Young Scholars Conference“Slavic World: Community and Diversity”. Moscow, 21–22 May 2024. Section “Linguistics”

The annual conference “Slavic World: Community and Diversity” is a good platform for young researchers from different universities and research centers, both domestic and foreign, where they can share their scholarly achievements with colleagues and talk about their own vision of a particular problem related to the study of the diversity of the Slavic world. The work of the “Linguistics” section was divided into four thematic blocks: “Translation and interlanguage equivalence in Slavic languages”, “Slavic languages in the past and present”, “Language and traditional culture”, and “The language of texts of the Middle Ages and Modern times”. Young scholars from Moscow (Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences; Vinogradov Russian Language Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences; Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian State University for the Humanities), St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg State University), Sofia (Andreichin Bulgarian Language Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), and Helsinki (University of Helsinki) spoke at the conference. The subsections were moderated by researchers from the Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences: Sergej A. Borisov, Mikhail N. Saenko, Maria V. Yasinskaya, and Gleb P. Pilipenko. Almost every report was accompanied by a discussion, during which the audience gave the authors advice, recommended certain additions, and suggested possible directions for further research.

This study focuses on whether the metaphors of visual perception are really as universal as has been argued in the literature as research in non-Western languages has demonstrated that the metaphors are not universal. Thus, this study aims at unraveling the conceptual metaphors underlying the linguistic expressions of the Arabic verb of visual perception ىأر (ra’a) in fiction writing. This study adopts a qualitative approach and is situated within the field of cognitive semantics. A corpus of Arabic fiction writing, comprising 1 million words, between the period of 2010 and 2017 was compiled from different sources. Specifically, a sample consisting of 1,000 examples of the Arabic verb of visual perception ىأر was randomly extracted from the corpus using Ghawwas_V4.6 concordancer. The metaphor identification procedures (MIPs) were used to identify the metaphorical linguistic expressions in the corpus, and Lakoff and Johnson’s and Sweetser’s analytical frameworks were adopted for data analysis. The data analysis revealed many conceptual metaphors of knowledge and understanding underlying the metaphorical linguistic expression of the verb ىأر in Arabic. The findings of this study support Sweetser’s claim regarding the universality of conceptual metaphors related to the verbs of visual perception in motivating metaphors of knowledge and intellection. Thus, this study contributes to the literature on verbs of perception, particularly verbs of visual perception, as it is the first to address the conceptual metaphors underlying the verb ىأر in Arabic using real authentic corpus of fiction writing.

This article explores the verbs of visual perception which express the assessment of the object of visual perception in English and Russian languages. The verbs are compared from the point of semantics and lexis. The article presents the examples of usage of such verbs and their analysis. Each of these characteristics includes other sub-characteristics. Between the Russian and English verbs of visual perception, there are, of course, differences in the intensity of the formation of individual characteristics of a person, which we talked about during the analysis, but the main frame of these characteristics is common.

The study aims at unraveling the conceptual metaphor underlying the English verb of visual perception see in fiction writing. It has two research questions: 1) What are the conceptual metaphors underlying the linguistic expressions of the English verb of visual perception see in fiction writing and 2) What are the theoretical implications of MIND-AS-BODY theory on the motivation of conceptual metaphors underlying the English verb of visual perception see. This study adopts a qualitative approach and is situated within the field of cognitive semantics. A corpus of English fiction writing between the period of 2010 and 2017 was compiled from different sources comprising one million words. Specifically, a sample consisting of 1,000 examples of the English verb of visual perception see was randomly extracted from the corpus using the AntConc 3.5.0 concordancer. The Metaphor Identification Procedures (MIP) were used to identify the metaphorical linguistic expressions in the corpus, and Lakoff and Johnson's (2003) as well as Sweetser's (1990) analytical frameworks were adopted for data analysis. The data analysis revealed various conceptual metaphors underlying the English verb see. These conceptual metaphors are related to the domains of knowledge, intellections, and understanding which support Sweetser's claim regarding the primacy of vision in motivating metaphors of cognition in human speech and thought. Thus, this study contributes to the literature on verbs of perception, particularly verbs of visual perception, as it is the first to address the conceptual metaphors underlying the verb see in English using a real authentic corpus of fiction writing.

This year, young scientists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Smolensk, and Regensburg (Germany) took part in the Linguistics section of the conference. The reports were divided into three thematic blocks. The first block was devoted to the connection between the past and the present in modern Slavic languages. The reports touched upon the issues of lexicology, morphology, and syntax of the Russian language in comparison with other Slavic languages, the results of corpus studies of the grammar of modern Slavic languages, and special attention was paid to sociolinguistic research in Slavic national minorities. During the second session of the “Linguistics” section, topical problems of ethnolinguistics were discussed. The vast geography of the research conducted by young scientists involved in the study of traditional culture included the Saratov region of Russia, Serbia, Macedonia, and China. The third thematic block of reports was devoted to studies of printed and handwritten monuments of Slavic writing, as well as texts in modern Slavic languages. Reports were presented in which the glosses in the monuments of the 17th century were analysed, a classification of ancient Russian toponyms was proposed, and the linguistic means of expressing the national idea in a Polish play of the early 20th century were studied. The moderators of the subsections were employees of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who are experts in each of the designated topics. Scientific communication took place between young scientists, and many presentations were accompanied by lengthy discussions, in which not only the speakers themselves, but also their senior colleagues participated. Some of the speakers take part in the conference every year, while others presented the results of their research within the walls of the Institute for the first time, which indicates the relevance of this conference.

The article deals with Russian-language narratives produced by bilingual children aged 4–6 year, living in Kyrgyzstan and speaking both Russian and Kyrgyz languages. Children are developing in the situation of «mixed bilingualism», with Russian as a dominant language. Narratives were collected using the MAIN experimental tool, which includes several sets of pictures for telling/retelling stories, standard texts for retellings, and tables for evaluating speaking skills. In the article we consider the features of macro- and microstructure of narratives. The macrostructural characteristics of the text are i.e. the completeness of the story itself, coherence, story logic, verbal expression of the internal states of the characters. All our informants were able to create a complete outline of the story, mentioning all the main episodes and involving all the main characters. The children, however, mainly paid attention to the actually performed, really visible actions of the characters (story elements “attempt” and “result of the action”) and less often expressed verbally internal motives, goals, and intentions. As for the internal states, the children mainly described specific actions that they were able to understand unambiguously (ex., they used the verbs of visual perception, mental actions and speech). They described emotions and physical states more rarely. Characteristics of the microstructure include the length of the text and the utterance, lexical and grammatical correctness of speech, syntactic complexity, and lexical diversity. In the microstructure, no significant differences were revealed between children of different age groups: children aged 5 years old, in general, coped with generating narratives more successfully than children aged 4 and 6 years old. The errors mostly belong to the lexical and grammatical levels of the language system: the most common errors are caused by the use of strategies that facilitate language acquisition and are typical either for both bilingual and monolingual children (strategies of simplification and overgeneralization) or those who acquire a second language (grammatical transfer from the first language).

Background: One of the least researched periods of Bulgarian-Ukrainian intercul-tural dialogue is late Middle Ages period. It is explained by the low number of sources and their fragmented character, and mainly by incomplete methodology of their pro-cessing, lack of respective conceptual approaches, which are still applied, despite seri-ous criticism. In the second part of the 20th century Ukrainian Slavic Studies, being under mo-nopoly influence of the Russian historiographic patterns, fully accepted the concept of the “second South Slavic influence”, artificially adapting it to the Ukrainian late Middle Ages history. Definitely it was not beneficial for it as self-sufficient processes of reli-gious and cultural relations of Ukraine-Rus with Bulgaria of the 14th–15th centuries were narrowed down only to one abstract phenomenon, which main recipient undoubt-edly was Moscow. Purpose: Modern Ukrainian researchers continue using the term “second South Slavic influence”, and this automatically makes their texts not only a bit terminologically vague, but often retranslates outdated historiographic patterns with clearly expressed myth-making elements. To finally neutralize the afore-mentioned tendency, one should refer back to the origins of our national historiography that includes alternative interpre-tations of cultural relations of Ukraine-Rus with Bulgaria and other South Slavic coun-tries in the late Middle Ages period. Their subsequent analysis is the man objective of this article. Results: Ukrainian scholars of the 19th – first quarter of the 20th century rigorous-ly studied all the aspects of Bulgarian-Ukrainian relations of the late Middle Ages peri-od known at that time. I. Franko and М. Hrushevsky contributed to these studies the most, and some of their opinions are based both on the in-depth knowledge of Ukraini-an and Bulgarian cultural and religious life, and the results of comparative analysis of the respective book and literary monuments, therefore they are still scientifically topical. At the same time, materials of all these studies, irrespective of their scientific value, is an inseparable part of Ukrainian Slavic researchers’ knowledge about the place of their cul-tural heritage within the system of interslavic relations of ancient times. Key words: Bulgaria, Ukraine-Rus, cultural relations, “second South Slavic influ-ence”, the late Middle Ages, Ukrainian Slavic Studies. Dashkevich, N., 1904. Several facts on Rus’ communication with South Slavs in Lith-uanian-Polish period of its history, including dumas. Kievan Anthology dedicated to Т. D. Florinsky. Kiev, pp.117–137. (In Russian) Franko, I. Ya., 1981. Collection of works. In 50 volumes, 30. Kyyiv: Naukova dumka. (In Ukrainian) Franko, I. Ya., 1984. Collection of works. In 50 volumes, 41. Kyyiv: Naukova dumka. (In Ukrainian) Franko, I., 1899. Apocrypha and legends from Ukrainian manuscripts. The Monu-ments of the Ukrainian-Russian Language and Literature, 2. L"viv. (In Ukrainian) Franko, I., 1913. Studies of the Ukrainian Folk Sngs, 1 L"viv. (In Ukrainian) Hnatyuk, V., 1906. Relations of Ukrainians with Serbs. Collection of scientific articles dedicated to Prof. Mykhailo Hrushevsky by his students and supporters to celebrate the 10th anniversary of His scientific activitiy in Halychyna (1894–1904). L"viv, pp.373–408. (In Ukrainian) Hojnackіj, A., 1873. Life and activity of the hierarch Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev and Moscow in Volyn region. Volyn Eparchial Journal. Unofficial Section, 14, с.497–503. (In Russian) Hrushevs"kyj, M. S., 1992. From the history of religious thought in Ukraine. Kyyiv: Osvita. (In Ukrainian) Hrushevs"kyj, M. S., 1994. History of Ukraine-Rus' : vols. 1–10 (in 12 books), 5–6. Kyyiv: Naukova dumka. (In Ukrainian) Hrushevs"kyj, M. S., 1995. History of Ukrainian literature, 5/1. Kyyiv: Lybid. (In Ukrainian) Hryhorash, N., 2007. Ukrainian Literary Bulgarian Studies of the 19th – middle of the 20th century: schools and personalities. Veliko T"rnovo: Universitetsko izdatelstvo “Sv. sv. Kiril i Metodij”. (Іn Bulgarian) Kaluzhnjackij, E. І., 1878. Overview of Slavic-Russian monuments of language and writing, kept in Lvov libraries and archives. Proceedings of the Third Archeological Congress in Russia, held in Kiev in August of 1874, 2, pp.213–321. (In Russian) Kryzhanovskіj, G., 1886. Kamianets-Strumilov tetro-Gospel of 1411 and Volyn dialect in the 14th–15th centuries. Volyn Eparchial Journal. Unofficial Section, 17, pp.502–509; 18, pp.531–543. (In Russian) Lihachev, D. S., 1958. Certain tasks of studying the second South Slavic influence in Russia. Moskva: Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. (In Russian) Myshanych, S. V., 1974. Comparative study of the epic literature of the Ukrainian and South Slavic peoples. Folklore and Ethnography, 4, pp.24–37. (In Ukrainian) Rybinskij, V., 1891. Kiev Metropolitan Cathedral from the half of the 13th to the end of the 16th century. Kіev": Tipografіja G. T. Korchak"-Novickago. (In Russian) Shchepkin, V. N., 1967. Russian paleography. Moskva: Nauka. (In Russian) Shhurat, V., 1895. The Monk’s Republic in the Mount Athos. L"viv: Publishing house of the Scientific Association Shevchenko. (In Ukrainian) Sobolevskij, A. I., 1894. South Slavic influence on the Russian language and writing in the 14th–15th centuries. Report, delivered at the annual event of the Archeological Insti-tute on March 8, 1894. Sankt-Peterburg: Tipografija M. Merkusheva. (In Russian) Sohan', P. S., 1976. Outline of history of Ukrainian-Bulgarian relations. Kiev: Naukova dumka. (In Russian) Stepovyk, D. V., 1975. Ukrainian-Bulgarian art relations. Kyyiv: Naukova dumka. (In Ukrainian) Svyencicz`ky`j, I., 1922. Decoration of Manuscripts of Galician Ukraine XVI-го віку, 1–3. Zhovkva: Ex officina Monasterii O. s. Basilii Magni. (In Ukrainian) Venelin, Ju., 1835. On Folk Songs of Transdanube Slavs. Moskva: Tipografija N. Stepanova. (In Russian) Worth, D., 1983. The so called “second South Slavic influence” in the history of Russian literary language. 9th International Congress of Slavis Studies Scholars (Kiev, September 1983). Abstracts of reports and articles. Moskva, рр.222–223. (In Russian) Wozniak, M., 1992. History of Ukrainian literature: In 2 books. L"viv: Svit. (In Ukrainian) Zhukovskaja, L. P., 1987. Greek influence and archiazation of the Russian language of the second half of the 15th – first half of the 16th centuries (On the falseness of the notion “second South Slavic influence”). Old Russian literary language in its relation to the Old Slavic language, pp.144–176. (In Russian)

The paper is a review that examines the semantic and syntactic analysis of verbs of visual perception in standard Serbian and standard Slovenian presented by Željko Marković in the monograph entitled Verbs of Visual Perception in Serbian and Slovenian: A Contrastive Semantic-Syntactic Analysis. The monograph was published in 2023 by the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. The study investigates the semantic and syntactic properties of verbs of visual perception in Serbian and Slovenian from the perspective of contrastive linguistics. The author introduces the situation analysis of the perception act, which determines the properties relevant to the semantic description of this lexical semantic field of the verbs, and also investigates their predicate-argument structure.

This article introduces the verbs, which define cognitive processes. Cognitive activity begins with sensation and perception; there are also visual, auditory and other perceptions. The object of this study is the verbs of visual perception and its representation in the verb system of the Tatar language. In the Tatar language, there function a number of verbs, verb expressions, phraseological units that reflect various nuances of visual perception. The relevance of the topic lies in the fact that the functional-semantic, structural-derivational features of the verbs of visual perception, which make up a significant part of the lexical structure of the Tatar language, have not been studied. The study of semantic and word-formation peculiarities contributes to the most complete and comprehensive analysis of the lexical composition of the Tatar language. The conclusions made during the study are important for the construction of interpretations of the verbs of vision, for the integral description of the grammar. Students and teachers of the Tatar language can use the material presented in the classroom. The article provides all the meanings and nuances of the verbs of visual perception, which especially increases the threshold of difficulty in adequate perception and learning process of this material in the course of teaching the Tatar language as a foreign language. The results can be applied to the development of linguodidactic manuals, dictionaries and reference books for effective teaching of the Tatar language.

Српски глагол угледати и његови словеначки еквиваленти представници су експеријенталне групе глагола визуелне перцепције. Глагол угледати и словеначке еквиваленте карактеришу обележја ситуационе темпоралне структуре по којима се њима означене ситуације сврставају у ситуациони тип теличког догађаја, као и обавезно присуство аргумента перцептивног објекта кодираног у слободном акузативу. Ови глаголи блиски су по свом семантичком садржају глаголу видети када се овим реферише о тренутном опажању неког ентитета. Типичне ситуације означене глаголом угледати и словеначким еквивалентима често укључују неке промене у просторним релацијама које омогућавају улазак ентитета у улози перцептивног објекта у перципијентово визуелно поље.

Whenever leading Slovene intellectuals were in the position todecide about a large-scale solution to the literary language question,there was to be a fierce debate for several years, with the minimalist view eventually prevailing. Representatives of three differently motivated movements, the Reformation, Illyrism and Neo-Illyrism, tried to restore the linguistic unity among the South Slavs (mostly excluding the Bulgarians from the start). Accordingly, the literary language for all South Slavs was to be based either on one of the regional dialects, aiming for a wider reading public in order to spread the reformation doctrine also among the uneducated, or it was to be the language of sophisticated literature, based on lexical and morphological featurescommon to most South Slavic dialects, in order to create a nation by creating a national literature for all South Slavs (or, sometimes even wider, for all Slavs). In the third period, in the Neo-Illyrist movement, the idea was to create a common literary language for the useof all inhabitants of a Yugoslav state after the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy: the identification of its citizens with their state was to be strengthened by linguistic unity. The Slovenian clergy's, writers' and intellectuals' attitudes towards suggestions for a common South Slavic literary language, the topic of discussion in the present paper, appear to be mostly rather skeptical than friendly, and, while there were among the Slovenes men like Sebastian Krelj in the 16th, Stanko Vraz and Matija Majar-Ziljski in the 19th and Fran Ilešič in the20th century, who played the parts of protagonists of a wider concept of literary language, fusing the Slovene and the Croatian dialectal basis, there were others who took a minimalist point of view at least as decidedly, accepting nothing outside the Slovene dialects as a basis for a literary language used by Slovenes. The best known among themwere Primus Truber, Jernej Kopitar, France Prešeren and Ivan Cankar, and it was their minimalist notion of the Slovene literary language that each time prevailed in the end. Now, at the end of the 20th century, the Slovene literary language is, for the first time in history, on its way towards validity in all fields of private and public life in the Republic of Slovenia.

The conference was attended by young scholars from Moscow (Russian State University for the Humanities, Russian State University named after A. N. Kosygin, Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences), Kaliningrad (IKBFU named after I. Kant), Nizhny Novgorod (N. I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod) Rostov-on-Don (Southern Federal University). The first session was devoted to examinations of Slavic literatures from the point of view of poetics. Within this framework three reports with a Polish theme were presented – the speakers addressed the works of B. Schulz and the works of the modern Polish author O. Tokarczuk; the focus of two speakers was on the works of the Czech classic socialist realist V. Řežač, as well as the modern poet R. Mały; one report was devoted to the Serbian poet J. Dučić. The second session included presentations on literary and cultural issues. Such topics as the formation and use of the Russian-Bulgarian parallel corpus of texts, allusions to the works of B. Okudzhava in the novel of the Serbian writer V. Ognenović, a comparative and contrastive analysis of the theme of death in the works of B. Milkovich and F. K. Sologub, the theme of tea in Czech travelogues about the USSR in the 1920s, the reflection of Soviet cinema of the 1920s–30s in the journalism of the Czech writer J. Weil. The subsections were moderated by employees of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specialists in Slavic literatures. Meeting participants and moderators actively engaged in scholarly dialogue, identified problematic issues, and outlined further prospects for research. In addition to the speakers who take part in the conference every year, new participants joined the conference this year, which indicates the continuing relevance of this regularly held scientific event.

Young scholars from Moscow (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian State University for the Humanities, A.N. Kosygin Russian State University, Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences), Kaliningrad (Immanuel Kant IKBFU), St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg State University, Russian National Library) and Nizhny Novgorod (N. I. Lobachevsky Nizhny Novgorod State University) and from Poland (Bialystok State University) attended the conference. During the first session, Slavic literature was examined from the point of view of poetics and intertextual connections based on the material of Slovenian (short prose of I. Cankar), Czech (drama by V. Havel), Polish (poetry of A. Mickiewicz), as well as Serbo-Croatian (the anthem of the former Yugoslavia) literature; the second meeting combined reports with literary and philosophical issues, examining Polish (J. Iwaszkiewicz, Ch. Milosz), Czech (R. Maly), Bulgarian (V. Paskov) and Macedonian (M. Andreevsky) literature; the focus of the third session was the types of Russian-Slavic literary connections using Russian-Czech examples (correspondence be-tween A.N. Pypin and E. Krasnogorskaya, comparison of the activities of F.L. Chelakovsky and A.S. Pushkin, Russian echoes of the drama R.U.R. by K. Capek), as well as Russian-Balkan materials (translations of J. Dučić’s poetry, echoes of the Balkan vampire theme in Russia in the XIXth century); the fourth meeting was dedicated to the problems of studying modern Slavic literatures, the participants turned to Czech (M. Urban, S. Beeler), Slovak (P. Vilikovsky) and Bulgarian (T. Dimova) literatures. The subsections were moderated by employees of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specialists in Slavic literatures. Meeting participants and moderators actively engaged in scientific dialogue, identified problematic issues, and outlined further prospects for research. In addition to the speakers who took part in the conference every year, new participants joined the conference this year, which indicates the relevance of this regularly held scientific event.

The Young Scholars Conference at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, has been held since 2014. In 2020, the organisers had to change the previous timing of the event –it had previously been timed to correspond with the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture (May 24th), but for the first time it was not held in May but in October. The format of the Conference was also changed: the participants made their presentations remotely on the ZOOM platform. As usual, there were three broad topic areas: “History”, “Linguistics”, and “Literary Studies. The History of Culture”. The wide geographical coverage of the participants should be mentioned. This year, young scholars from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Kirov, Rostov-on-don, Chisinau (Moldova), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Macerata (Italy), and Minsk (Belarus) presented their research. Historians discussed many issues, including the problems of governance and modernisation in multinational states, memory policy in Slavic countries, and the role of parties and public organisations in overcoming crises. The section “Literary Studies. The History of Culture” focused on the reception and translation of works in Slavic languages and the problems of poetics in literature and cinema. Linguists paid attention to issues surrounding the grammar of modern Slavic languages, dialectology, and paleoslavistics. Moderators’ comments made the Conference, as usual, a kind of “school” for the young researchers. The conference proceedings have been published.

The Young Scholars Conference at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, has been held since 2014. In 2020, the organisers had to change the previous timing of the event –it had previously been timed to correspond with the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture (May 24th), but for the first time it was not held in May but in October. The format of the Conference was also changed: the participants made their presentations remotely on the ZOOM platform. As usual, there were three broad topic areas: “History”, “Linguistics”, and “Literary Studies. The History of Culture”. The wide geographical coverage of the participants should be mentioned. This year, young scholars from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Kirov, Rostov-on-don, Chisinau (Moldova), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Macerata (Italy), and Minsk (Belarus) presented their research. Historians discussed many issues, including the problems of governance and modernisation in multinational states, memory policy in Slavic countries, and the role of parties and public organisations in overcoming crises. The section “Literary Studies. The History of Culture” focused on the reception and translation of works in Slavic languages and the problems of poetics in literature and cinema. Linguists paid attention to issues surrounding the grammar of modern Slavic languages, dialectology, and paleoslavistics. Moderators’ comments made the Conference, as usual, a kind of “school” for the young researchers. The conference proceedings have been published.