№ 1(869) (2023)

The article is devoted to the representation of the concept “learning” in the English language. The ways to verbalize the concept cognitive components have been explored. The features of language units have been revealed through the prism of national mentality in the English-speaking linguoculture. The peculiarities of the functioning of phraseological units with the semantic component “learning” in authentic texts and everyday communication have been studied with the help of corpus analysis. The frequency and context of their use, as well as the presence of recorded transformations, have been demonstrated.

The study is the starting point for a more extensive scientific research. Theoretically oriented, it presents a survey of research papers devoted to the similarities and differences of Australian and New Zealand English in terms of word stress. The author examines the socio-historical factors of dialect formation, the degree of the British and the American pronunciation influence, and contacts with other rhythmically natured languages, all the above resulting in the AusE and NZE original accentual structures.

The article looks into the specifics of correlation between prosodic means and accentuating gestures in cross-cultural discourse between English and American speakers. The study provides a comparative analysis of their kinesic profiles. Closely scrutinised are hand and head gestures, posture, gaze, eyebrow movement and smile. Singled out tendencies in the interrelationship of accentuating gestures and prosodic parameters testify to the tight interconnection between prosody and nonverbal means.

The article looks into the causes of the so-called glass-ceiling effect. Recent research shows that non-native speakers may not reach executive positions because of their foreign accent. Nonnative speakers are assessed by employers as having poorer political skill. The author theorizes that the ambiguity of the idea of political skill coupled with biased perceptions of accents and stereotypes about immigrants are relevant for immigrants' success in executive positions. This may well point to indirect discrimination.

In contrast to the widely known and thoroughly analyzed variants of the English language, Australian English is often perceived as much more ‘exotic’ and receives less attention. The paper analyses the way Russian Anglophones perceive the Australian variant of the English language (AuE) by ear in order to identify the ability to recognize phonetic and phonological subtleties of AuE which emphasize the individuality of this dialect with its unusual and rich history.

The observations on the variants of the German kinegram vor jmd., etw. den Hut abnehmen (take off your hat in front of sb.) and Hut ab! (I take my hat off!), markers of politeness, on the material of 120 examples are presented. The reflection of the pragmalinguistic category of politeness in the full variant of the cinegram and the change of the denotative connotation in its reduced variant, taking into account dialogicality of gestures, situations of use, the role of the addressee, are considered.

The article presents the results of a study, the main objective of which was to determine whether musical ear should be considered among factors affecting the degree of a foreign language accent in the second language (L2) and how important this factor is in mastering perceptual and productive aspects of L2 suprasegmental level. Based on the study results it was concluded that ear for music affects L2 prosodic development significantly.

The paper analyzes pause characteristics in the speech of 40 native Americans taking part in ten everyday polylogues, it also examines the role of pauses in the verbal interaction of several participants in a conversation. The results of auditory, acoustic and statistical analyses revealed the pause characteristics of polylogue speech of dominant and non-dominant interlocutors. The role of the gender factor in the manner of turn-taking among the participants of the conversation is also determined.

Recently, in philological research at “rockology” there has been a confrontation between several approaches to understanding and specifics of the literary cycle. The study and comparative analysis of literary concepts that reveal the specifics and essence of cyclization in the lyrics of Russian rock, and the various ways of forming cycle-forming links proposed within their framework, allowed the author to develop an author’s version of its systematization.

The relevance of the research is connected with the fact that in modern culture, which is digital and screen-based, ways of human perception of socio-cultural reality are changing, and, as a result, the subject of screen culture itself is changing. The article examines characteristics of this subject, which reflect the transition from the cognitive model of a rational subject to an affective one - an emotional person. The study is based on the basic model of emotions. The basic emotions of a person of screen culture are analyzed on the example of youth slang, which allowed the authors to assume that screen culture reproduces and translates a new anthropological project, which can be designated as Homo Affectus.