Russian Linguistics Research Articles

Russian academic lexicography and the National dictionary foundation

The article is devoted to modern trends in the development of Russian linguistics, primarily to dictionaries and the National Corpus of the Russian Language. It is noted that the corpus representation of a language does not exist autonomously; it influences traditional forms of linguistic work and makes it possible to rebuild the technology of lexicography. Nowadays, a printed dictionary can no longer provide complete information in a time-appropriate form. Therefore, many countries are currently creating various systems for electronic presentation of national dictionaries and connecting them with the language corpus. Such work is actively carried out in Russia, primarily by V.V. Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language of the RAS.

Modern trends in the study of scientific discourse in Russian linguistics: A systematic review

Modern trends in the study of scientific discourse in Russian linguistics: A systematic review

Representation of Gender Dominants in the Russian Language. Diachronic Aspect

The article speaks about gender dominants in the Russian language. In Russian linguistics the problem of studying gender becomes especially relevant in the beginning of the 21st century, although the studies of peculiarities and differences in the speech of men and women were conducted throughout the 20th century. Gender studies make it possible to analyze language taking into account the multifactorial influence of gender, with the binary opposition «male / female», «masculine / feminine» largely representing the value orientations of any ethnos. In modern society, linguistic gender dominants are associated with the activation of the feminist movement around the world, as well as with the spread of variously interpreted liberal views. In general, femininity and masculinity as part of modern linguoculture are related to the essential characteristic of an individual and are determined by the qualities considered «feminine» or «masculine» in Russian ethnoculture. That is why the phraseosemantic group of feminine and masculine lexicon is actively replenished in the modern Russian language. However, in general, it should be stated that in Russian linguoculture, first of all, the gender dominants, preserved since ancient times, which are based on the binary opposition of mother / father, man / woman.

SEARCH FOR THE LINGUOCULTUROLOGICAL PRINCIPLE OF TRANSLATING METAPHORS IN STEPHEN KING’S SMALL WORKS (BASED ON STORIES “THE APT PUPIL” AND “RAINY SEASON”)

This article analyzes the creative heritage of the American writer Stephen King who has become famous for his works in the genres of horror literature and dark fantasy. In the course of the study, the authors study semantic, functional, structural metaphors, their stylistic and linguocultural features using the example of Stephen King’s stories “The Apt Pupil” and “Rainy Season”. The research methodology is based on a comparative analysis of the original works and translations by Russian linguists S.E. Task, M.V. Opaleva, V.V. Antonov, I.G. Pochitalin, B.G. Lyubartsev, V.A. Weber. The chronological framework of the study covers the period of the conceptualization of Stephen King’s work (translations by S.E. Task and I.G. Pochitalin) from 1991 to the latest experiments in the linguocultural rethinking of the comparative method (translation by V.V. Antonov) in 2012-2013. The main course of the study directed at analyzing the characteristic features of original metaphors and their translation forms, which lose and gain unique cultural features in comparison with the context in English. This approach clearly demonstrates not only the diversity of the author’s idiostyle, which touches on both the mystical-religious and personal feelings of the modern man, but also the acute social problems of modern society. It allows us to trace the emergence of new meanings in translated forms of metaphors. The results of the study show that quite often translators of Stephen King, trying to adapt the text, lose flexibility.

Словарь речений из богослужебных книг прот. А. И. Невоструева (понасилую — посредѣ)

The “Dictionary of Locutions from Liturgical Books” by Protopriest A. Nevostruev, completed in the middle of the 19th century and never published, can be regarded both as a significant achievement of Church Slavonic studies and as a valuable lexicographic source. The manuscript is kept in the Russian State Library. The decrepit state of the manuscript has determined the necessity of its urgent study and edition. The significance of this project is primarily due to the fact that the text of the dictionary is being made accessible to linguists for the first time. The orthography and grammar of the dictionary reflect the linguistic views of the time of its creation and can be of interest for those who study the history of Russian linguistics. This paper contains the 6th part of dictionary entries beginning in letter P. The characteristic features of the publication of this Dictionary, the lists of sources, abbreviations and symbols were described in detail in the previous issues of St. Tikhon’s University Review. All previously published parts of the Dictionary together with the critical apparatus can be found at the website of St. Tikhon’s University for the Humanities.

Russia as an Object of Scientific Studies in Kyrgyzstan

The object of the study is scientific social and humanitarian publications devoted to Russia of Kyrgyzstan scientists. These are works in five disciplines: “Russian language and literature”, “political science”, “history”, “economics” and “law”. The purpose of the work is to identify the degree of study and the specificity of research on Russia in Kyrgyzstan in studies on Russian philology, history and political science, and analysis of expert-analytical and scientific-educational materials on economic and legal aspects of research.Of greatest interest to Kyrgyz researchers is Russian language, which is explained by the status and role of the Russian language in the Kyrgyz Republic and its dominant position in the capital, Bishkek, where all major universities of the republic dealing with Russian topics are located. In the sphere of the other four disciplines, the interests of researchers are limited to historical, political and economic relationships between the two states. The study showed that, in general, the ideological positions of local experts are manifested in a positive or neutral attitude towards Russia, despite individual (single) works that contain a negative interpretation of Kyrgyz-Russian relations.

A Self‐Regulating Academic Community in Turbulent Times: Ethical Dilemmas in the History of Turkic Studies in Leningrad in the 1930s

AbstractOn February 1931, Russian linguist Sergei Malov sent a complaint to the Union of Education Workers’ Disputes Commission regarding one of his colleagues, Alexander Samoilovich, who was one of the leading Soviet scholars of the time. According to Malov, Samoilovich had used his position and influence to obstruct Malov’s appointment to a professorship for the sole purpose of revenge. Malov demanded an official apology from Samoilovich, certified by the union, for his actions. Scholars who study the history of Oriental Studies in Russia usually focus on the evolution of ideas and approaches within the field, or on the relationship within the profession between knowledge and power. But they have not paid sufficient attention to the self‐regulatory mechanisms that operated within the Soviet Orientologist community. This article argues that during the 1920s and 1930s, a period of great social and political uncertainty, Soviet scholars used “ethics” for specific goals, one of which was to try to limit the scale of intervention by state and party officials in academic life and thereby shelter their community from the unpredictable effects such intervention might have. Malov and Smoilovich, however, attached different meanings to this notion, which consequently played a major role in the collision between the two scholars who previously had been allies.

E. S. Skoblikova, a linguist and a teacher (to mark the centenary of the scientist’s birth)

The article characterises the scientific legacy of Professor E. S. Skoblikova (1 June 1924 – 12 August 2016), a prominent Russian linguist, a specialist in modern Russian syntax, Russian dialectology, Russian orthography. The scientist authored monographs, university textbooks and manuals, series of articles on basic linguistic disciplines. She also compiled and edited the posthumous editions of university textbooks and fundamental scientific works of Professor A. N. Gvozdev, a corresponding member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR. The relevance of E. S. Skoblikova’s scientific works is determined by the distinctive feature of the theoretical and methodological orientation of her works, namely the adherence to the traditional approaches in resolving controversial issues and the interconnection of scientific and pedagogical thought. This principle remains significant in the conditions of the equally important principle of scientific pluralism.

Алексей Алексеевич Леонтьев… ученый, учитель, человек

Twenty years. Blessed good memory... Alexey Alekseevich Leontiev (January 14, 1936 – December 8, 2004). Soviet and Russian linguist, psychologist, Doctor of Psychology and Doctor of Philology, full member of the Russian Academy of Education, one of the founders of the psychological theory of speech activity.

Perception and Evaluation of Text from an Interview with a Real Person and an Interview with an Artificial Intelligence

The article presents a study of perception, understanding and evaluation of two interviews, the first one is performed with a real person (from an expert source), and the second is generated by the ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI). The study covers 84 participants between the ages of 20 and 23, students in “Psychology”, “Bulgarian Philology”, “Slavic Philology”, and “Russian Philology” from the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. The research design is of the “between-group” type (in this case, two-group). The first experimental group consisted of 40 subjects evaluates the interview with a real celebrity. The second experimental group consisted of 44 subjects evaluates the interview taken by an artificial intelligence. Both interviews consisted of ten identical questions and ten corresponding answers. Each of the ten answers is evaluated by the participants using a Likert Scale composed of 5-point score scales, each of which is “continuous” with 11 possible answer positions (from “0” to “10”), as follows: [1] inadequate / fully adequate; [2] non-specific (general) / completely specific; [3] non-exhaustive / fully exhaustive; [4] questionable / completely realistic; and [5] unsatisfactory / 10-completely satisfactory. A statistical analysis was made by a two-group test (Two Sample T-Test Unequal Variance). It was established that: consolidated answers (series of maximum ratings) when working with the “artificial” interview; in two of the ten questions asked, a statistically significant difference was observed in favor of the artificial text; in one of the questions, a statistically significant difference is observed in favor of the real interview; no difference in emotional impact and interest in summary assessment of the both pieces of text.

Словарь речений из богослужебных книг прот. А. И. Невоструева (позвизданїе — помѣстный)

The “Dictionary of Locutions from Liturgical Books” by Protopriest A. Nevostruev, completed in the middle of the 19th century and never published, can be regarded both as a significant achievement of Church Slavonic studies and as a valuable lexicographic source. The manuscript is kept in the Russian State Library. The decrepit state of the manuscript has determined the necessity of its urgent study and edition. The significance of this project is primarily due to the fact that the text of the dictionary is being made accessible to linguists for the first time. The orthography and grammar of the dictionary reflect the linguistic views of the time of its creation and can be of interest for those who study the history of Russian linguistics. This paper contains the 4th part of dictionary entries beginning in letter P. The characteristic features of the publication of this Dictionary, the lists of sources, abbreviations and symbols were described in detail in the previous issues of St. Tikhon’s University Review. All previously published parts of the Dictionary together with the critical apparatus can be found at the website of St. Tikhon’s University for the Humanities.

Discourse Markers in Works of Russian Linguists: Functional-Pragmatic and Functional-Semantic Approaches

This article addresses the issue of discourse markers as illuminated by the works of Russian scholars. The relevance of the study is justified by the necessity of theoretical understanding of existing scientific approaches to the examination of these linguistic units. A review of scholarly works from the XX—XXI centuries is conducted. Key positions in the interpretation of discourse markers within linguistic approaches such as functional-pragmatic and functional-semantic are characterized. Attention is given to aspects of studying this linguistic phenomenon, such as terminological nomination and belonging to a language class or category. The functions of discourse markers in each of the identified approaches are discussed in the article. The polyfunctionality of individual discourse markers is noted. The results of a comparative analysis of current typologies and classifications are presented. As a result, the authors conclude on the necessity of classifying discourse markers based on several indicators of these linguistic units. The predominance of the functional-pragmatic approach in discourse marker research is acknowledged. The unresolved issue of terminological nomination is recognized. The potential for further research in the field of discourse markers from the perspective of other approaches is highlighted.

Религиозная лексика в современном русском и польском языках в переводоведческом, лексикографическом и лингвокультурологическом освещении

During the first quarter of the 21st century, Polish and Russian linguistics have been experiencing an intensification of research into the languages of various Christian denominations. In Poland, it is usually the language of the Polish Catholic Church, traditionally associated with the Polish language; in Russia, it is the language of the Russian Orthodox Church, speaking of which, Church Slavonic and Russian are usually meant. Due to the ongoing geopolitical processes, wellknown classical parallels or connections such as “Polish – Catholic”, “Russian – Orthodox” and directions of this kind of research are undergoing changes. In the Polish Orthodox Church, whose ministers and parishioners until recently used mainly Church Slavonic and Polish, today they increasingly turn to Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and other Slavic languages in their daily lives. Therefore, against the background of the predominance of Catholicism and the Polish language, problems arise with the correct interpretation and correct understanding of basic religious names by representatives of various Christian denominations speaking related Slavic languages. As a result, there are studies of parallels and connections such as “Polish, Russian, Ukrainian – Orthodox”, and questions arise, the answers to which can be tried to find in lexicography.

Mediapolitical Discourse: Concepts and Framework

Introduction. The article presents the results of the review of scientific works on discourse theory, reflecting the stages of evolution of media-political discourse in Russian linguistics. The aim of the article is to summarize, systematize and analyze approaches to the study of media-political discourse and concepts of its comprehension. Such concepts as media discourse, media text, media linguistics, and political discourse are considered.Methodology and sources. The article is prepared in the context of the cognitive-discursive paradigm, functional approach to discourse analysis, and media linguistics. In accordance with the postulates of critical discourse analysis, media-political discourse is considered as a constitutive of social practice. The main research method is an analytical scientific review of works on discourse theory.Results and discussion. In the course of the review of works on media and political discourse the main approaches to the understanding and research of media-political discourse are highlighted. The boundaries of this type of discourse as one of the areas of modern discourse theory are outlined. The concepts of scientific cognition that conditioned the formation of media-political discourse are identified. A review of works on related types of discourse at the previous stages of scientific thought is given. Internet discourse is viewed as an alternative source of political information. The article emphasizes the elements of language of enmity and the binary opposition “us/them” in the media-political discourse.Conclusion. The paper reveals a tendency to merge media discourse and political discourse within the framework of media-political discourse in modern linguistics. Among the key approaches to the study of media-political discourse the following approaches are identified: cratological, structural-communicative and media-technological ones; when analyzing the blogosphere it is advisable to refer to critical discourse analysis, structuralfunctional and comparative approaches. The most promising areas of the research include the identification of the essential characteristics of media-political discourse, and the development of genre stratification of this type of discourse.

The Church lexicon as a lexical category

The article focuses on the study of church lexicon as a lexical category. The aim of this article is to analyze and compare different linguistic points of view on the key stages of church lexicon development in the Russian and English languages, to determine a working definition of the category “church lexicon”, as well as its most important elements. In order to achieve this goal, the methods of analyzing sources, their subsequent comparison and contrast, identification of analogies and similarities were used, as well as synthesis of information extracted from these sources.The material includes dissertations, scientific articles and other works of modern Russian scholars considering the concepts “church lexicon” and “religious lexicon”, comparing and juxtaposing them, as well as singling out constituent elements of the categories “church lexicon”, “religious lexicon”, “sacral lexicon”, and “liturgical lexicon”. In this article are used the works of such scholars as A.A. Azarov, I.V. Bugaeva, S.V. Bulavina, N.S. Valgina, R.I. Goryushina, E.V. Kakorina, I.A. Koroleva, T.I. Kosheleva and others.The results of the research show that the interest in the church lexicon as a lexical category among Russian linguists has increased since the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries due to the revival of the Christian Church of various denominations, as well as other religious organizations. The long period of persecution of the Christian Church in Russia has affected church vocabulary, marginalizing it and relegating it to the periphery of the language. In the UK, USA and other English-speaking linguistic communities, the activities of the Christian Church have never been banned or persecuted, and the history of church vocabulary in the English language as such has never faced marginalization similar to that in Russia.It has also been established that church vocabulary is part of the broader category of “religious vocabulary” and includes basic concepts from the sphere of the life of the Christian Church. Although scholars argue about the constituents of the category “church lexicon”, many agree that it includes the names of sacraments and rites, elements of the church calendar, names of church buildings and their elements, items of decoration, elements of vestments, as well as names of persons in relation to the Christian faith and the Christian Church.This article may be of interest to philologists, linguists, and teachers of the Russian and English languages.

10 Years of TROLLing

The Tromsø Repository of Language and Linguistics (TROLLing) published its first dataset on June 13, 2014. Since then, the repository has grown to 173 datasets, each of which is available in open access and equipped with metadata explaining its contents. Two of the most frequent users of the archive, professor of Russian linguistics Laura A. Janda and postdoc of English linguistics Lukas Sönning share their experiences and ideas for the future. A key message is how using a curated data repository has helped raising the quality of their own research by making it more transparent and reusable for others. Materials referred to in the episode include: a humorous YouTube clip (2014) featuring Laura A. Janda and others; a Leiden dissertation (later published as a book) by Jaap Kamphuis; a workshop at the ISLE 5 conference (2018) organised by Lukas Sönning and Valentin Werner; a paper at the ICAME 45 conference (2024) by Lukas Sönning, Jason Grafmiller and Raquel P. Romasanta. First published online: June 12, 2024.

Trends in the research of world-modeling from the perspective of Russian linguistics: Paradigmatic framework and conceptual apparatus

In the first quarter of the XXI century, world-modeling has been actively discussed in the theory of literature, text studies and discourse studies. The concept of world-modeling in linguistics significantly differs from that in literary studies, which determines the relevance of this research. The paper aims to review the publications by Russian scholars that raise the problems of world-modeling in communication, to highlight the dominant tendencies of research within the framework of the cognitive-discursive paradigm and to discuss their theoretical potential. The sample consists of 334 publications retrieved from eLibrary database. The paper argues that due to the influence of the dominant paradigm in linguistics, an independent cognitive and discursive trend of world-modeling research is being developed in Russia, and is becoming more specific, which leads to the emergence of discrete areas of research that accumulate their own system of concepts. The paper discusses the research potential of lingua-cognitive, conceptual, functional, axiological, semantic, stylistic, lingua-ideological, cognitive and pragmatic trends. The author argues that the logic of the development of discrete trends is determined by the inter-paradigm interaction, thanks to which knowledge about the representation of the world in communication is built on general paradigmatic principles as well as the achievements of particular disciplines. The paper concludes by drawing attention to the lingua-cultural, socio-semiotic, lingua-personological and psycholinguistic research traends observed in some recent publications. The interdisciplinary nature of modern linguistics makes it possible to combine several perspectives of the world-modeling analysis. The results of the study can contribute to the further development of the cognitive and discursive world-modeling theory in linguistics and social studies.

Специфика языковой реализации жанра обращения руководства в годовом отчете (на материале русского языка)

The article is carried out within the framework of the analysis of institutional business discourse and is devoted to the problem of genres in corporate communication. The paper aims to reveal structural-linguistic and communicative-pragmatic peculiarities of the genre of top-managers’ message in the annual report in Russian language. The article considers the genre as an open and flexible scheme in a prototypical model with different frequency of elements. More and less typical sets and narrative schemes are described, which make it possible to establish genre relatedness in the type of text under study. Typical speech patterns and their sequences are also established. The scientific originality of the study lies in the fact that the change in the genre-forming factors of the top-managers’ message in annual reports belongs to one of the insufficiently developed areas in Russian linguistics. In this regard, for the first time an integrated approach to the linguistic analysis of this genre has been implemented on the Russian material. As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that the elements of the genres of business letter and report are the most frequent in the type of text under analysis. It has been established that the category of addressee serves to vary the distance between communicants. It is also demonstrated that the described discursive practices of constructing written speech in the top-managers’ messages in annual reports of Russian companies are due not only to the informing, but also to the argumentative function.

Преобразования заимствований: основной понятийно-терминологический аппарат

At the present stage of development of Russian linguistics, the number of works devoted to the study of various aspects of borrowing of lexical units has increased. However, there is a lack of stable, generally accepted terminology to describe the processes of borrowing linguistic units and their transformations. The aim of the research is to clarify the conceptual and terminological apparatus which is used to describe the processes of transformation of borrowed units in the recipient language. The generally accepted paradigm of the terms “assimilation”, “naturalization”, “integration” and “adaptation” is taken as a basis in this work. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the etymology of the presented terminological units is used to clarify the terminological apparatus, the semantics of these terms in other areas of scientific knowledge is specified, and the possibilities of their application in linguistics are considered. The results of the analysis carried out allow us to justify the use of the term “assimilation” as the most optimal one, denoting various changes occurring in the process of integration or naturalization of borrowed words into the system of the recipient language. The article examines the main types of quantitative and qualitative assimilation. The terminological aspects of the description of each type are specified. As a result of the conducted research, the basic conceptual and terminological apparatus for describing the process of borrowing lexical units and their transformations in the recipient language has been formulated.

The functions of peripheral combinations of N. M. Karamzin's novella "Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter"

The linguistic description of a literary text involves consideration of its semantic structure, by which, following L. A. Novikov, we understand the system of images of the work and the linguistic means of their embodiment in the author's text. Peripheral combinations play a significant role in the arsenal of artistic techniques of N.M. Karamzin, implemented in sentimental novels, and demonstrate primarily the functions of indicating feelings and states, embellishing speech, author's characterization and poetization of prose text. The subject of the study of the analyzed text of N. M. Karamzin's novella "Natalia, the boyar's daughter" is periphrasis as a special means of creating a semantic structure. The relevance of the work is due to the clarification of the status of the periphrase as an important structural element of the sentimental story. The aim of the work was to clarify the concept of periphrasis in the modern and preceding N. M. Karamzin literary tradition and highlight its functions in the texts of the stories. The methodological basis of the study was the work of Russian linguists of the V. V. Vinogradov school, based on a system-functional approach to the analysis of the language of fiction. The conducted research allowed us to conclude that the periphrasis is the basis of N. M. Karamzin's imagery and implements the functions of speech decoration; characterization, in which the periphrasis contains the author's attitude to the hero; stylistically marked periphrastic combinations serve to separate parts of the story, for example, the author's digression and the main text of the story. The novelty of the research lies in clarifying the functions of the periphrasis as the central means of the semantic structure of the sentimental story. Periphrases are becoming one of the new tools for constructing the semantic structure of a prose work of the emerging aesthetics of sentimentalism. The use of periphrases is included in the concept of reforming the Russian language by introducing elements peculiar to the sentimental style of French salon literature into the text, while generally ordering syntax at the level of a simple and complex sentence.