Foreign Reality Research Articles

“…Someday the Motherland will Remember with Kindness”: The Fate of Siberian Emigrant Merchants in Northern Manchuria (1920–1930s)

On the basis of diverse sources, the personal composition of Siberian merchants who found themselves in forced emigration in different parts of the world after the events of 1917 and the Civil War that followed them has been revealed and for the first time presented as fully as possible. Information about their life in the 1920s and 1930s has been analyzed. Special attention has been paid to outstanding representatives of the Siberian business world: I. V. Kulaev, M. A. Novomeisky, S. V. Vostrotin, as well as the most numerous community of Siberian merchants-emigrants formed on the territory of Northern Manchuria — primarily in Harbin. The spheres of their professional activity are considered, in particular, attempts to realize themselves in trade, industry, shipping. Information about commercial and industrial establishments owned by former Siberian merchants has been summarized. The article describes poor financial situation of many of them in the 1930s, difficulties that the younger generation of emigrants, whose parents were once related to the merchant environment of Siberia, had to face. Among the factors that negatively affected the lives of Siberian merchants who found themselves in a foreign land there were partial or complete loss of capital, an influx of refugees, uncertainty of legal status, difficult political situation, the economic crisis that broke out in the late 1920s — early 1930s. The conclusion has been made that in the current conditions, the most successful emigrants were old-timers and those who had previously been abroad — they knew foreign realities well, worked with local markets, owned money accounts and estate outside Russia, had acquaintances and specific plans for the development of their entrepreneurship.

ECOLINGUISTICS OF TEACHING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AS A LANGUAGE OF INTERETHNIC COMMUNICATION

The article outlines the ecolinguistic principles and strategies of teaching a foreign language as a language of interethnic communication. The ecolinguistic approach assumes that teaching a foreign language as a language of interethnic communication should promote communication around the world, without violating the original linguistic traditions of nations, nationalities and ethnic groups, provide linguistic and cultural diversity, a culturally rich, but united world. In this regard, a foreign language is also intended to serve the needs of host cultures, to preserve and emphasize their uniqueness. As a language of international communication, a foreign language is seen not as a full-fledged linguoculturally filled language, but as a code for the transmission of personal and national linguoculturally conditioned messages. This kind of code should adapt to the needs and requirements of the world community, borrowing designations with appropriate meanings from national languages, and not vice versa. Rather than level cultures and civilizations, we see its role as reflecting their diversity. Ecolinguistic strategies for teaching a foreign language as a language of interethnic communication proposed, in line with which it is deemed desirable for foreign language curricula to represent: 1) to the maximum — global issues, world heritage, history/modernity/future, 2) extensively — modernity, history, culture of host cultures, 3) to a moderate degree — modernity, history, culture of the country of a foreign language (10–20 % of the educational material). When teaching a foreign language, traditional language pedagogy is preferred, the linguocultural method combined with immersion are deemed not quite ecolinguistic because of foreign acculturation. It is welcome though when teaching the national/native language to create a strong cultural identity (inculturation) and immunity to foreignization. In TEFL, immersion can be used, but without acculturation. Excessive branding of foreign realities and personalities as part of foreign acculturation is not believed to be sustainable. Foreign language textbooks should be politically correct and tolerant, especially with regard to facts, history, values, personalities of the host culture; traditional moral and ideological conclusions should ensue from the texts. The national/native language should be used as a rightful metalanguage of explanation when comparing cultural phenomena. It is advisable to write and publish foreign language textbooks by the authors of the host culture.

Kompetencja międzykulturowa a umiejętność sporządzenia dokumentów aplikacyjnych (na materiale języka niemieckiego)

On the job market today, people with a (very) good knowledge of a foreign language, such as German, are in demand. Candidates are required to submit their application documents in this language. Unfortunately, having grammatical correctness and a rich vocabulary are not enough to write a job application and a CV. In order to prepare these documents correctly, it is necessary to know the differences between one’s own and the other culture, in this case the culture of German-speaking countries. The aim of this paper is to present the findings of an exploratory study examining errors students made naming and expressing selected elements of the non-lingual reality that represent a specific kind of reflection of new and often foreign realities in covering letters and CVs. Due to the limited framework of this paper, it is focused on intercultural aspects. While these seem to be very simple, they may cause difficulties because of the characteristic way they are presented in the acquired language, such as the use of courtesy rules, the recording of the date, giving of personal data, writing about foreign languages skills or providing information about a driving licence.

Język w czasach globalizacji/ Language in the age of globalization

The article focuses on the relationship between globalization and language in the modern world. In the theoretical part of the paper the author explains the concepts of globalization and westernization before discussing the definition of the lexeme globalization in English, Polish and Russian. In the practical part, such words as mall, strip mall, food hall, food mall, food court, droguerie, discount store are analyzed. Assimilation processes and the registration of new lexis in dictionary sources (are used to) demonstrate the mechanism of the impact of progressing globalization processes on the language – the gradual transition from foreign realities and an unknown word to the assimilation of these realities together with the names. The dynamic changes in the language system are caused by the dynamic changes that the modern world is undergoing. The analysis is conducted on material from English, Polish, Russian and – partly – Ukrainian.

A Comparative Analysis of the Language of Chinese and Foreign Reality Show Hosts

A Comparative Analysis of the Language of Chinese and Foreign Reality Show Hosts

EDUCATION QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN THE COMPREHENSIVE COMPLEX BY MEANS OF INSTITUTIONAL AUDIT

The article substantiates the need and features of education quality management in the comprehensive complex fulfilled by means of institutional audit. It describes the system of education in Ukraine and shows the main elements that provide stable effective development of relations aimed at rendering educational services therein. It outlines the concept of institutional audit and advantages of its application in modern realities. It presents the practical experience of using institutional audit abroad and proves the possibilities of its implementation in Ukraine. As concerns the implementation of institutional audit, the attention is focused on the Norwegian, Belgian and Czech systems of education. The arguments are provided for the necessity in education quality management through institutional audit, based on the need of educational sphere transition to a new format of interaction. The article presents the trends enabling to characterize the public administrative impact of institutional audit on the functioning of educational institutions, taking into account the positive experience of developed European countries. It defines the trends of educational sphere advancement and the place of institutional audit in this process. According to the conclusion reached in the article, institutional audit shall be implemented in the educational sector on basis of the complex approach by considering both foreign experience and Ukrainian realities. The methods used in the research were as follows: general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction methods, as well as the method of comparison.

АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ РАЗВИТИЯ ЕДИНОГО НАУЧНО-ТЕХНОЛОГИЧЕСКОГО ПРОСТРАНСТВА СОЮЗНОГО ГОСУДАРСТВА РОССИИ И БЕЛАРУСИ

The development of the unified scientific and technological space of the Union State should ensure the alignment of common priorities of the federal and regional innovation policy of Russia and Belarus in the medium term. In modern realities, when the countries participating in the integration have not recovered from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Union State has faced new external challenges associated with the escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which led to the rupture of foreign policy and economic contacts with Western countries. In the current conditions, the model of socio-economic development of the Union State should be rebuilt on anti-crisis and anti-sanctions rails, ensuring the implementation of import substitution programs and support for innovation activity in all spheres of economic activity. The article is devoted to the identification and actualization of systemic problems of the development of the unified scientific and technological space of the Union State of Russia and Belarus in the new foreign policy and macroeconomic realities.

Stories of the East in the Context of Artistic Ethnography by V. Mart of the Soviet Period

The relevance of the research is determined by the interest of modern literary criticism in the methodological paradigms of studying texts of artistic and ethnographic content in thematic, genre-stylistic, receptive aspects. The novelty lies in the source study, textual, genre-stylistic analysis of the unpublished collection Stories of the East by V. Mart. The research problem lies in the poetological reconstruction of the history of the creative failure of the opportunist literate writer in the Soviet literature at the beginning of the 1930s. The research methodology is based on genre-stylistic, structural-semantic analysis, source analysis of manuscript texts from the point of view of their ethnographic orientation. Based on the experience of research published in the USSR and works of artistic ethnography of the writer, the authors establish the typological features of the artistic strategy by V. Mart. Research methods: historical and literary, structural and semantic, source analysis, mythological reconstructions. The authors state that the unifying principle of V. Mart’s collection Stories of the East is his “old-fashioned” attitude. It turned out that V. Mart collected variations of previously published “oriental” stories and only a few completely new works (Indian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese themes) into a single artistic space. When creating them, he mainly used typological techniques used in previous publications of the Soviet period: the contamination of traditional mythological plots and revolutionary maxims, the transposition of foreign cultural realities into Russian reality, simplified linguistic, ethnocultural, mythological commentaries, etc. The authors of the article came to the conclusion that the collection was compiled in the early 1930s; at the same time, neither artistic flaws nor problems with the reliability of the ethnographic material became the reason for the rejection of the manuscript for publication. Factography in depicting revolutionary events in China and other countries of the late 1920s played the fatal role of anachronism in the early 1930s, when the situation in the Northeast and Southeast Asia changed dramatically. The ethnographic “true stories” of Mart put together became convincing “sabotage” evidence of the defeat of the revolutionary movement in the East and the strategic mistakes of Soviet diplomacy in the region.

“And if Fiume were to Call?” The Impossible Return of Gianni Angelo Grohovaz

While most Italian emigrants can return to their hometown whenever they wish, Italians from Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia (areas that were ceded by Italy to Yugoslavia in the wake of World War Two) do not have that luxury. When they return home, they find that their hometown has changed dramatically and is no longer Italian. For them, a return “home” is, at best, a bitter return to a foreign reality and, at worst, an impossible return. By using the poetry of Gianni Angelo Grohovaz (Fiume, 1926—Little Township 1988) as a case study, this article examines Julian-Dalmatians expatriates as exiles for whom nostos is a dream and not a possibility.

Особый период в кубинской истории (1991-2000)

The modern socio-economic model of Cuba is a unique example of an attempt to build a welfare state in extremely unfavorable conditions. Over the course of 30 years, since the collapse of the USSR and the so-cialist bloc, Cuban society has undergone several major transfor-mations, the most radical were the reforms of Raul Castro, which began in 2008 and were finally enshrined in the new constitution 11 years lat-er. In this article, the author puts forward a hypothesis that these re-forms are not something qualitatively new, but rather reflect the acceler-ating pace of transformations that were laid back during the "special pe-riod in peacetime", the most critical stage in the adaptation of Cuban society to new foreign economic and foreign policy realities. The author analyzes the key features of the economic policy of the Cuban govern-ment during this period, as well as its specific features in comparison with the neoliberal reforms that became mainstream for the post-soviet states.

Serce ( Heart) by Edmondo de Amicisa in the translation by Maria Konopnicka. Analysis of selected fragments

The subject matter of this paper is the language and stylistics of selected fragments of „Serce” (“Heart”), a children’s novel by Edmondo de Amicisa in the 19th-century translation into Polish by Maria Konopnicka. With reference to selected translation theories, the conducted analysis covers the strategy adopted by the translator, that is one consisting in familiarising the Polish reader with foreign realities while preserving their originality and “foreignness” (i.e. the simultaneous “domestication” and “foreignisation”). This determines the faithfulness and up-to-dateness of her translation, re-editions of which have been published to this day as it is appreciated for its rich language and accurate rendition of the original style. Due to the similarity to her own writing technique, the translator appropriately refl ects the nature of the work, enriching it with elements of school jargon and colloquial language. Despite the presence of archaisms, Konopnicka’s language has remained comprehensible to the contemporary reader. Keywords: artistic language – language of translation – translation studies – Edmondo de Amicis

The ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict in Lesia Ukrainka’s dramaturgy: ethnic-national and worldview aspects

The paper focuses on the specific features of the ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict in the dramatic works by Lesia Ukrainka. The majority of her dramas and dramatic poems were written on the basis of foreign cultural phenomena, including the Ancient Greek, Biblical, and other topoi and images. Foreign cultural realities are aimed at the actualization of both the entire context of Ukraine and the writer’s autobiographic discourse in a recipient’s consciousness, forming the imagological paradigms ‘One’s own — Alien,’ ‘Me — Another’. Upon involving the imagological theories, the author of the paper traces the development of dialogue between various cultural realities in Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic works. This allowed elucidating the peculiarities in the artistic representation of the exotic topoi of different countries as the significant feature of Neoromantic and, in general, Modernist discourses, which were basic for Lesia Ukrainka’s writing. The textual analysis of Lesia Ukrainka’s dramas reveals the specific features of unfolding the ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict, first of all, on the ethnic-mental level, epitomized in the ‘conquered — conqueror’ collision of the plays “Babylonian Captivity”, “Over the Ruins”, “Orgy” and “Boiarynia”. The other dimension is the worldview and religious level, mostly realized through the collision ‘Antiquity — Christianity’ (“In the Catacombs”, “Rufinus and Priscilla”, “Martian the Lawyer”, and others). It is proved that the ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict deepens the problems of the works and serves as a way to reveal the essential characteristics of the heroes. The paradigm of the mentioned conflict highlights the borders of the national and personal identities, emphasizes axiological concepts and active ideas, fundamental for Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic works, such as the tragedy of misunderstanding, the need for constructive dialogue, the necessity of choice, the search for spiritual and national freedom, the meaning of sacrifice, and the role of art.

La conversión del negocio jurídico nulo en los principales sistemas jurídicos de Europa y América Latina (alcance teórico normativo de este remedio in extremis)

In this article, a presentation will be made of the legal institution of the conversion of the null legal business in the different European and Latin American legal systems, such as the civil legal systems of Germany, France and Italy for Europe and the civil legal systems of Argentina, Chile and Brazil for Latin America, the presentation of this institute in these systems will be theoretical-normative. The conversion of the null legal business is an institution that is not regulated in Peru, however, in other countries it has a wide doctrinal development, being regulated in different civil codes that we can classify as cutting edge. What is proposed in this article once this institution has been presented in different foreign realities, is the regulation of the conversion into the Peruvian civil code, based on the existence of yesterday's guidelines and intentions that today would protect this proposal.

Linguodidactic potential of concepts in teaching foreign languages to students-interpreters

The paper discusses possibilities and ways of studying concepts in teaching foreign languages to students-interpreters. The author notes that modern didactic research has interdisciplinary nature, analyzes the theory of the concept from the point of view of linguistics, cultural studies and psycholinguistics. The author also notes the fact of creation of linguo-conceptodidactics as a new scientific direction. The paper presents a linguodidactic understanding of the concept, analyzes its structure and semantic content. The author describes in detail the process of foreign language concepts acquisition and presents it as a sequence of several stages. The acquisition of foreign language concepts is associated with the development of concept competence. The paper notes that the acquisition of foreign language concepts should go in parallel with the acquisition of foreign language lexis. In addition, it is necessary to use authentic materials in teaching foreign languages that allows forming a conceptual picture of the world of native speakers. Acquisition of foreign language concepts is especially important for students-interpreters who study several foreign languages and are faced with the problem of translating foreign concepts and phenomena of foreign language reality. The paper presents how conceptuality can be realized in teaching foreign languages. The author gives a practical example of studying the English concept Travel, offers examples of exercises and tasks for mastering it, as well as mnemonic techniques for memorizing lexemes that represent the concept. In the paper is stressed, that the concepts should be included in the content of foreign language teaching to students-interpreters. This contributes to the development of correct ideas about foreign language reality, understanding the facts of the native and foreign language culture, i.e. cultural reflection development.

El derecho humano al agua en España en el contexto europeo (2010-2020). Implicaciones para las políticas y los modelos de gestión del ciclo urbano

El derecho humano al abastecimiento y al saneamiento (DHAS) constituye hoy en España y en Europa la bandera de un movimiento que se articula en torno al concepto del agua como bien común y que se orienta al objetivo de construir un modelo de gestión pública participativa y transparente. La materialización efectiva del DHAS se relaciona discursivamente con la titularidad pública o privada de los operadores de los servicios urbanos de agua, lo que ha contribuido a la reactivación de los debates sobre la necesidad de conservar o recuperar el carácter público de estos servicios, y sobre la necesidad de generar marcos jurídicos que garanticen políticas de democracia local efectiva. A esta dimensión sociopolítica, se añade otra característica: el movimiento del DHAS en España sintoniza en discurso y articulación organizativa con las perspectivas socio-eco-integradoras de la gestión del agua como recurso natural, de los ecosistemas acuáticos. Ésta es una cualidad importante y en cierta manera distintiva de la experiencia española, que contrasta con los desencuentros y conflictos que frecuentemente caracterizan a las perspectivas social y ambiental en los movimientos de defensa del agua, y en general de los recursos naturales. Complementariamente a lo anterior, este artículo presenta un nuevo enfoque de la tipología de pobrezas hídricas. La reciente recepción del DHAS en los países europeos se ha focalizado especialmente en la asequibilidad (prohibición de cortes, garantía del mínimo vital, tarifas sociales) y en las implicaciones para la gobernanza (transparencia, rendición de cuentas) y el modelo de gestión (publico versus privado). No obstante, a lo largo de la investigación que se presenta, se ha constatado que la accesibilidad sigue siendo un problema significativo en ciertas regiones europeas, relacionado especialmente con la existencia de asentamientos marginales, chabolismo, personas sin hogar o trabajadores temporeros inmigrantes en áreas rurales. Finalmente, este artículo aborda la cuestión de la regulación legal del derecho humano al agua en España, analizando las claves de este proceso y presentando las últimas propuestas del movimiento del DHAS en el que sus autores conceptualmente se sitúan. Desde un punto de vista teórico (ecología política urbana) y metodológico (investigación-acción participativa transdisciplinar), el artículo se ha desarrollado en el doble marco en el que los autores se desenvuelven. Por una parte, el grupo de trabajo de ciclo urbano del agua de la Fundación Nueva Cultura de Agua (https://fnca.eu/oppa/ciclo-urbano-del-agua); y, por otra, la Red de Excelencia de la Agencia Estatal de Investigación sobre pobreza hídrica (WAPONET, CSO2017-90702-REDT, https://waponet.org/approach/).

SPIRITUAL IMPERATIVES OF DOMESTIC STATE-BUILDING: AXIOLOGICAL AND SECURITY CONTEXTS

The development of a modern, democratic Ukrainian state requires an integrated approach. An important component of this process is the establishment of spiritual values and guidelines that contribute to the development of the Ukrainian nation and the strengthening of its security on the international arena. In this context, the spiritual imperatives of the domestic state-building need not only clarification and modernization, but also protection in conditions of information aggression against our country. Problematics of the domestic state-building in the spiritual and value, and security contexts are presented in a number of scientific works of a diverse methodological direction. Thus, S. Konyk offers his vision of the state-building process on the basis of an integrated approach and associates its effectiveness precisely with the proper management of certain entities and the degree of their values development. In its turn, V. Karlova focuses on the special role of national elite in the state development by means of carriage the basic functions. Among such functions, she distinguishes primarily strategic, communicative, integrative. From the standpoint of S. Vovkanych, it is the Ukrainian national elite, at the present stage of the state-building, that should take responsibility for the consolidation of the nation. In this research, it is planned to analyze the basic spiritual imperatives of the Ukrainian state-building and to identify the main threats to their implementation. The formulation of spiritual guidelines of the domestic state-building is closely interconnected with various social processes and development trends of the Ukrainian nation as a history subject. Unconditionally, a special mission, which is the development of the nation spiritual guidelines, of the main directions of state growth, is assigned to various elite groups, which have an intellectual, organizational, political and legal potential and are able to guide society towards prosperity. In this way, the economic, legal, security and social policies should be based on the national idea, and should not contradict the spiritual heritage of the Ukrainian people. Nowadays, a number of experts talk about the advisability of creating a state-building ideology as an embodiment of a national development project based on the ideas of conciliarism, cultural identity, democracy, the rule of law, protection of human rights and freedoms, social justice, etc. Therefore, the spiritual imperatives of the modern domestic state-building should be a continuation of those values that were developed by the best representatives of the Ukrainian nation during the national liberation struggle. On the other hand, the spiritual stratagems of the Ukrainian state development should conform to modern domestic and foreign political realities, should not be “archaic” and narrowly political.

Becoming a Lady: Learning to be “Classy” in Polish Adaptations of Reality Shows

Given the lineup across much of our current television landscape, we could be forgiven for thinking that the medium is utterly obsessed with class struggle. One of the most popular TV genres to exploit class difference for dramatic purposes is the reality show. This essay examines Polish adaptations of three foreign reality show formats that rely on “clash of two worlds”-type tropes to drive their narratives. The shows in question are: Projekt Lady (prod. TVN, first aired in 2016), Damy i wieśniaczki (prod. TTV, first aired in 2016), and Rolnik szuka żony (prod. TVP, first aired in 2014). Drawing on sociological concepts of class as the embodiment of a specific collection of attributes and habits (Pierre Bourdieu), the author treats the shows in question as a particular sub-type of image designed to impart lessons in class. Calling on scholarship interpreting reality show programming as a neoliberal formula that gives weight to the middle-class habitus (Beverley Skeggs, Helen Wood), this analysis considers the specific nature of the Polish social structure, and interprets the relationship between class and gender in the analyzed programs. The inquiry elucidates what could be called the Polish strain of upward mobility, which compels reality show contestants to blend attributes associated with both the lower (“peasants”) and middle classes (“ladies”).

Multicultural identity in the context of urban landscape

The purpose of the article is to identify and describe the structure of urban signs containing code switching, foreign language or pseudo-foreign language information. This topic seems to be relevant, since modern cities with a Russian-speaking population are flooded with inscriptions that mislead about foreign cultural realities and are executed with grammatical and lexical errors. In the course of the study, the names of catering establishments, beauty salons, car service enterprises and law firms, fixed on the signboards of the respective organizations and presented for public viewing were analyzed. The specificity of the designations of service enterprises of various kinds and its compliance/nonconformity with the mission of the organization has been established. Analyzing the signboards as a verbal fragment of the urban landscape, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to introduce a new term - pseudo-multicultural identity. The phenomenon of pseudo-multicultural identity characterizes the communicative space of a large city and can be considered a destructive phenomenon formed in a pseudo-other-cultural environment, where the authors of foreign names neglect both the structure and the meaning of the proposed designations, and the target audience forms inadequate language stereotypes.

Jak twórczość mistrza polskiego reportażu stała się „peryferyjną”? O recepcji Jeszcze dzień życia R. Kapuścińskiego w kulturze macedońskiej

This article is about the reception of Kapuściński’s book Another Day of Life which was translated and published in Macedonia in 2017. This text explains the reasons of the delayed translation of Kapuściński’s book and the social environmentsurrounding its reception, as well as the reception of the reportage as a literary genre in Macedonia. Those are part of the reasons why this literary master has passed by almost unnoticed in this culture and his works are pushed aside from the main literary streams. The article also deals with translating problems concerning the alienation / otherness and the way foreign realities are transferred from Polish to Macedonian language.

Foreign Cultural Realities and Ethnic Images in Oles Honchar’s “Diaries”

The paper deals with the specific features of describing foreign countries and nations in O. Honchar’s “Diaries”. The presented research shows particular details of foreign realities in the author’s perception, classifies the factors of forming ethnic images, and evaluates the originality of their representation in “Diaries”. In the context of the Own and Alien space correlation O. Honchar’s position becomes visible. He underlines the absence of stereotypes and domination of shared spiritual people’s values in forming the conception of a stranger. Foreign cultural realities and ethnic images, represented in “Diaries”, were the results of the author’s detailed observation and deep penetration into the facts of spiritual and material culture, mental peculiarities, history and present situation of different nations (Georgians, Jews, Russians, Portuguese, Indians, Americans, Japanese and others). The concept Other/Alien is formed involving such points as projection on the Own space, comparison of different foreign cultural facts with the realities of Ukrainian context. The diary notes represent the evolution of the author’s reception. The war period notes demonstrate domination of the Alien in the process of perceiving foreign culture, which is caused by the tragic war situation and longing for the native land. The post-war period notes show O. Honchar’s reflections on his war experience, the writer’s interest in cultural, historical, and social peculiarities of certain people. The reproduction of foreign cultural realities evolved. Ethnic images were designed on the basis of observation, impressions, generalization, and comparison of topographic, ideological, artistic, and historical peculiarities. They all formed an ethnomental image of a separate nation. The ethnic images, represented in O. Honchar’s “Diaries”, are based on humanistic values. They emphasize the idea of spiritual universality of different people, underlining the facts that unite representatives of different countries.