Rusistika

The contribution of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay and his followers A.I. Anastasiev, N.V. Krushevsky, V.A. Bogoroditsky to word formation theory has been described in sufficient detail, but the achievements of Kazan University representatives in the late 20th - early 21st centuries have not been fully studied yet. This substantiates the relevance of the present study. The aim of the study is to characterize the word formation theory development in Kazan University since the late 19th century. The material for the study was the scientific works by I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay and his followers (A.I. Anastasiev, N.V. Krushevsky, V.A. Bogoroditsky), as well as the works of Kazan University representatives in the second half of the 20th - early 21st centuries (V.M. Markov, G.A. Nikolaev, E.A. Balalykina, V.A. Kosova, etc.). The main methods used in the study were review, descriptive and induction method, analysis and comparison. Our review of the works by Kazan University scientists confirms and deepens earlier conclusions about word formation theory development at the university since the end of the XIX century until 2025. I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay and his followers referred word-formation to morphology, created the classical morpheme theory, investigated word structure and some Russian affixes, revealed the prerequisites for defining the concept of wordformation meaning and word-formation paradigm, and made many other important discoveries in the field of linguistics. Kazan University representatives of the second half of the XX - early XXI century relied to a great extent on the results of their predecessors. V.M. Markov and G.A. Nikolaev made a significant contribution to historical word formation in the Russian language; E.A. Balalykina, G.A. Nikolaev, and other linguists worked in the field of comparative word formation; G.A. Nikolaev, T.M. Nikolaeva, I.V. Erofeeva studied functional word formation; V.A. Kosova developed the structural-semantic aspect of word formation. The analysis of theoretical works shows the continuity in studying word formation at Kazan University.

The relevance of the study is in the fact that modern Russian linguistic science has not developed a full-fledged description of Russian discursive words despite their frequency in Russian speech. The aim of the study is to describe the pragmatic functions of discursive words in the text. Frequent Russian discursive words expressing the degree of certainty (конечно ‘certainly’, естественно ‘naturally’, действительно ‘indeed’, безусловно ‘undoubtedly’, очевидно ‘obviously’, разумеется ‘of course’, etc.) served as the material for the study. The study is based on corpus data that allows us to analyze the discursive words frequency in different styles and speech genres and to draw conclusions about the functional features of these units. The data from different (sub)corpuses of Russian National Corpus were used in the article. The hypothesis of the study is that the discursive words in the text perform not only their main function (expression of confidence) but also various peripheral pragmatic functions. Peripheral functions are divided into two blocks; the first block helps to conduct a hidden dialog between the speaker and the listener (introduce a new topic, establish contact with the addressee, control the interlocutor’s attention, etc.), and the second block expresses emotions (including irony). The variety of functions is ensured by the semantic variability of discursive words. Based on corpus data, the authors give functional characteristics of this group of discursive words in terms of their frequency in different speech styles. The study substantiates the functional approach to describing discursive words. The subjective semantics of these discursive words, a hidden dialog between the speaker and the listener, is described. The theoretical result of the study is a scheme for describing the discursive words functionality. The scheme distinguishes the main and peripheral functions for different groups of discursive words. A promising direction is a detailed study of the functional features of other groups of discursive words in the aspect of their main and peripheral functions. The study is useful to all those who study or teach Russian language.

The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that the variability of aspectual affixes in the Russian language has not been fully studied. Meanwhile, super-large diachronic corpora of texts provide the opportunity of a detailed quantitative description of verbal affixes evolution. The aim of the study is to identify objective syntagmatic and paradigmatic factors (extrasyllabic synharmonicity, word morphological structure evolution, lexical compatibility, style) that determine the choice of one of the competing suffixes among variable verbs with the redundant paradigm with secondary imperfection -a-(-ya-)/-yva-(-iva-) . The authors used the Russian language corpus of the Google Books Ngram corpus, including data on the word forms frequency over the past 200 years. The authors used methods of corpus analysis and diachronic quantitative analysis. The study revealed psychophonetic, morphological, semantic, and stylistic factors affecting the linguistic changes of redundant verbal paradigms. The authors came to the conclusion that, contrary to popular belief, the former na -a-(-ya-) variant is not replaced with the -iva-(-yva-) form in most cases; according to frequency dynamics, a temporary increase in the popularity of forms of secondary imperfection in general was followed by a return to the primary forms of Imperfect in recent decades. In rare cases, where a form with a suffix denoting iteration is approved, the form was chosen because of the root vowel, “l-epenteticum”, and verb prefixes. The frequency and prevalence of the verb hypothetically preventing the emergence of variants or unification had no effect on language changes. The developed approach can be applied to study evolution of competing word forms in a wide range of cases.

The relevance of the study lies in the need for a detailed examination of occasional vocabulary in modern Russian animated series and the definition of its derivational specificity. The aim of the study is to provide a structural and semantic characteristic of occasionalisms in the animated series “The Fixies” taking into account the opinion of representatives of the Kazan linguistic school on the methods of word formation and to identify the role of these units in the language game with the viewer. The research material, which is introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, is individual-authorial neologisms in the animated series “The Fixies”. The work uses the descriptive-analytical method and the method of continuous sampling, as well as methods and techniques of structural-semantic and functional-stylistic analysis. Usual (prefixation, suffixation, composition and its varieties) and non-usual (hendiadys, conversion, palindrome, dieresis, contamination, and substitutive derivation) methods of creating occasionalisms have been established; their productivity has been revealed. The author determined that occasionalisms with the element “fixie” in the animated series are the most frequent, they form a word-formation nest. The age of the character is inversely proportional to the frequency of using occasionalisms in speech. The individual author’s word creation makes the animated series “The Fixies” interesting for children and attracts their attention. Such word creation in this cartoon is primarily due to the language game. The prospects of the work consist in increasing the research base by comparing occasionalisms with other linguistic units of “The Fixies” in the language game, as well as in comparing the new formations presented in this cartoon with occasionalisms functioning in other animated series.

The relevance of the study is conditioned by the importance of studying the BRICS image in the discourse of Russia as its key partner. The study shows the perception of the alliance, its mission, and international significance in Russian society, characterizes Russia’s position on global issues and its relations with other BRICS countries. The aim of the study is to identify the dominant metaphorical models creating the BRICS image in Russian-language publicist discourse. The following methods and techniques are used: automated and manual sampling, corpus analysis, metaphorical modelling, and cognitive discourse analysis. Russian National Corpus served as the material. The research text corpus consisted of 500 full-text articles in influential Russian news editions of 2014-2024, and 789 contexts with a metaphorical component were extracted. The study shows that the most frequent metaphorical models are represented by metaphors from the source spheres ‘path’, ‘war’, ‘physics’, and ‘mechanism’. The units of these models characterize the alliance as a sustainable development trajectory to mission implementation and the partner countries as allies in the struggle for a multipolar world. The metaphors from dominant source-sphere reflect the volatile political and economic environment where the BRICS is developing, as well as Western countries’ attempts to put pressure on the alliance’s partner countries. Less common metaphorical models such as living organism, geography, plants, and construction, describe BRICS as a viable association that is ready and able to initiate a transition to a multipolar power balance. The study can become a basis for further research on the BRICS image in the publicist discourse of other countries, as well as in other types of discourse.

The study studies Russian gestures in teaching Russian as a foreign language. Gesture communication is an important nonverbal interaction in various cultures and languages. The relevance of the study stems from the importance of nonverbal communication in teaching Russian to foreigners, the need to identify specific Russian gestures, their semantics, and cultural peculiarities and to analyze how these gestures correlate with verbal communication means in Russian culture. The aim of the study is to provide a scientific description of the specific gesture communication within Russian speech etiquette, including its meaning and contextual application and the corresponding difficulties for foreign students learning Russian. The research material is data from a 2023-2024 online survey in Google Forms. The questionnaire was aimed at studying perception and interpretation of Russian gestures by international students. The first block of the questionnaire is an open question “What is difficult for you when interpreting Russian gestures?”. It gave qualitative data on individual problems in understanding nonverbal components of Russian communication. The second block contains a series of visual tasks with pictures of Russian gestures typical for different communication intensions and variants of their semantic interpretation. The students must choose the correct or the most relevant answer. The complex approach helped to collect declarative information on difficulties and practical results on the ability to correctly identify Russian gestures in intercultural communication. The research methods include theoretical analysis for gesture definitions and approaches to their studying; quantitative content analysis for classification and statistical estimation of the collected data on Russian, Tatar, and Arab gesture communication; linguistic observation of the real gestures used by the representatives of different cultures. The students were regularly observed in classroom and at cultural events at Kazan universities for six years (2019-2024). This gave a comprehensive and representative data on using gestures in intercultural communication. The locations made it possible to analyze gesture activity in different cultural contexts. Universal and specific means of nonverbal communication have been determined, and specific gestures used in Russian, Arab, and Tatar cultures and their corresponding situations are discussed. Significant differences in gestures of Tatar and Arab students learning Russian have been identified; precise and controlled gestures prevail in formal situations, whereas informal situations reveal greater gestural diversity, including expressive and emotional aspects. The findings are useful for teaching Russian as a foreign language, in intercultural communication courses, and in adapting foreign specialists to work in Russia.