The purpose of this article is an introduction to scientific circulation and analysis of geographical vocabulary and toponymy persisting among the Chuvash population of the village of Smolkino in the Syzran district of the Samara region. The toponymy and geographical lexicon of the Smolkino dialect of the Chuvash language have not been subject of comprehensive study until now, yet they are of considerable interest due to the linguistic specificity of the Chuvash village of Smolkino. To carry out a lexico-semantic analysis of toponymy and geographical lexicon operating in the Smolkino dialect in order to identify their characteristic features. The materials for this paper were the data received by the author from local residents and historians during the 2021 field work. A comparative analysis of the studied toponymic units is based on the materials collected in other Chuvash villages of the Samara Volga region during 2015–2021, as well as on the elements of the toponymic lexicon of the Smolkinsky dialect and place-names in the works by other researchers. An etymological analysis of toponyms was carried out taking into account the characteristics of the Smolkinsky dialect and its speakers, with regard to parallels from other Chuvash language native speakers’ territories of settlement. As a result of the study, the main elements of the geographical toponymic lexicon of the Smolkinsky dialect of the Chuvash language, their forms of existence and semantics have been identified. Special attention was given to the lexemes uncharacteristic for the Chuvash dialects of the region: adyl – ‘swamp, spring spill lake’; kran – ‘cut-through road in the forest’; teres – ‘well’. Most of the toponyms presented in the article originate from the Chuvash and Russian languages, the substrate layer is represented by Tatar language geographical names, for which there is a historical justification. In addition, there is a small Erzya language layer, the presence of which is explained by the close proximity of the Smolkin Chuvash with the Erzya-Mordovian population of the villages of Aleshkino and Yeremkino.

The article deals with the issue of standardization of toponyms having singular and pluralia tantum variants. The relevance of the research is due to the necessity to clarify methods of standardization of toponyms with morphological variation to improve standardization activities in the field of toponymy. The State Catalogue of Geographical Names was used as the main material for the research, also used were current normative legal acts of the Russian Federation subjects, administrative-territorial division reference books and lists of settlements of different publication years, as well as cartographic sources. The variation of singular and pluralia tantum forms in toponymy is considered in the article as a kind of word-formation variation. It has been established that this type of variation is observed mainly in the names of settlements formed from anthroponyms and geographical terms. The analysis of toponymic variants indicates that the pluralia tantum form is secondary in many toponyms. The pluralia tantum form is developing in the process of using a toponym in the original singular form. A source for pluralization is the perception of a locality as a collective of residents united by the common surname or the name of the locality, as well as a desire for better differentiation of homonymous adjacent geographical objects. It is pointed out that the functions of pluralization in toponymy are being rethought, and that it is becoming one of the alternative means of grammatical word-formation. The analysis of standardized toponyms has shown that the standardization of toponyms subjected to this type of variation is carried out either in accordance with their modern usage, or with one of the well-known historical spellings of the toponym. The obtained research results clarify the methods of toponym standardization based on the traditions of their employment and can be used in further standardization of toponyms subjected to morphological variation. All the examples of the toponyms under study show that the standardized spellings correspond to their spellings in the current normative legal acts. In some cases, an officially codified variant of a toponym differs from the variant used in oral speech. This fact indicates the coexistence of two norms of toponym use.

The article is devoted to the issue of myth-making in postmodern literature. A new mythology is regarded as a philosophical and literary phenomenon, and is also analyzed from the point of view of cognitive linguistics. The main sources of mythology and trends in myth-making in modern fiction are also defined. The purpose of the study is to identify linguistic ways of representing myth-making as an innovative cognitive practice of British postmodern poets. Modern myth-making is a complex philosophical phenomenon that becomes a source of pseudo-reality and at the same time constantly refers to other myths and images, reinterpreting them. Myth turns into a system of narratives and belongs exclusively to the space of language. From the point of view of linguistics, myth is a complex linguistic sign that regulates human life on an unconscious level and connects culture and language with each other. Modern myth-making of the postmodern era is becoming a way of artistic cognition, creating new meanings by comparing various mythological systems. This cognitive practice is necessary to understand the new reality, which is chaotic, interactive, singular and unpredictable. Writers of the postmodern era most often turn to cosmogonic mythology, creating their own unique mythological systems constructed from the elements of already existing myths. At the same time, postmodern mythology is represented in a unique language. A study of the British lyrics showed that the linguistic ways of expressing myth are very diverse and differ from writer to writer. In addition, different British poets take the myths from various cultures as the basis for their own mythologies, turning to ancient Greek, Celtic, Indian and other eschatologies. Through linguistic, interpretative, grammatical, phonetic, and contextual analyses of a literary text the following language ways of the modern myth manifestation are identified: historical, cultural, geographical, mythological, fairy-tale allusion; intertextual metaphor; allusion flow; stylization represented by phonetic, lexical and syntactic imitation of intertext; personification of nature forces; myth destruction; interaction with the reader. It has been shown that linguistic means interact with one another in lyrical texts, creating an author’s new mythology that reveals unique artistic meanings.

The study examines the metaphorical epithet in a fragment from the Victorian novel by Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”. The paper analyzes the concept of a metaphorical epithet in the light of the paradigmatic approach. It is seen as part of a metaphor that characterizes defined objects or phenomena in an allegoric sense, i.e., an epithet based on a figurative meaning (metaphor). The authors employ general methods of observation, explication, and inductive reasoning along with theoretical tools and approaches used in the analysis of fiction. The aim of the paper is to examine the role of metaphorical epithets in creating an image of space, reflecting the drama of the protagonist’s life, and to demonstrate the significance of the linguistic approach in studying the tragical in the writer’s worldview. It has been found that the representation of space in Thomas Hardy’s work acquires symbolic significance. It sheds light on the multidimensionality of the plot and the complexity of the heroine’s character. The study demonstrates a shift from using metaphorical epithets with gloomy tones to life optimism epithets. This feature illustrates the author’s stance on the evolution in the spiritual growth of the heroine, enabling her to embrace the vicissitudes of fate. Skillfully employing epithets to describe the changing colors, light, relief pictures, and sounds, the author portrays the nature phenomena. These are visible to the eye at the moment of contemplation, serving as a source of energy and strength for the heroine’s philosophical acceptance of her inevitable end. The linguistic approach to studying the tragedy of a strong woman who was mistreated in the philistine world contributes to better understanding the author’s critical attitude toward the failure of the Victorian moral norms concerning human beings in general, marriage, and gender relations. The unity of man and nature in Thomas Hardy’s worldview conveys the purity of thoughts and potential actions of the heroine, a fallen yet virtuous woman, and her willingness to love and self-sacrifice. The linguistic interpretation of metaphorical epithets in the extract contributes to the creation of space as a means of expressing the character’s life drama. This allows us to draw conclusions about a deep social and philosophical content of Thomas Hardy’s prose.

The article compares and analyzes the semantic connections of the word urm-a ‘inspiration, uplift (of spirit), good mood’ in the Mongolian languages with lexical units that have a common root element ur-/ür-. The purpose of the study is to determine motivating factors that contribute to the nomination of such an emotional state as inspiration, and to identify a number of semantically interrelated adjacent lexical-semantic groups. Thus, the work presents an understanding of the phonetic and semantic correlation in words with the common root element ur-/ür-. It allows us to explain the sound sensory reaction in response to the internal feeling of rising strength and energy as a manifestation of psychophysiology through sound-descriptive nominations and as a transfer of feeling to the emotional sphere when nominating a particular phenomenon. The acoustic-articulatory peculiarities of the trembling sonant [r] (beat, energy, force, impulse, movement) have been motivating in the nomination of the physiological sensation of internal force and energy motion in the Mongolian languages. Lexicographic data from written Mongolian, Khalkha-Mongolian, Buryat and Kalmyk languages served as factual material for the study.

The author examines the Mongolian words derived from the stem urma- and the range of dictionary interpretations of key words presented in the Mongolian dictionaries, which verbalize such an emotional state of the subject as inspiration (strength, uplifting spirit, desire), illustrates word-formation series to convey a rich semantic palette of this state. The work also presents synonyms for the concept ‘inspiration’ with the sonant [r] in the root: WMo. sür ‘greatness; strength, power’; WMo. ǰoriγ ‘courage; strength of will; aspiration’, WMo. ǰirüken ‘heart; soul; courage, bravery’. The rise of internal forces as a factor of the sound-symbolic nature of the root consonant [r] has become the main one in the determining and description of lexical units, which by their sound-semantic form and content are interconnected and united into thematic groups: rise (growth, upward movement – ergü- ‘to raise (up) ‘; urγu- ‘to grow’; üre ‘seed’; orgi- ‘to hit with a spring’; orboyi- ‘to be disheveled, to puff up’, etc.), before (south, before, forward – uruγši ‘forward; to the south; success, luck’; urida ‘before, forward’), to be first (to get ahead – öris- ‘to get ahead, to warn’), their relationship with each other.

The article is devoted to identifying and analyzing speech behavior of mayors during a pandemic from the point of view of linguoculturology and intercultural communication. The aim of the article is to study the specifics of speech behavior of representatives of the executive branch in various linguocultures, to identify and systematize the features of mayor speech behavior based on the world’s largest megacities during the pandemic. To achieve the goal we turned to modern studies of political communication, both domestic and foreign, in particular: parliamentary discourse, government officer discourse (presidents, prime ministers), as well as public figure speech in the blogosphere. Studying the language strategies and tactics used by government officers reveals how they persuade people to follow rules and restrictions, explain complex concepts, and manage conflicts and contradictions. This study is focused on the problem of the mayor speech behavior; speeches of the mayors of London, Washington, and Moscow, in particular interviews, their video and text messages on municipal portals, personal pages, other information platforms (YouTube, VK, Telegram, TV news channels) are used as material. The novelty of this study lies in identifying and analyzing specific features of the mayors’ speech, which they recurrently use in their addressing the public. The study shows that the use of various linguistic means of expression by mayors contributes to the harmony between discourse and activation of certain emotions in listeners. Depending on the events in the political arena or city social sphere, mayors change their tone and use certain linguistic means to evoke sympathy or indignation with listeners. Moreover, the authors argue that speech behavior of mayors is, on the one hand, linked with cultural and social factors in their countries, and, on the other, is determined by the personality characteristics of the mayor himself/herself.

This article pursues a new direction in the study of the image of Russia in French-language graphic novels: their use of the Russian language itself. Two classes of Russian language use are considered: non-normative lexical borrowings (profanity) and speech formulas used to implement speech acts (mainly “oaths”) or their imitation in the form of disсourse markers. The study is based on 550 graphic novels (“comic books”) about Russia and/or Russians, written in France and Belgium from 1929 to 2023. This kind of profanity wasn’t particularly common – it was found only in 11.7% of the analyzed books. The role of profanity in these books, the degree to which the profanity conforms to the grammar of the Russian language, as well as its types and functions are all examined in this article. Profanity could be found in the form of Cyrillic letters (about 30% of the time) or in the form of a French transliteration (about 70% of the time). While transliterating, the authors tended to use “casual” transliterations, rather than systemic ones, in an attempt to better imitate the real pronunciation of Russian words. Spelling errors were common in the words written in Cyrillic. Profanity was translated only in 15.6% of contexts in which case the translations were placed either at the bottom of the panel or at the bottom of the page. Not all the words and expressions were used as insults or expressions of strong negative emotions; they could also be used to characterize a personage’s speech style. For the speech acts of oaths and curses, imitations of commonly used Russian words were used along with “Russian-adjacent” words: words invented by the author that differed from normative words in terms of their lexical content. Of particular interest were speech realizations of the “third actant” in the context of an “oath”: the witness or pledge that guarantees the honesty of the speaker. The article puts forward several hypotheses as to where the authors find Russian words and expressions, as well as to why they make frequent errors, particularly lexical and stylistic ones, while doing so. If the author does not speak Russian and does not consult a translator, they might use a specialized dictionary when looking for a translation of a non-standard lexeme into the French language. When using such a dictionary, the author often cannot be sure of the word’s suitability as an expletive or injective or of its lexical compatibility with other words, which can lead to errors.

The article studies the conceptual characteristics of Russia’s image formed in the non-institutional media of the People’s Republic of China through the representation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which fills a gap in Russian applied linguistics. The study develops? a cognitive-discursive approach to analyzing information impact and contributes to the theory of mass communication within which the formation and adjustment of events’ image is considered as a result of its conceptualisation, categorisation and interpretation in the recipient’s consciousness. The two main research methods were the quantitative density and qualitative content analysis, in which key words and collocations with them were studied; another one was a critical discourse analysis. A corpus of 480 media texts collected from the Chinese social network Zhihu was studied. Based on the description of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict obtained as a result of discourse analysis, potential changes in the conceptual image of Russia formed in the Chinese linguoculture have been modelled: negative – “an aggressive nation”, “an irresponsible country”, positive – “a fighter for justice”, “a pillar of traditionalism”. The results obtained can be used for prognostic purposes and for further study of the mechanisms of modelling the image of public institutions and the formation of public opinion in general.

The article is devoted to the problem of identifying verbal and non-verbal means of expressing emotions in an oral interview about military advertising. The study is relevant due to the increased attention of linguists to the emotional processes in language and speech, the topicality of military discourse, and the interdisciplinary approach to the study of the linguistic nature of emotions by means of interviewing and multichannel annotation. What makes the work novel is the lack of research on emotional behavior of Spanish speakers in their discussing military advertising. The goal of the paper is to identify verbal and non-verbal means of expressing emotions in oral Spanish-language discourse while discussing military advertising. The material for the work incorporates video recordings of a structured interview with respondents from Latin America that were required to watch a commercial for the Colombian Armed Forces and answer some questions related to the content of the video and the occupation of the soldier. Methodological tools were an interview and a method of multichannel text annotation in ELAN. Multichannel annotation was carried out by means of marking five vocal and non-vocal tiers –“Verbal component”, “Gestures”, “Eye movement”, “Facial expressions”, “Intonation” – with subsequent structuring of the obtained data. Thus, it has been found that the video and military service evoke predominantly negative emotions among respondents – indignation, anxiety, surprise and disappointment. Negative emotions towards the video (disappointment, surprise and indignation) at the verbal level were expressed by lexical units with the common meaning “simplicity/plainness”, metaphorical comparisons with the film, rhetorical questions and negative indefinite pronouns – all emphasizing the lack of content and excessive romanticization of the military sphere, also enhanced by various manual illustrator gestures to express negative emotions and focus on certain semantic segments. The military profession was described through lexical units with the common meaning “risk/danger” and “injury/death”; respondents apparently experienced indignation and anxiety; a reference was made to a precedent situation – the current military-political conflict between Russia and Ukraine represented on a non-verbal level by various illustrator and regulator gestures. The interviewees displayed a feeling of discomfort through adapter gestures, facial movements and intonation, as well as a reluctance to maintain visual contact with the interviewer. Multichannel annotation allowed us to conclude that non-verbal means of expressing emotions can change the connotative meaning of the verbal component of a statement, indicate its untruthfulness and a desire of the respondent to hide their real attitude to the subject of discussion. The prospect of the study is seen in attracting respondents of other age and social groups.

This article is devoted to the study of virtual onyms, in particular, the names of virtual assistants. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that virtual space language is a special linguistic and cultural system. New objects that appear, require identification. Proper names of virtual space (virtual assistants, chat bots, virtual agents) do not have a nominative function only. While giving names to virtual assistants, national and international companies try to make these names simple, memorable, unique, and special – with a certain cultural and national flavor. The purpose of our research is to analyze and make an attempt to classify the existing names of virtual assistants as well as clarify this type of terminology. The research material was the names of virtual assistants working in the Russian and foreign markets. The results obtained complement our understanding of the development of onomastics in virtual space. The paper confirms the idea that the names of virtual assistants are structural elements of the onomastic space of the virtual information environment. We have found that the names of voice assistants have a certain implicitness and often emphasize social and linguocultural uniqueness. One can also note the active use of the names of famous literary characters, exotisms, and neologisms. The theoretical significance of the study lies in enriching our knowledge of modern virtual onomastic space. The practical significance is in demonstrating the main trends in the naming of voice assistants, which may resonate with marketers and virtual assistant developers.

The article outlines lexical peculiarities of “Imperial Russian Geographic Society Notes” in their connection with extralinguistic factors. On the one hand, use of vocabulary in the magazine is in line with the tradition of describing territories in travel and geographical notes of the mid-19th century. On the other hand, this edition has the status of an official print body of the Russian Geographic Society, the activity of which completely met the interests of foreign and domestic policy of the Russian Empire. To get the correct results we divided the texts into three thematic categories: 1) description of domestic territories, 2) territories within the closest foreign interests, 3) exotic countries of potential interest in spreading the international influence in the future. The analysis demonstrate that each group of texts contains specific features of word use. The first group focuses on terminological vocabulary, providing a precise scientific description of territories, of special interest to authors are regional words helping to understand own national identity. These texts reflect the interest of educated society in the people’s language and vernacular words common for the epoch. A unique regional dictionary in one of the publications is quite indicative. The second group also demonstrates an active use of scientific terms, but the foundation of these texts is colloquial vocabulary with concrete meaning, making it possible to build up a tour guide for future expeditions, the word here becomes a means of creating a detailed description of the route. In the third group the word functions as a tool of cross-cultural communication, the word use largely corresponds to the tradition of travel literature; text-forming lexical resource includes exotisms accompanied by author’s comments. The innovation of the research lies firstly in the very address to the linguistic description of “Imperial Russian Geographic Society Notes”, and secondly, in combination of the historical approach to the vocabulary description and a historical and cultural aspect which is especially important for the work with such sources.