Contemporary Russian Language Research Articles

Men and Women in Marriage and Beyond: An Analysis of Phrase Usage in Media Texts

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the usage of phraseological units related to marriage in contemporary media texts. The material was extracted from the Russian National Corpus. The aim of the research is to identify the standard and new meanings and functions of phraseological units in this group in relation to the value orientations of contemporary Russian language speakers. The relevance of the study is determined by its linguistic-pragmatic and axiological orientation. The conducted analysis indicates that family continues to be a significant value for representatives of Russian linguistic culture. Society’s attitude towards the topic of marriage is traced within the framework of phraseological blocks, which depict (1) the position of men and women before entering into marriage, (2) within the marital union (this taxon is represented by the largest number of phraseological units), (3) outside of marriage. At the same time, expressions related to civil marriage also emerge in frequent positions. It is shown that euphemistic expressions for infidelity are more often associated with male actors. Media texts demonstrate the development of views on traditional roles of men and women, as well as the presence of non-traditional forms of marriage. Phraseology related to marriage is actively used metaphorically in relation to various spheres of societal life: politics, economy, sports, etc.

The Splendour and Misery of the Anthropological Crisis: a Myth of Contemporary Russian Philosophy

The concept of the anthropological crisis is very popular in contemporary Russian humanities: the Russian Scientific Electronic Library (Elibrary.ru) includes more than 10,000 publications with the keyword “anthropological crisis”. On the contrary, Google gives links to Russian publications only when searching “anthropological crisis”. This keyword has no reference in the famous online book catalogue Worldcat. org. Nowadays, English-speaking scientific communities still explore the crisis in anthropology as a discipline. The difference between the anthropological crisis and the crisis in anthropology seems essential. The crisis of a scientific discipline is not a crisis of human nature. Modern Russian scholars, including the late Vyacheslav Stepin, find many features of the anthropological crisis in the successes of genetic engineering and modern medicine, as well as in the growing psychological pressures that people face. Russian-language scholars find traits of the anthropological crisis in many fields, including studies of memory, bioethics, pedagogics, literature, and economics. Others, such as Vyacheslav Stepin and Boris Pruzhinin, point to the loss of a sense of meaning in life as a sign of the anthropological crisis. The problems of self-identity are also marked by Russian authors as a mark of that crisis. Sergey Averintsev felt that human beings lack human nature. Pruzhinin supposes humans cannot predict the consequences of genetic engineering for their nature as a species. But all these trends have nothing in common with the anthropological crisis. Genetic engineering helps to improve human health and self-realization. Certainly, we cannot envision all the possible consequences, but this is true of any scientific discovery or breakthrough. Cyborgs are an inevitable step towards healthier and smarter humans. Existential problems are universal since all humans are endowed with self-consciousness. Self-identities have been in constant flux since the birth of complex societies, especially since the industrial revolution strengthened alienation. The growth and volume of information flows are not threats to humans, as there is no need to memorize all the data in the world, and there are multiple network and personal filters which block garbage. The anthropological crisis seems a myth in contemporary Russian-language humanities in general and philosophy in particular.

Queer women of Kantemir Balagov: subjectivities in extreme contexts

ABSTRACT The discussion focuses on two films – Closeness (2017) and Beanpole (2019) – by Kantemir Balagov, and is concerned with interrogating the possibilities of queer-crip dynamic in contemporary Russian-language cinema. I argue that the queer-crip dynamic allows the film director to stage a critique of ableism and heteronormativity as part of the examination of power dynamics in Soviet and post-Soviet contexts. Balagov demonstrates that the heteronormative, cis-gender, able-bodied, white person of mainstream cultural identity dominates the discourse by placing oneself in charge of power relations. Balagov’s self-criticality permits a complex understanding of queer women as powerful individuals forming relationships through own agency. In his oeuvre, crip-queerness emerges in extreme contexts encompassing a range of tropes such as claustrophobia, punishment and strangulation, which are associated with sexual practices, on the one hand, and on the other, with the protest of the queer body against repressive social regimes. The discussion advances debates about crip-queerness in world cinemas by conceptualising the notions of queerness and extreme contexts, that is, contexts characterised by the extensive and intolerable magnitude of experience and its physical and emotional effects on individuals.

Наименование лиц по их роду жизнедеятельности в современной коммуникации (к вопросу о продуктивности и регулярности семантики и формы в словообразовании)

The names of person by activity kind and correlative forms of feminine gender are considering. In word-formation as unit realm in their analogic-individual connections, individuality of words by these connections is slackening, and regular, standard facts at head role move out. The means of expressing the word-formative meaning is not only the affix, but its combination with a certain circle of underlying stems. Typical properties don’t exist out of semantic connection with the individual properties, and the individual don’t dissolve in the typical. In Russian word-formation there are the regular systematic occurrences, and irregular nonsystematic ones. Systemic phenomena in a functioning language are interrupted by asystemic ones. The products of word-building activity are generated by certain mechanisms.
 On the other hand, word-building products undergo structural processing and are accepted or not accepted by the language system and communicative practice. All basic models of name of person by activity kind and nomination of gender accordance in contemporary Russian language, their place in the system of language is revealing.

Накануне юбилея: как Российская Федерация отметила столетие революции 1917 года

There are a lot of high-quality theoretical and concrete-historical studies in the modern Russian-language "revolutionary" historiography. The revolutionary events of 1917 constantly attracted the attention of historians and politicians. However, the official state position towards the revolution was sounded with caution and not entirely definitely in the Russian Federation. So, the “centenary” is a good occasion for analyzing the concepts and views proposed by the professional historical community in this social-political context. One of the most debated issues are common and opposite components of February and October, analysis of the relationship between the stages of the revolutionary process, periodization of the revolution. The paper considers the attitude to this complex of issues in the contemporary Russian-language historiography. The role and place of historical studies in the modern Russian reflection on the causes of revolution, its driving forces, progress and results are analyzed.

Интермедиальность как составляющая транзитивной картины мира в современной русскоязычной прозе

The aim of the study is to characterize the meaning-forming function of intermediality in the works of the modern Russian-language writers. The scientific novelty of the paper consists in the fact that the tech-niques of intermediality are considered as one of the ways of creating a transitive worldview in the novels of G. Yakhina, I. Abuzyarov and S. Yuzeyev. The author substantiates the idea that intermediality is found in the novels of the contemporary Russian-language writers in two forms: as transfiguration and transposi-tion, corresponding to the compositional and architectonical forms of interaction of the arts. G. Yakhina’s novels “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes” and “My Children” use cinematic narrative techniques (visualization of the narration, discontinuity of the plot and rapid change of locations in which the events developed). S. Yuseyev’s novel “Don’t Interrupt the Dead” are constructed by analogy with the musical genre of the sonata. As a result of the study, it has been found that the interconnection within one work of the languages of different art types (literature, music and film) demonstrates the transition of the margin between them and becomes the source of transitive meanings, determining the specificity of the construc-tion of the world image in the works.

Kuban State University: Russian Philology on the 45th Parallel

The article represents the history and modernity of philological scholarship in Kuban State University, the oldest university of classical education in the south of Russia, which has been preserving and developing the traditions in the sphere of education, science and social and educational activity since 1920. The authors describe the principal directions of philology development at the faculty: teaching Russian language and literature, academic research work in the field of literary studies, the history of Russian literature from its beginning up to present times, including literature of Russian expatriate community, literature of the peoples of Russia, literary regional studies, literary criticism, folklore studies, etc. One of the main directions of the research activities which the scholars have chosen is the search and comparison of the universal and nationally specific in the works of foreign and Russian poetry and prose. The problems of contemporary Russian language are discussed in the research and development project “Russian language potential”. The scholars of Kuban State University devote a lot of attention to studying Russian language from the perspective of psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, linguoculturology, cross-cultural communication, sociolinguistics, terminology studies, discourse theory. The leading idea of scholarly interests of professors and associate professors is the theme of “Linguoaxiology”, revealing a valuable component of Russian language unit and Russian discourse field. It’s necessary to point out that the research of linguistic and methodological basic training of Russian as а Foreign language/Russian as Non-Native language, the training of specialists in this field, questions of linguo-didactic testing in Krasnodar region are carried out only at the department of Russian as а Foreign language at the Kuban State University. The scholars deal with the description of the semantics of Russian language, study the regional cultural component of onomastics and problems of language policy. The development and teaching of Russian as а foreign language are also aimed at the perception of the uniqueness of Russian civilization. Russian philology on the 45th parallel is trying to preserve and develop the world of the Russian word, and the Russian world as a concept containing natural bounds of language, mentality and culture.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ СТРУКТУРЫ ЖИЛИЩНОГО ФОНДА В 15 РЕСПУБЛИКАХ СССР ПО ОСНОВНЫМ ФОРМАМ СОБСТВЕННОСТИ

The article considers the structure and dynamics of the housing stock in the 15 Republics of the USSR, subdivided by geographical location into five macroregions, based on a dataset compiled by the author from more than 120 statistical yearbooks of the USSR and the Union Republics. Employing such indicators as housing stock total floor space in urban settlements from 1960 to 1990, in rural areas and in the Republics overall from 1980 to 1990, we analysed the evolution of the ratio of the socialised housing stock, which included the state and public housing stock as well as the housing cooperatives’ stock, and the individually-owned housing stock that until recently has been often overlooked in the contemporary Russian-language literature devoted to the housing sector of the USSR. The article reveals that in nine out of 15 Union Republics the individually-owned housing stock prevailed by total floor space during the 1980s. And taking into account the housing stock of housing construction cooperatives, construction of 30 per cent of the housing stock of the RSFSR to 74 per cent of the housing stock in the Georgian SSR by the year of 1990 was financed by the population. The ratio of the socialised housing stock and the individually-owned one was affected by the proportion between the urban and rural housing stock, which, in turn, was determined by the level of urbanisation in the Union Republics.

Динамика языковой системы: корпусное исследование синхронной вариативности и диахронических изменений в текстах разных типов

This article presents the findings of a project exploring variation parameters of the contemporary Russian language and its diachronic changes causing synchronic variations. The key objective of this research is to conduct a series of studies embracing a broad range of contemporary Russian linguistic issues in morphology, syntax, lexical semantics, poetry analysis, sign language, etc. These studies all take the same approach to language, viewing it as a dynamic, unstable, and evolving system. All studies use massive corpus-based texts, specifically various sub-corpora of the Russian National Corpus, and employ modern quantitative corpus-based analysis methods.
 The three key research areas:
 1) morphological and syntactical variation in written texts;
 2) morphological and syntactical variation in various types of oral discourse;
 3) formal characteristics of Russian poetry and unique features of poetic text structure.
 The project’s practical goal is to develop and improve the Russian National Corpus as a linguistic research tool, including updating, tagging, search capacity analysis, and integrity assessment.

Common Usage vs Codified Standard: Problems with the Codification of Anglicisms in the Contemporary Russian Language

Common Usage vs Codified Standard: Problems with the Codification of Anglicisms in the Contemporary Russian Language This article focuses on the important problem of codification of the most recent borrowings of British and American English origins in the contemporary Russian language. Standardization of loanwords is a current issue of vital importance, as it has a global reach, which means that it affects not only the Russian language but many other national languages that are under the influence of the English language – the contemporary lingua franca. The codification of the lexis of foreign origin is examined based on material obtained from contemporary lifestyle maga­zines published in Russian. This type of press disseminates borrowed neologisms particularly intensively and, at the same time, creates the language use of the given discourse. The excerpted vocabulary items have been confronted with the lexis of the most recent Russian spelling dictionaries. The deliberations contained in this paper show a fragment of linguistic reality changing under the influence of ubiq­uitous English language, where common usage competes with the linguistic norm. The article shows the difficulties caused by lexical transfer of loanwords faced by specialists in prescriptive linguistics (e.g. a common problem of orthographic variation). Norma uzualna vs norma skodyfikowana. O problemach kodyfikacji anglicyzmów we współczesnym języku rosyjskim Niniejszy artykuł zwraca uwagę na istotny problem kodyfikacji najnowszych zapożyczeń anglo-amerykańskiej proweniencji we współczesnej ruszczyźnie. Temat standaryzacji zapożyczeń jest aktualny i niezwykle ważny, bowiem ma on zasięg globalny, zatem dotyczy nie tylko języka rosyjskiego, lecz wielu innych języków narodowych, które znajdują się pod wpływem angielszczyzny – współ­czesnej lingua franca. Badanie kodyfikacji leksyki obcego pochodzenia oparto na materiale zaczerpniętym z najnowszych rosyjskojęzycznych czasopism kolorowych typu life style. Ten rodzaj prasy szczególnie ochoczo rozpowszechnia zapoży­czone neologizmy, jednocześnie kreuje uzus danego dyskursu. Wyekscerpowany materiał porównano z leksyką zawartą w najnowszych słownikach ortograficznych języka rosyjskiego. Niniejsze rozważania dają obraz fragmentu rzeczywistości językowej zmieniającej się pod wpływem wszechobecnej angielszczyzny, w której uzus konkuruje z normą językową. Ponadto wskazano tu szereg problemów wywoływanych zapożyczeniami leksykalnymi, z którymi zmagają się specjaliści z obszaru językoznawstwa normatywnego (np. powszechny problem wariantywności ortograficznej zapożyczeń).

Emotions and attitudes in present day Russian through the prism of new words: Cultural semantics of zhest’ and related concepts

Contemporary Russian lexicon is characterized by rapid change which involves borrowings, the use of new words and expressions as well as the development of new meanings from the existing word forms. The new meanings are indicative of new attitudes or the reinforcement of the existing ones. In this context, the paper considers the recently emerged colloquial use of the word zhest’ (from the primary meaning of zhest’ ‘tin’ as a type of metal) and the increase of use of the words zhestkii ‘hard/tough/firm’ and zhestko ‘firmly/toughly’ as examples of ‘internal’ language processes. The word zhest’ is a colloquial word mainly used in youth slang, but also infiltrating other types of discourse. We analyze its use as an interjection, as well as a noun in predicative and attributive functions. Zhestkii and zhestko are shown to rise in use and to be prevalent in the political discourse as a sign of power. The paper aims to trace the rise in frequency of the words under the analysis, study their semantics and establish links between the meaning of the words and broader Russian cultural themes. This kind of linguistic analysis with focus on cultural aspects allows us to identify culturally prevalent ideas in present day Russian. The paper uses the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) as a method of semantic analysis relying on data from the Russian National Corpus. Based on a detailed semantic analysis, the paper proposes NSM explications of zhest’ , zhestkii and zhestko , identifies connections between their meanings and the cultural themes of ‘emotionality’, ‘not being in control’ and ‘strait talk’, and recognizes the increased cultural salience of these words in present day Russian. The study uncovers trends of the contemporary Russian language uses and can be applied in culture-enhanced language teaching and cross-cultural training.

Splendor and Misery of the Anthropological Crisis: A Myth of Contemporary Russian Philosophy

The concept of anthropological crisis is very popular in contemporary Russian humanities: the Russian Scientific Electronic Library, or Elibrary.ru, includes more than ten thousand publications with the keyword anthropological crisis. On the contrary, Google gives links to Russian publications only when one searches for anthropological crisis. This keyword has no reference in the famous online book catalogue Worldcat.org. Nowadays English-speaking scientific communities still explore the crisis in anthropology as a discipline. The difference between the anthropological crisis and the crisis in anthropology seems essential. The crisis of a scientific discipline is not a crisis of the human nature. The modern Russian academicians, including the late Vyacheslav Stepin, find many features of the anthropological crisis in the successes of genetic engineering and modern medicine as well as in the growing psychological pressures. Russian-language scholars find the traits of anthropological crisis in many fields, including studies of memory, bioethics, pedagogics, literature, and economics. The loss of the sense of life is often treated by Russian scholars, like Stepin and Boris Pruzhinin, as a trait of the anthropological crisis. The problems of self-identity are also marked by Russian authors as a mark of that crisis. Sergey Averintsev felt that human beings lack their human nature. Pruzhinin supposes humans cannot predict consequences of genetic engineering for their nature as a species. But all these trends have nothing in common with the anthropological crisis. Genetic engineering helps improving of sick human nature and self-realization. Certainly, all consequences are not open but there is no scientific discovery whose effects would be absolutely evident at once. Cyborgs are an inevitable step towards healthier and smarter humans. Existential problems are universal since the emergence of self-consciousness among the humans. Self-identities are in constant flux since the birth of complex societies, especially since the industrial revolution strengthened alienation. The growth and volume of information flows are not threats to humans as there is no necessity to memorize all the data in the world, and there are multiple network and personal filters which block garbage. The anthropological crisis seems a myth in contemporary Russian-language humanities in general and philosophy in particular.

Виртуальный мир новейшей русскоязычной драматургии

Contemporary Russian-language dramatic texts are both textual and intertextual. In recent years, virtual space has increasingly become the subject of works. The texts begin to resemble Internet creativity, describing not so much real interpersonal relationships as the activity of social networks users. Dramatic texts cease to be a representation of the real, extra-linguistic world, as well as an image of the culture associated with this world, but increasingly create a simulation of reality in virtual space. These processes are described based on the example of plays by young Russian-speaking authors: Valery Pieczejkin, tester 1998, Alexander Seredin, and Alexei Bytiucki. The works in question were presented to a wide audience during subsequent editions of the Festival of Young Drama “Lubimowka”.

Стилистические особенности и жанровые репрезентации религиозной лексики в современном русском языке

The article observes stylistic features and genre representations of religious vocabulary in contemporary Russian language. The study of the development of terminological systems in certain areas of knowledge and their role in the development of a language is one of the most important problems in modern linguistics. The solution to this problem is to study the great variety of sources of spiritual, academic, business, journalistic and other areas of human activity. Religious vocabulary is the richest layer of the Russian language. The study of the use of religious terminology in the functional styles of Russian makes it possible to clearly identify the psychological, categorical and subject meanings of this type of vocabulary in the system of indigenous language of Russians. The aim of this research is to study styles and genres in which religious lexemes are found in modern Russian. This is explained by the fact that language and religion are closely related. The influence of religion on language is an indisputable fact, because in every religion there is a number of lexemes that relate only to a particular faith. At the same time, some religious lexemes have become common and formed a part of the active vocabulary of Russians. That is why we observe the following situation in the Russian language: religious terms appear in all styles of speech.

Из наблюдений над способами выражения отрицания в церковнославянском тексте русского извода

The article describes the specificity of the changes that took place in the process of dissemination of double negation, typical for Slavic languages, visible in the Ruthenian recension of Church Slavonic texts. The reflections on the achievements in the field are enriched with the results of research on the text of Gospel No. 7 from the collection of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA F. 381. Op. 1 Unit hr 7), which has not been analyzed so far in terms of the issues raised. Nearly three hundred negative structures were subjected to observations. In order to determine the number of single negation cases in relation to double negation the main focus was on structures such as: (1) ni Pron + V, (2) ni Pron + ne V oraz (3) ne V + ni Pron. It was determined, among other things, that their use was influenced by both the literature tradition and live language with elements of the northern dialect of the East Slavonic. On the other hand, the analysis of the negative structures preceding homogeneous parts of the sentence revealed the tendency, manifested onthe leaves of the monument, to transform towards the norm of the contemporary Russian language.

Конфессиональная лексика в русском переводе энциклики папы Франциска Laudato si’ – пространство традиции и современности

The paper provides a study of religious lexis excerpted from the Russian translation of the encyclical letter Laudato si’. The Russian version of the encyclical was translated and published by Russian Franciscan Publishing House. The analyzed material consisting of single words, as well as compound multi-word expressions, related to the Catholic denomination (264 lexical items – 1000 uses, which accounts for 14% of the entire encyclical), was grouped into semantic fields. The vocabulary was described in terms of the semantics and its functioning and codification, both in the contemporary Russian religious language and in general Russian language. It was assumed that the encyclical is addressed not only to the representatives of the Church hierarchy but also to all the faithful. Hence, there was the need to draw attention to the pragmatic aspects of the religious language, including the balance between comprehensibility and the use of specialist theological terminology in the translated text. It was demonstrated that the majority of the lexical items of religious terminology is coded by the explanatory dictionary of the contemporary Russian language, except for 14 lexical items related to the Catholic denomination that enhance the lexis of the contemporaryRussian language.

Literature as a Source of Metaphorical Modeling in Russian Media Discourse

The goal of this article is to analyze the principles and methods of using the precedent semantics of literary onyms in the process of metaphorization of the high-profile international event Brexit in contemporary (2016–2021) Russian-language media discourse. The research material encompasses media discourse, from which fragments of online versions of Russian-language newspaper and journalistic texts of different genres and socio-political orientation have been selected. As an additional source of empirical material, the author uses the newspaper subcorpus of the national corpus of the Russian language, as well as the Russian-language subcorpus of the international databases Eastview and Aranea. In order to achieve the main goal of the research the author uses the method of continuous sampling, methods of corpus linguistics, methods of content analysis, as well as narrative and contextual analysis (of fragments of media discourse), linguocultural analysis of texts, methods of conceptual analysis and interpretation. Thanks to the use of methods of corpus linguistics, more than 400 contextual realizations of the use of precedent names in connotative metaphorical meaning (in connection with Brexit) have been collected and analyzed. The article presents only the most expressive and most common examples of metaphorization of precedent names when describing the discursive event of Brexit. On the basis of the analysis, the author concludes that the so-called universal-precedent phenomena (mainly of English but also European literature) prevail in the process of metaphorization compared to those of Russian literature, which are extremely rare. In the paper’s study, the author also focuses on the fact that precedent names in the process of metaphorization undergo desemanticization (simplification of the meaning) and become distinctive cultural stereotypes. Initial hypothesis that the intertextuality of the Russian media discourse has a pronounced literary-centric character is confirmed.

The types of truncated derivatives in contemporary Russian speech

This article studies a highly productive way of Russian word formation — truncation. This method of word formation, considered to be the "youngest", plays an important role in the contemporary compressive word formation. The purpose of this article lies in identifying new trends in the area of truncation in the Russian speech of the early 21st century. The author reveals the structural types of truncation and determines their relationship in the contemporary Russian language. The largest group of truncated derivatives includes personal nouns; there are also other new subject groups of the truncated units noted. The results show that truncation in modern Russian speech is becoming more widespread than before and it begins to extend to other parts of speech besides nouns. The author pays attention to the interaction of truncation with the suffixation characteristic of contemporary Russian speech. The derivatives, formed by truncation, are different from univerbated nouns, which are formally attributed by adjectives, which are part of the substantive word formation; thus, a criterion for differentiating truncated univerbated words seems in order. The material for analysis includes modern fiction, texts from mass media, and oral recordings. Using them has helped in revealing the dynamics of truncation processes.

The dynamic processes in the parts of speech in the contemporary Russian language

This article examines dynamic morphological processes – the transformation of the parts of speech (namely, attributive verbal forms and verbal nouns), as well as the syncretic cases of zero derivation on the example of young people’s speech. The author has employed the traditional complex method of analyzing the language material, which in turn has used the system of instrumental operations (synonymous rephrasing, downsizing, and opposition method; the latter allows examining the system connections of a word and their influence on the semantics of a word form), oriented towards developing the categorial value; the logico-syntactic and syntagmatic methods aided in determining the grammatical signs of language units. Using as an example the youth jargon, represented in the Dictionary of Colloquial Speech of the City of Arkhangelsk, this article shows the mechanism for transpositioning different word groups into interjections, where several lexem subgroups of the syncretic type function; in addition, the author identifies the basic directions for the different parts of speech transitioning turning into the evaluative vocabulary.

The dynamics of the spelling standards of the modern Russian language and the educational process

This article studies two aspects of the changing orthographical norms of the contemporary Russian language: the linguistic one, which shows how the dynamics of the usual and codified orthographical norms are manifested, and the methodical one — how teaching methods should reflect the living language processes. The author proposes four directions for improving the content of the school course of the Russian language, conditioned by the changes in the codified norms: 1) expanding the studied language material with new words with a settled spelling norm and already fixed in the Russian language; 2) clarifying the rules’ formulations and updating the list of exceptions following the academic rules; 3) calculating the recodification, inevitable for the living language; 4) improving the lexicographical literacy, in particular, the knowledge of academic orthographical dictionaries. The author concludes that the method of teaching spelling in schools should rely on recognizing the school education as a factor in the functioning of the writing system. Teaching writing, if it follows the contemporary codification policy, supports the traditional system of Russian writing; it also contributes both to strengthening the system properties of orthography and to stabilizing the unstable sections of the orthographical system.