There is no way to identify an animate object other than to describe its specific characteristics which necessarily look like deviations from the normal “average” pattern, named here paragon , in which the Axiological Standard of a human group is fixed. Of particular heuristic interest is, in this regard, the logical pattern, often used in Russian for describing such a deviation: ( he / she is ) not A, but B , in which a human creature is being denied the property of being human, but is assimilated to fire, flint, rag, chump, mouse, dough, etc. The variety of descriptions (pseudo-identifications) is explained by his or her need to focus attention on some remarkable feature of person’s character, incompatible with the paragon of accepted traits included in it as a result of the evaluation responses of his or her fellow countrymen. Although they have a greater illocutionary force than a simple statement of a deviant property, these identifications cannot be checked for “truth”, in particular, for compliance with the “real” state of things. They are pseudo-identifications which can only be verified for compliance with some kind of attitude, defining what properties should be used to qualify a person and what should be the ideal sample selected as an auxiliary object in an ideal scenario.

This paper presents a corpus-based empirical research, which uncovers the key concepts structuring the French military song discourse. We view this type of discourse as an integral element of military discourse containing institutional and non-institutional segments. The actualization of statutory relationships is the most striking example of institutionalization. Therefore, we have started our research from the hypothesis that the officially regulated (statutory) and less regulated parts of the military song discourse may manifest some conceptual differences. The selection of this subject is determined by its contribution to understanding the French military's cultural peculiarities, as well as by the lack of exploitations regarding the French military song discourse. Within the contemporary cognitive paradigm, the designatum is regarded as a pointer to the concept, which allows grasping a concept globally, without reconstructing its elements. Thus, the analysis of lexemes frequency may serve to identify the inherent concepts structuring some kind of discourse. Using a freely distributed textometric platform TXM (version 0.7.9), we have created a linguistic corpus of 462 texts of French service songs totaling 88 305 tokens. Then, we have divided our corpus into two parts, depending on the statutory belonging of the texts. The statistical scores were calculated by applying the hypergeometric probability distribution law. The analysis of statistically significant lemmas has permitted to draw the lexical profile of each part and to identify thereby the most specific concepts. Moreover, we have complemented our research by routine frequency and contextual analysis in order to reveal the additional basic background concepts. Our study leads us to the conclusion that the French military song discourse foregrounds 8 main concepts, but the conceptual structure of each part reveals some differences due to the specifics of the institutional requirements and the military ethos.

Rhetorical Structure Theory is popular in theoretical and applied investigations for representing discourse structures and corresponding relational propositions that play the key role in the process of text comprehension. The aim of the article is to explore possibilities and principles of applying the RST for displaying logical and cognitive organization of Russian poetic texts. Driven by the aim of exploring possible applications of RST, its authors and their proponents have analyzed up till now numerous prosaic texts and types of texts. And yet, studying its potential in the field of poetic analysis remains relevant. Since the Theory has never been applied to Russian poetry, an empirical stage of research is necessary. This stage consists in elaborating the principles of dividing a written poetic text into elementary segments, specifying logical relations, constructing structures of poems on this logical basis, completing preliminary analysis of this experience to single out its possibilities and prospects. The article presents the results of such a work. The empirical sample consists of short lyric poems (from 9 to 34 lines); it includes ten texts by A. K. Tolstoy and the same number of texts by I. F. Annensky. The total number of relations, used for representing the structures of these texts, is equal to 26. Frequency ratio of these relations was calculated. Comparative analysis of the poetic structures constructed revealed several differences between the two authors concerning their usage of relations. The results of the investigation evidenced the applicability of Rhetorical Structure Theory to poetry. They show that more research projects in this field are needed to refine its techniques, as well as greater material, including these and other authors, other poetic genres, etc.

Previous attempts to discover any links of the Glagolitic symbols with the Germanic runes, the Ethiopian, Coptic, Gothic, Arabic scripts, or with the Greek minuscule writing have not lead to any results. But at the same time, it is obvious that Glagolitic signs did not appear accidentally. There must be a certain initial meaning behind their schematic representation, and this meaning had a profound figurative cognitive and structural symbolic meaning for speakers. The author claims that the visual images of Glagolitic letters are directly related to the principles that primitive artists were guided by when depicting reality. The article provides evidence that Glagolitic letters followed the logic of the development of social consciousness of that time, they reflected and transmitted the idea of Genus hominum. Primitive thinking was based on the associative connections between a sign, its meaning, and an associative representation of the role that this meaning played in the life of their tribe. The main task of these associative representations was to facilitate the process of perception and memorization of signs through their compliance with traditional cultural values of native speakers. The alphabet order of Glagolitic signs was interpreted in strict accordance with their numerical meaning. This order makes it possible to draw analogy between the form of the letters and the images of some ancient artifacts which had a special spiritual significance for the primitive man. The article claims that the first five Glagolitic signs contain figurative and cognitive ideas of the primitive man about himself, his family and ancestors: a man (1), a woman (2), their union (3), their house (4), and protection of the tribe (5). Structural and arithmetic correspondences of symbols played a significant role in the Glagolitic script as well. Unlike the Cyrillic alphabet, numerical values of the Glagolitic letters follow each other without any omission. This suggests that these letters were used first as numbers. There are also structural and schematic correspondences between Glagolitic symbols. Using various structural elements assigned to them by the system, it is possible to transform their graphic images into numbers “one”, “ten”, etc. This highlights the idea that initially the Glagolitic alphabet arose as a counting system and was adapted to write the sounds of speech later. For this reason Glagolitic letters received the same names as these in the Cyrillic alphabet, but they preserved the straight-through order of their numerical values.

The da-construction in Macedonian and Serbian languages combines the modal conjunctive particle da with the finite form of the verb to express a wide range of modal meanings. Being a Balkan Sprachbund novelty, the da-constructions in dependent clauses take on the functions of the infinitive in a complex predicate (in all cases in Macedonian, partly in Serbian). The da-construction in independent simple sentences has a complete conjugation paradigm with the imperative meaning and competes with the synthetic imperative forms in both languages, expressing also optative meanings. The article offers an analytical review on the status of these forms based on data gathered from Macedonian, Bulgarian (being closely related to Macedonian) and Serbian languages. There are two salient extremes in it: 1) the da-construction is not an analytical form of the verb and does not have an independent status in the verb system, instead it functions as a syntactic construction; 2) it is indeed an analytical form of the subjunctive mood, with da being a grammatical indicator of modality with the general non-factual meaning. The article concludes that the first view should be regarded as definitive in determining the status of the da-construction in the Serbian language. To support this conclusion, we are putting forward the following arguments: a) the verb form is non-adjacent to the da particle in the form; b) there is a competition between the infinitive and the da-constructions as complex predicates as well as in some tenses (future tense: ja ću ići / ja ću da idem ) and negative structures (nemoj ići / nemoj da ideš); c) the conjunctive particle da does not always have the non-factual meaning, and in most cases the following verb form can take on any tense or mood. In Macedonian the da -construction should be regarded as an analytical form of the subjunctive mood on account of the following characteristics: а) the da-construction has a syntactically fixed component order, which means that it is a semantically bound or fused chain of components which lost their individual meanings; b) the da-construction has a complete conjugation paradigm, one for da + praes and another for da + imperf , on which stems a wide range of modal meanings: imperative, optative and some others; c) the particle da has an invariant meaning of non-factuality, and it marks the verb form in this construction as non-indicative.

Difficulties in describing such notions as vernacular, common slang and slang and the reference of certain lexical units or texts to a particular language phenomenon stem from the variety of opinions and ways of defining each of them. These debatable questions have become more distinctive in Russian linguistics with the growing contacts with European linguistic schools and therefore copying the terms without adapting them to Russian theory of language. The using of these terms is becoming chaotic due to the fact that modern Russian linguistics often neglects the basic achievements of Soviet linguistics in the field of distinguishing language varieties. The article considers two approaches to the definition of vernacular, common slang and slang: from the point of view of their being fully functional language varieties and from the point of view of their functional facilities. As a result of the analysis of the data about language varieties, a conclusion is drawn about the common and different in these concepts. If these notions considered as similar to major language varieties such as standard language, standard colloquial speech and territorial dialects, then they cannot be called fully functional language varieties, since they have an extremely vague social base, they are characterized by a low degree of standardization, functional diversity and the intersection of their lexical content. Thus, it can be concluded that such language phenomena belong to the specific kind of language variations that are defined by their transitional nature. If functional facility of vernacular, common slang and slang is considered, it is worth noting that there are a lot of stylistically marked lexical units in slang. They are slightly less numerous in vernacular, and even less numerous in common slang. This peculiarity stems from the fact that common slang includes lexical units able to function as the fillers of the gaps in standard language, standard colloquial speech or territorial dialects. It should be noted that the lexical units of all three language phenomena are used in various communication situations even by the people who are well versed in the norms of the standard language. The fact that lexical units belong to vernacular, common slang or slang does not prevent well-educated speakers from using all stylistic functions of such units. Speakers who know the difference between standard and slang or vernacular words are able to vary these language tools to attract the attention of a certain category of people (for example, for advertising, communicating with youth, etc.).

The article dwells on the notion of the language personality of the politician-as-actor interpreted within the framework of the politainment theory: the term used in the paper does not indicate the previous profession of a politician but rather describes one of the peculiarities of the political discourse, viz. its theatricality. The paper argues that when political communication is being transformed into politainment, theatricality becomes its key component. Politainment is interpreted here as a hybrid type of political discourse including elements of mass-media and everyday spheres of communication, allowing to orient them at entertainment. Since the language of politainment performs a ludic function, it has often recourse to language game. For the communicative approach of the politician-as-actor it is typical to avoid serious consideration of political topics, to make use of communicative techniques which allow to simplify political problems. It is normal for him to recourse to vulgar language, offensive or otherwise insulting devices such as hyperboles, exaggerations, grotesque. The politician using techniques of politainment is a resourceful individual who can easily give metalinguistic comments, employ puns, euphemisms, dysphemisms, similes, hyperboles and other rhetoric means. Just like a traditional politician, the ‘actor’ is manipulative: he plays out different roles but, first and foremost, he is a star, a celebrity and a glamorous person. In this sense, the politician-as-actor has something in common with musicians and professional sportsmen. It is not unusual for the politainment to borrow their vocabulary: sports, musical instruments, names of musical groups and performers may be mentioned. Such a political actor “sets records”, “competes” with his political opponents, “knocks them out”, etc. To conclude, we may say that ‘actors’ take initiative to dominate on the contemporary political scene and to set a new trend in political communication. In this sense, politainment is not a phenomenon which is represented by orations of only several “linguistically creative” politicians; it is much wider, it influences the whole standard of political communication.

The article considers the relationship between the language / speech biography of the patient with aphasia and the process of his speech rehabilitation. This research project focuses on correlation between the patient’s language / speech biography and systemic connections of words in his mental lexicon. The relevance of the study consists in designing of recovery exercises adapted to the specific language / speech biography of patients with aphasic disorders. The research material includes: 1) statistical data on sociological characteristics of patients, gathered at the local Neurorehabilitation Center from 2014 to 2018; 2) 18 questionnaires filled in by the relatives of patients in question; 3) interviews with healthy Russian native speakers, whose socio-professional characteristics are similar to characteristics of one of the target groups of the patients; 4) a corpus of interview scripts processed with the program Sketch Engine; 5) 16 patients’ speech assessment sheets completed in accordance with the Wasserman scale (it designed to determine speech disorders of patients with a local cerebrovascular accident). The main results of this project are: 1) completing a sociolinguistic portrait of people at risk of aphasia with the similar language and speech biographies; 2) lists of most frequent words, collocations and automated verbal series (phrases and sayings) specific to people without speech pathologies; 3) identification of the language / speech biography features that affect mental lexicon; 4) exercises to speed up speech rehabilitation 5) their validation and assessment of effectiveness in clinical practice.

The paper discusses the results of a series of experiments aimed at studying how the self-image of the undergraduate student changes from the first to the fourth year. The language consciousness is interpreted as a concept that fixes a certain regular relationship between internal (personal) and external (socio-cultural) factors which can drive changes in the meanings and personal senses of words. Such a semantic shift suggests regular changes in the images that lie behind these words in the consciousness of the studied group of people. The hypothesis about their reason was as follows: during the years of study the student’s self-image undergoes significant changes due to various activities related to the academic environment as well as to personal evaluation of his/her own activities. This hypothesis was tested by a series of experiments based on the methods of free associations and spontaneous completing of unfinished sentences. The idea behind the simultaneous use of two methods is to increase the degree of their reliability, to see whether the results complement or contradict each other. The hypothesis was partially confirmed. During the years of university studies, the student’s self-image in the student’s language consciousness was enriched with a variety of language means, primarily expressive ones. However, the growing variety of linguistic means of expressing the self-image of the student does not allow us to speak about a significant qualitative change of this image because no new features, nor new aspects of the image appear. We may conclude that only a quantitative change was observed. The variety of linguistic means of expression should not be interpreted as a sign of low integrity of this image, despite their semantic inconsistency. The student only seems to live in two worlds or have two lives: he/she gains new knowledge, but at the same time suffers because it’s not easy; students try to improve their selves, but do not understand why they need or have to do so; they skip classes, but manage to pass the exams successfully. The contradictory character of verbal means used to express a typical student’s image in their language consciousness discovers the ambivalence of the student’s personal attitude to him/herself as well as to the wide range of his/her activities. Ambivalence which seems even paradoxical.

The essay is concerned with decoding the subject (cognitive) content of R. Kipling’s The Spies’ March, notable mainly for its proud name. The problem is that the text is created using the double coding technique; it is fundamentally ambiguous and can be read in two ways, allowing in both cases various cognitive and semantic interpretations in the modern historical and cultural context. The spy attribution of the March is a clever deception, created first by the author in the hope that the readership will be able to uncover his language game following the old adage “a good [poetic] witch covers her tracks, but a better [semiotic] one can uncover them”. That’s what they call now research, investigation or enquiry, depending on purpose and circumstances. He refers to “spies” as epidemiologists who fought the out-break of plague in Manchuria in 1911. For Kipling, it was a language game, the poetic purpose of which was to describe in purely military terms and partly in Bible language of the Apocalypse the fight against the epidemic, which, in its intrinsic “quest” for globalization, threatened to outgrow into a pandemic. Unfortunately, the readers proved to be too gullible, neglecting to analyze biblical references of The March and its dramatized composition in which two choruses are opposed to each other and which is preceded by a distant Voice; they often trusted the title’s literal meaning, and preferred to read The March as glorification of spies. To do this, it is just enough to “turn” the Yellow Flag of the original (a symbol of a pandemic disaster) into a proud one, a flag of dignity and fame. In Russia, translators have also joined this process. Details of such a false-negative decryption are presented in the section entitled “Lexical, symbolic and discursive keys for decoding The March ”. The technique of creating and decoding an ambivalent text is, of course, the main object of theoretical analysis. Nevertheless, in terms of application, the potential use of the key ideological “messages” of The March in the global information and political environment, giving now a lot of place to politainment as well as infotainment, is even more important to explore. We consider two major “messages”: “There are not leaders to lead us to honour” и “Bring us deliverance, spy!”. The tasks of such a politainment enterprise might be to form a causal relationship between these two Kipling’s brainchilds, namely, to personalize the “spy” in the international media discourse and entrust him with the implementation of Kipling's order regarding deliverance from current “calamities”. The mainstream media trend shows that the greatest chances to become such a “spy” has Vladimir Putin, which recently also received from Roland Lombardi, by analogy with the devout Lawrence of Arabia, the informal title of Arabian (Poutine d’Arabie). To do it, it’s enough for western media to add inverted commas when mentioning his nickname.

The article is dedicated to the anniversary of Lev Shcherba, a famous linguist whose contribution to the development of Russian linguistics cannot be overemphasized. The year 2020 marks 140 years since his birth. This article attempts to demonstrate the applied aspects of the scholar’s work. While a lot of works have been written on various theoretical ideas suggested and/or elaborated by L. Shcherba, less attention has been paid to the specific character of his scientific creativity. Practical importance of L. Shcherba’s works for stylistics, phonetics, lexicography and grammar is underpinned. Special focus is made on the publication of a symposia series named “Russian Speech”. This series came about largely owing to L. Shcherba’s efforts. He became its perpetual editor. That was where he published a number of his crucial works. Also, Shcherba’s views on teaching foreign languages in the Soviet Union are analysed. It is noted that L. Shcherba strived to put forward effective recommendations taking into account all the obstacles in learning a foreign language that existed in the USSR. It is hard to overestimate Shcherba’s contribution to Russian linguistics as an organizer, a teacher, and a scientific advisor who managed to unify talented disciples that did their best to keep on elaborating the ideas of I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay whose most outstanding follower L. Shcherba was. His scientific and pedagogical heritage is inseparable from the traditions of Russian linguistics.