysis of the psycholinguistic factor (data collection), and also expands and deepens the existing linguistic concepts of the euphemism study. The purpose of the article is to describe some of the psycholinguistic features of the euphemism formation through combining or overlapping of semantic combinations of different types with various grammatical functionality. To achieve the set goal, we have used the following methods: the descriptive method with its inherent techniques of external and internal interpretation, which made it possible to reveal the structural and contentrelated signs of euphemism, to locate and systematize grammatically deviant constructions as one of the forms of semantic predication, ‘highlighting’ the speaker’s intentions while exteriorizing euphemism; methods of complex and contextual-semantic analysis contributing to the study of euphemism formation in the aspect of textual environment and structuring. The findings of the conducted analysis reveal that the formation of a euphemism, which is a product of linguistic adaptation in society, is limited by the adaptive behavior of interlocutors, which can be traced at the stage of the formation of an unfinished proposition, where the compilation of different types of meanings into the form of cognitive singularity, which is necessary for the emergence of a euphemistic meaning, is obvious. Conclusion. In the context of communicative cooperation, there occurs assimilation of social-cognitive and linguistic processes, expressed at the syntactic level in the speaker’s choice to sacrifice the principles of grammatical accuracy in favor of semantic efficiency, which is objectified by grammatical inaccuracy on the one hand and the only correct psycholinguistic decision on the other.

Phenomenon of superstition is a communicative phenomenon in the linguistic consciousness, representing a complex interweaving of cognitive processes, discursive practices and linguacultural features. Superstitions reflect the collective experience of the people, their worldview and ways of comprehending reality. Thus, the relevance of the study is determined by the need for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of superstition as a genre variety of predictive discourse, its functional role in the formation of the national linguistic picture of the world and its impact on communicative practices in modern socio-cultural conditions. The aim of the study is to comprehensively investigate superstition as a communicative phenomenon, including the characterization of its speech-genre forms, determination of its place in the structure of predictive discourse, as well as the analysis of the mechanisms of behavioral patterns formation in different socio-cultural conditions. The research is based on the complex application of general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as special methods of linguacultural analysis. On the example of a large number of Russian superstitions under study, the author proves the dominant role of mentality and ethno-cultural influence on the process of their emergence and transformation, as well as manifests the manifestation of ancient magical behavioral patterns in modern interpretations. The results of the study can become a methodological basis for further scientific research in the field of linguacultural studies and ethnolinguistics, as well as contribute to a fuller understanding of the mechanisms of functioning of superstitious beliefs in modern linguistic consciousness. The prospectivity of this research direction is determined by its potential in the field of in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of functioning of superstitious representations in modern linguistic consciousness, as well as their role in the formation of communicative practices.

The text of the military charter “Kriegskunst zu Fuß” by the German military theorist J.J. von Wallhausen first published in 1615, was widely distributed in europe. The charter of J.J. von Wallhausen was translated into Dutch, Russian, and French. In the article, for the first time in Russian and international linguistics, a comparative analysis of the Russian and French translations of “Kriegskunst zu Fuß” is carried out. The Russian text published in 1647 in moscow and the French text printed in 1615 in Franeker were compared. The work used linguistic source studies, quantitative, descriptive, and comparative-contrastive methods of analysis. The degree of correspondence of the Russian and French texts to the original was revealed. A comparison of the two versions of the charter confirmed the hypothesis of ch.S. Stang that the Russian translator worked not with the German original, but with the translation into Dutch. A number of cases are noted in which the Russian version conveys the original text more accurately than the French one. At the same time, in the area of translation of military terminology, a higher accuracy is noted for the French text. It is concluded that when translating into both languages, a similar strategy was used to convey numerous latin words and expressions included in the original. It is shown that the author of the French translation had a higher level of linguacultural competence; at the same time, the translator of the Russian text made a number of mistakes due to his low level of knowledge of ancient history.

Typically, translation process involves two languages and two lingua-cultural traditions. In Kazakhstan, the situation in the field of literary translation is really specific: it is an indisputable fact that in translation from Kazakh into English and vice versa, Russian language works as a mediator due to the long-standing tradition of Kazakh-Russian/Russian-Kazakh translation; so, an intermediary role of Russian culture for rendering English texts into Kazakh is self-evident. Historically, Russian has become the second language for most of the Kazakh people; as a result, Russian language and culture are perceived as connatural phenomena as well as an important source for getting information. Moreover, Russian language and culture work as a cultural bridge between source (European) and target (Asian) cultures, particularly in course of translating from English into Kazakh. Therefore, the mediating role in indirect translation should be considered as one of Russian language functions; the authors developed a model of interaction between English, Russian, and Kazakh cultures in the process of indirect translation. So, the main peculiar features of indirect translation from English into Kazakh via Russian and corresponding cultural implications are considered the topical object of our research; the appropriate qualitative method represented by pre-translation text analysis, lingua-cultural interpretation of the texts has been used.

The relevance of the present study is driven by the dynamic development of Russian-Chinese cooperation in the cultural and humanitarian spheres, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the declaration of 2024-2025 as the “CrossCultural Years.” Considering the growing rapprochement between two linguocultures distinct in culture, history, and mentality, the identification and analysis of ethnocultural stereotypes influencing effective intercultural interaction between Chinese and Russians become especially pertinent. This article aims to describe the ethnocultural stereotypical representations of China as held by young Russians, based on data obtained from an associative experiment conducted with 263 respondents. The research methodology employs psycholinguistic and lexico-semantic analysis of 859 associative reactions, which facilitated the identification and description of stable and recurrent ethnocultural stereotypes of China within the Russian linguistic consciousness. The findings reveal that China, in the perception of Russians, is primarily associated with a rich cultural-historical heritage, an innovative and large-scale economy, a distinctive national cuisine, and a socialist political system. Notably, the interplay between traditional and contemporary cultural images-including popular computer games and literature-forms a significant basis for these stereotypes. In conclusion, the application of the associative experiment methodology provides extensive firsthand data that substantially contribute not only to the theoretical framework of modern humanitarian studies but also hold considerable practical value for enhancing the effectiveness of intercultural communication and fostering the development of bilateral relations between Russia and China.