No 9 (2025)

The subject of the article is a particular feature of the poetics of the unofficial poet V. N. Nekrasov, namely the similarity of the syntactic structure of the text to inner speech. The article analyzes the differences between how inner speech functions in the poetry of Y. A. Satunovsky, whose creative discoveries Nekrasov was influenced by, and in Nekrasov's own poetry: while Satunovsky's poetry maintains a completed character of syntax, the structure of Nekrasov's poems lacks wholeness, as the main text of the works consists of numerous discursive markers and deictic units. It seems that the use of these linguistic units as a primary part of a work of art is common in Russian concretism, which aimed to abandon the "poetized word" and focused on everyday speech as poetic. The methodology of the study is based on linguopoetics: first, the article notes a characteristic feature of inner speech in the structure of Nekrasov's poetic works, such as the frequent use of discursive markers and deictic units, and then attempts an analysis of their functioning in the text. The main conclusions of the conducted research indicate that through text graphics, various phonetic techniques, and other methods, the poet creates a particular composition in his works, where the semantic emphasis is placed on the last line. Meanwhile, the main part of the artistic work may consist of discursive markers or deictic units. However, unlike everyday discourse, where these linguistic units ensure the success of the communicative act, in Nekrasov's creativity, they, along with other artistic techniques, perform the function of defamiliarization, which underlies every artistic act. Thus, discursive markers and deictic units both reveal their own creative potential and actualize inner speech as a source of poetic expression, which appears to be a distinctive feature of Nekrasov's poetry.

Modern video games, due to their interactive nature and high level of immersion, have become more than just a form of entertainment. They constitute a complex medium that reflects and transforms political and philosophical ideas, modeling social conflicts and testing the boundaries of individual freedom. This paper explores video games as platforms of political socialization, analyzing their role in shaping worldviews, collective identity, and ideological norms under conditions of digitalization. The research focuses on key philosophical and political themes presented in digital games—such as free will, moral choice, identity, and power—and investigates how narrative structures, gameplay mechanics, and online communities contribute to the reproduction or transformation of political values. Particular attention is paid to case studies of popular and narratively complex projects, including Cyberpunk 2077, Metro: Exodus, Counter-Strike 2, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, and Battlefield 1. Methodologically, the study employs qualitative content analysis and case analysis, drawing on political philosophy, social theory, and philosophy of technology. The novelty of this research lies in its comprehensive approach, combining theoretical reflection with empirical analysis of specific game projects, in order to evaluate the potential of video games as instruments of cultural diplomacy, soft power, and ideological influence. The results indicate that video games increasingly act as laboratories of digital experience, where values are tested, social roles are reproduced, and interaction with authority is modeled. Thus, video games should be regarded not only as cultural artifacts but also as active mechanisms of political socialization in the digital era.

Modern journalism is undergoing a profound transformation driven primarily by the development of contemporary technologies for content creation (artificial intelligence) and distribution (social networks, messengers). This change affects not only the content of journalistic creativity but also the forms of media products. We are witnessing the emergence of a new genre system in the media that demonstrates a shift in traditional approaches to creating text elements. The subject of the study is the headline as a component of journalistic material. Today, headlines are created not only to attract the reader's attention and to accumulate important content or ideas of the text but also considering the technical characteristics of content distribution on the Internet. The article examines the influence of content distribution channels on headline construction to capture another relatively new condition when formulating headlines in Internet media. The empirical basis of the study includes the regional and city internet agencies Ura.ru and "Verstov.Info". The headlines of texts from these media were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. As a result of the research, the author concludes that the role of the headline becomes especially pronounced in the context of unprecedented competition for readers' attention. In an attempt to attract the audience's attention, media outlets transform the semantics, syntax, and formatting of headlines. In the realm of semantics, we observe a rigid, sometimes borderline linguistic play with the use of buzzwords such as sensation, exclusive, scandal, etc. In terms of layout, compound tag-like headlines, "ears," and headline complexes with illustrations (for example, the author's photo) are actively used. Online publications, when formulating headlines, must consider the influence of content distribution channels. The latter largely dictate the formulations of headlines in online media, sometimes contrary to professional standards. In formulating headlines, there is an overall trend of attracting and retaining audience attention. At the same time, there is a tendency towards formalization: headlines are often artificially adjusted to fit the structure necessary for successful content distribution, which carries certain risks – standardization of content in online media, departure from traditional principles of headlines such as informativeness and succinctness, and a conscious allowance for factual inaccuracies and the effect of disappointed expectations for the reader.

The subject of the article is the functioning of unreliable narrators in M.Y. Lermontov's novel "The Hero of Our Time". The article analyzes the discourses of three narrators: Maxim Maksimych, who is unable to interpret the motives of Pechorin's actions and is therefore limited in narrative possibilities, and two unreliable narrators— the wandering author and Pechorin. The key research method was the narratological analysis as a kind of discourse analysis. The scientific novelty consists in identifying the different ethos of the novel's narrators: if the wandering narrator is distinguished by the ethos of wanting to realize himself as the author of the text, Pechorin by the ethos of wanting to gain self—identity, then the ethos of the implicit author becomes the ethos of conscience. The itinerant officer and Pechorin are distinguished by the modality of opinion, which makes them unreliable narrators, whereas the comprehension of a man of his time becomes the modality of the entire text. Based on the narratological analysis, it has been revealed that in the novel "The Hero of Our Time" there is a multi-stage aesthetic completion: Pechorin creates a diary (epistolary prose), which is fundamentally incomplete, however, on the pages of the text we see a rejection of the author's ambitions in the chapter "Maxim Maksimych", the wandering author selects from his diary the events related to the staying of the hero in the Caucasus, participating in the act of narration, and the primary narrator writes a preface to the entire novel, metatextually evaluating his hero ("portrait, made up of the vices of a generation"). During the analysis of the discourses and ethos of unreliable narrators of the novel "Hero of Our Time", it was found that in using the figure of an unreliable narrator, Lermontov follows the traditions of Pushkin's prose, in particular the discoveries he made in "The Stories of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin": multilevel narrative organization, contradictory discourses of unreliable narrators, probabilistic worldview.

The object of the research is a popular fiction about N.A. Durova, which has served as the basis for more than 15 works of fiction since the 1870s. This gives reason to talk about a relatively stable plot about a cavalry girl. The subject of the study is a little-known short story by Kukel (V.A. Lunin's literary pseudonym) "The Cavalry Girl" (1898). The article outlines the specifics of the works of fiction: the design features and the secondary nature of the plots used. The lubochnik writers used spiritual literature, folklore, and works of art as plot sources. The purpose of this article is to determine which elements of the "Durov" plot are reproduced by the author, how he interprets the plot, and how this work fits into a number of other texts dedicated to Durova. The research methodology is related to the use of the descriptive method, the cultural-historical method, as well as intertextual analysis. The main conclusions of the study are as follows: Lunin uses key episodes of Durova's story, however, not only changes the essence of the plot, but also compiles elements of different plots; the author rethinks the key themes of patriotism and emancipation for the original source (Durova's notes), making patriarchal family values the basis of the action movement; the work balances reality and fabulousness: against the background of although and from a conventional but easily recognizable historical context (the war of 1812), a completely fabulous story about an orphan rescuing a groom develops.; The method of adapting the original plot used by the author is a remake. Thus, Lunin's work is a remake of the plot about Durova, simplified to the reader's level and focused on the idea of an active heroine.

The subject of the study is the analysis of the media landscape and the media dependence of francophone African countries on foreign media (2019–2024). The authors of the article consider the impact of the globalization process on the strengthening of neocolonial systems in the media space, including the dominance of French media such as RFI, France 24 and TV5Monde, and their direct role in shaping political discourse, public opinion and cultural identity. The article also analyzes the attempts of francophone African countries to overcome media dependence through citizen journalism and digital technologies. Through the lens of media dependence theory, this study examines how economic pressures, limited public investment, and gaps in technological infrastructure are forcing French-speaking African countries to depend on external sources for both content and infrastructure. Examples from Mali, Niger, and Cameroon illustrate the deepening conflict between the desire for media independence and the practical realities of globalization. Efforts to develop independent local media face challenges such as censorship, insufficient funding, political instability, and lack of professional training. Meanwhile, foreign media continue to benefit from their long-standing influence and technological advantages. The article uses a qualitative interpretative method based on the synthesis of theories of media addiction, postcolonial communication theory and globalization studies to analyze the interaction between French–speaking African countries – Mali, Niger and Cameroon - and international media in the period from 2019 to 2024. The scientific novelty of this study is due to several factors: the current period of sampling research material (2019–2024), since the authors of the article for the first time analyze in detail the latest political changes in the countries under consideration (the ban on French media, the issue of media sovereignty, coups in Niger, Mali); a comprehensive theoretical approach (digital research, postcolonialism and media dependence for research on modern challenges); a look at alternative models (foreign influence, consideration of the potential of digital platforms and citizen journalism); consideration of regional specifics through the prism of different media policy trajectories. The relevance of the article is determined by cultural sovereignty (the dominance of Francophone content and the threat of the disappearance of local languages); the political context (changing geopolitical trajectories and the growth of anti-French sentiments); technological challenges (the contradictory role of digital platforms).

The subject of the study is the specificity of the influence of the translator's personal attitudes and external subjective factors that determine the features of the representation of linguocultural meanings (which are expressed through key cultural and philosophical concepts: guilt, conscience, atonement, and stylistic and pragmatic markers: expressiveness, irony, evaluativeness), when translating F. M. Dostoevsky's novel «Crime and Punishment» into Chinese. The object of the study is the corpus of Russian-Chinese translations of the novel, belonging to modern Chinese translators, and accompanying paratextual materials (prefaces, afterwords, comments). The purpose of the study is to identify the nature and mechanism of the influence of subjective factors on the representation of linguacultural meanings in Russian-Chinese translations of the novel and to propose specific steps to minimize their influence. The research methodology includes corpus analysis of Chinese translations (by Zhu Lun, Li Gang, Yuan Yannan, Zhu Haiguan and Wang Wen), their linguacultural and pragmatic features, methods of qualitative linguistic and philological analysis. All this implies a contextual analysis of key fragments of the novel, a comparison of variants of the Chinese translation, and a thematic analysis of the statements of the translators in the paratext. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the systematization of subjective factors (personal, aesthetic, ideological, professional) and their specific influence on the representation of linguacultural meanings in Chinese translations of the novel «Crime and Punishment». The novelty also lies in the development of a theoretical and practical model for determining and correcting the influence of subjective factors in the process of literary translation. Key findings: the personal attitudes of the translator systematically influence the choice of lexical-semantic and stylistic means and thereby shift the emphasis of the original linguacultural meanings; external subjective factors become determinants of adaptation, distortion of culturally significant concepts and symbols, radically changing their semantic load.

This article is devoted to the study of stable lexical and grammatical constructions (patterns) in English scientific texts. The material is a corpus of 110 scientific articles in English, which have been published over the past decade in journals with a high citation index. The purpose of the study is to create a technology for the selection and classification of templates, which determines the formulation of the following tasks: 1) identification of frequent lexical and grammatical constructions; 2) their systematization according to their functional purpose; 3) checking the relevance of templates for use in scientific texts. The following general scientific research methods were used in the work: observation of lexical and grammatical units of a scientific text in order to identify the position of a template in the text; an experiment related to testing and making changes to the created template selection algorithm; comparison to create a classification system for the found templates. The scientific novelty of this research consists in the creation of a technology that allows to identify and classify stable lexical and grammatical constructions (templates) used in modern scientific texts in English. Since the proposed technology is based on the analysis of relevant articles extracted from journals with a high citation index, the identified patterns correspond to modern requirements and trends in academic writing. The results of the study demonstrate that the templates of the English scientific text can serve as a support for the formation of logical and semantic connectives, without which it is impossible to imagine any scientific work. 57 relevant stable structures identified within the framework of the technology application can be used both by researchers who for the first time or regularly create scientific articles in English, and by teachers teaching academic writing.

The subject of the research is the imagery system of Russian "gaming" literature of the 19th century, which includes key elements such as the images of the player, cards, the opponent, women, fate, and death, as well as its influence on the poetics and imagery system in the works of Russian literature of the 20th century. The object of the study includes the works of A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, N.V. Gogol, V.F. Odoevsky, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Andreev, and their reception in the works of M.A. Bulgakov, V.V. Nabokov, and V.T. Shalamov. The author examines aspects of the topic such as the evolution of gambling and cheating motifs, the extrapolation of gaming space onto reality, and the role of the female image as a functional element of the plot. Special attention is paid to the transformation of archetypal models of games and their philosophical-psychological functions in the literature of two centuries. The methodological basis of the work consists of comparative-historical and intertextual methods, as well as a structural-typological approach to analyze stable elements of the imagery system. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the comprehensive analysis of the evolution of the imagery structure of Russian "gaming" literature as a continuous traditional complex. For the first time, it explores not only direct influences but also the mechanisms of transformation of key images and motifs—from their formation in the classics of the 19th century to their reinterpretation in the works of the 20th century. An important aspect of this novelty is the inclusion of Varlaam Shalamov's work in this context, whose "Kolyma Tales" have not previously been examined in succession with the gaming tradition of the 19th century. Specific intertextual connections are detailed, such as the comparison of Lermontov's "The Tambov Treasurer" and Bulgakov's "The Run," as well as the application of R. Caillois’s theory (Alea/Agon) to the analysis of the texts by Shalamov and Nabokov. As a result, it is concluded that despite significant evolution, the imagery system of gaming works of the 19th century had a profound and multifaceted influence on Russian literature of the 20th century, contributing to the understanding of the mechanisms of literary succession.

The subject of this research is the reception of the Chinese poetic tradition in the works of the sinologist and poet-translator L. E. Cherkassky (1925–2003). The analysis focuses on his original works: the poetry collection *"Stikhi o prekrasnoi dame i ob odnom gospodine"* ("Poems about a Beautiful Lady and a Certain Gentleman") and the memoirs *"Ya ryadom s kornem dushu uspokoyu"* ("I Shall Soothe My Soul Near the Root"). The study examines the process of adapting Chinese artistic forms and imagery systems within the Russian-speaking cultural space. Particular attention is paid to the ways of synthesizing Chinese genre poetics—such as *"lüshi"* (regulated verse) and *"zaju"* (variety play)—with the Russian lyrical tradition, as well as the transformation of allusions to classical Chinese poets Tao Qian, Lu You, and Zhou Dunyi. The analysis aims to reveal how Chinese elements, through the prism of Cherkassky's personal experience and literary mastery, enter into a dialogue with the Russian poetic tradition, giving rise to their organic artistic fusion. Thus, the focus is not merely on the influence of Chinese culture, but on the specific process of its transmutation into Russian poetics through the work of the poet-sinologist, which establishes him as a key figure for studying intercultural reception in the 20th century. The method of analysis involves a multi-level comparison of Cherkassky's work with Chinese poetry: from the assimilation of genre traditions to the identification of imagery system transformations in new cultural contexts. The novelty of the research is determined by the fact that for the first time, Cherkassky's work is considered not as a collection of translations, but as a systematic poetic practice in which Chinese artistic forms and imagery systems become the basis for the emergence of new aesthetic codes in Russian literature. Until now, his original works have not been studied as a unified project of cultural mediation, and the role of the poet-translator as an active creator of an intercultural synthesized poetics remained unexplored. It is established that the adaptation of Chinese elements occurs not through superficial borrowing, but through a deep reworking of genre structures (*"lüshi", "zaju"*) and the transformation of allusions to Tao Qian, Lu You, and Zhou Dunyi, which turns them from exotic references into organic components of Russian lyricism. The findings confirm that Cherkassky acts not as a passive intermediary, but as an original author, forming a unique synthetic tradition. The results of the study may be of interest for research in the history of Russian-Chinese literary relations and comparative poetics, deepening the understanding of the role of poet-translators as conductors of intercultural dialogue.

The article explores the depiction of Eastern themes in Soviet literature of the 1920s. The aim of the study is to identify the sources of this popularity and the main themes of such narratives. The subject of the research is the Asian image in Russian literature, examined through the prism of the works of Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov (V. V. Ivanov) and his contemporaries. As a result, the author has identified the key determinants of Soviet writers' interest in the East: a desire to comprehend contemporary events, an aesthetic attraction to the exotic, a search for answers to eternal questions, and a disillusionment with Western rationalism. A detailed analysis is provided of the specifics of the image of China and the Chinese in the prose of V. V. Ivanov ("The Return of Buddha", "Armored Train 14-69", "Sho-Guang-Go, the Amulet of the Great City", "The Adventures of a Fakir") and other Soviet writers who were active in the 1920s. The methodology employed in the article includes comparative historical analysis (to identify representative works of the era and contextualize them), historical and cultural analysis (to assess the literary and historical significance of the phenomenon), motif analysis (to identify the characteristic features of Eastern motifs), and descriptive analysis (to present the key issues that preoccupied Soviet writers of the 1920s). The scientific novelty of the research lies in the generalization and comparison of how the image of the East was reflected in the works of Soviet writers of the 1920s. The findings of the study are of great value to specialists in the history of 20th-century Russian literature and cultural studies. They can be used in developing university courses on these disciplines and for further in-depth study of V. V. Ivanov's works. It was revealed that this layer of Russian literature was a complex and dynamic phenomenon, born from a unique confluence of historical and cultural factors. A balanced assessment of the role of Eastern narratives in the 1920s is provided. Finally, the article suggests that it is important for the scholarly community to focus future efforts on studying the images of various countries, including Eastern ones, in Russian-language literature.

This publication is devoted to the features of proxemic models of architecture of the future of the countries of the East and West from the point of view of their comparison and identification of the features of verbalization. It is noted that these aspects of the proxemic model of architecture of the future are a rather little-studied area of the formation of spatial relations in journalistic texts. The purpose of this article is to analyze journalistic texts that represent examples of Russian-language and English-language journalistic discourse based on the comparison of proxemic markers (proxemes-spacenames, proxemes – verbs of motion, proxemes – adjectives, proxemes – toponyms, proxemes – linguoculturemes) nominating spatial relations in the articles in popular science country-specific magazines “Vokrug Sveta” about the UAE skyscrapers Ciel Dubai Marina and Burj Azizi and “National Geographic” about wooden skyscrapers built in Northern Europ. The analyzed samples of spatial lexemes, selected in magazine articles by the method of continuous sampling, are also considered from the point of view of their inherent informative codes, allowing readers to understand the architectural ideas of representatives of different cultures. Based on the results of the conducted analysis, it seems possible to identify the features of the axial orientation of proxemic markers in the architecture of contrasting parts of the world, which is determined by the pragmatic tasks of architects, as well as historical prerequisites, information about which is implicitly present in the text in the linguaculturemes used by the authors. Thus, the choice of certain proxemic markers contributes not only to the formation of a spatial image in the text of the publication, but also activates the individual reader’s perception of the locations represented in the article, taking into account the background knowledge of the recipients, as well as their worldview.

This study investigates the functioning of language play as a mechanism for generating comic effects in Russian television humor, with a particular focus on two prominent shows, Ural Dumplings and Comedy Club. Drawing on a representative corpus of 50 episodes (25 from each program), the research seeks to identify, describe, and classify various types of language play occurring in humorous dialogues, replicas, and sketches. Special attention is devoted to genre-specific distinctions, strategies of audience involvement, and the sociocultural roles of humor, including integration, socialization, critical reflection, and provocation. The methodological framework combines discourse and pragmalinguistic analysis with content analysis and semantico-pragmatic interpretation, implemented within a comparative approach. The scientific novelty of the work lies in developing a comprehensive typology of language play in small stage forms and applying it to the comparative study of television comedy. For the first time, on the basis of an empirically constructed corpus, the linguistic and pragmatic features of comic discourse are contrasted across two genre-different formats. The findings demonstrate that Ural Dumplings predominantly employ phonetic-semantic and culturally marked games, creating the effect of “folk” humor and strengthening collective identity, whereas Comedy Club relies on pragmatic and interdiscursive strategies, constructing intellectually saturated humor oriented toward individual perception and critical reception. The conclusions emphasize the role of genre, media platform, and communicative interaction with the audience in shaping the comic effect. The study thereby broadens the perspectives of media linguistics and humor theory, while providing an empirical foundation for subsequent interdisciplinary investigations of humorous discourse.

In this article, we aim to consider the metaphorical representation of the phenomenon of love in public dialogue and establish a motivated connection between the structural metaphor and the emotion with which it is associated. In this paper, we are only interested in the structural metaphor, and not all types of metaphors. The research material is the transcribed TV interviews of the TV program "White Studio" with Daria Zlatopolskaya. The guests of the TV show are representatives of creative professions (artists, directors, musicians, etc.), men. The focus of our attention is only the idea of love as a sphere of interpersonal relations. Special attention is paid to the description of the process of metaphor emergence. In addition, the paper presents linguistic tools demonstrating the transfer of signs of the source sphere to the target sphere in metaphorical projection. In the course of the research, we used the method of scientific observation, the descriptive method (including methods of observation, generalization, interpretation), the method of semantic analysis, the method of contextual analysis, the method of pragmatic analysis. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the view of metaphorical transfer in the context of public dialogue, in which the transfer of one situation to another is not limited to one unusual word usage, but unfolds throughout the whole communicative episode or part of it. As a result of the study, a motivated connection between an emotion and a metaphor describing this emotion was revealed, which led to the creation of a metaphorical transfer by the speakers, structuring entire fragments of the interview. The cognitive mechanisms of metaphorization of the phenomenon of love are revealed, based on varying degrees of stability of the speakers' ideas. It is concluded that metaphorical transference structures and connects the communicative episodes of a TV interview as a communicative event, performing an integrating function. During the conversation, the presenter and the interlocutors "highlight" certain aspects of the source sphere or the target sphere, which leads to a narrowing or expansion of the metaphor used over several communicative episodes.

The short story "Incident on the Tun River" (1925) by V. Ivanov in the works of the renowned Soviet author represents one of the variants of the dystopian genre. Thus, the novel "Iprite," co-written with V. B. Shklovsky (1925), is a travesty work that simultaneously serves as a serious warning about the potential for a technical dystopia to devolve into an apocalypse. The novel "U" (1931–1933) reveals a hidden dystopia obstructed by an affectatious petty bourgeois. In this context, "Incident on the Tun River" illustrates how the future becomes a projection of the present. The object of research in the article is the dystopian and antiutopian motifs in Ivanov's "Incident on the Tun River," while the subject of the research is the specificity of the implementation of elements of these genres, considering the analysis of the motif structure of the text. Methods of genre, motif, and hermeneutic analysis are employed. The story is simultaneously classified as an antiutopia and a dystopia. It also investigates motifs of cold, violence, death, technology, and architecture, present in the current time and projected into the future. Based on the motif analysis conducted, assumptions are made regarding the specificity of the perception of the revolutionary project by both the author and the reader. The relevance of the study is determined by literary scholarship's interest in Ivanov's works, which remain not only insufficiently studied but also not fully published. The novelty of the research stems from the detailed motif analysis of "Incident on the Tun River," revealing the leading motifs that influence its semantic structure (for example, the motif of cold): he who allows his human feelings to "freeze" leads himself and others to moral and physical destruction. The image of dystopia/antiutopia in the story is created through images of murderous technology and non-human architecture. In the future, humanity has disfigured both the man-made and the natural: both emanate danger and death. The enormous sizes of buildings, the cold and crude materials from which they are made, and the tendency toward tubular and enclosed forms—all these factors respectively define the existence of future humanity.