Socio-political Texts Research Articles

The Concept of "Freedom" in Political Texts by Russian Authors of the 18th Century

The concept of "freedom" is one of the pillars for identifying ideas about the social ideal and one of the guidelines in attempts at social construction of the modern era. The object of this study is the political thought of Russia in the 18th century. The subject of the research is the formation and evolution of the concept of “freedom” in the socio-political texts of Russian authors of the 18th century. The purpose of this article was to identify the specifics of the concept of "freedom", presented in the texts of statesmen and politicians of the 18th century, in relation to the texts created in the pre-Petrine tradition and the texts of the European Enlightenment. The basic research method is the textual analysis of the works of Russian political authors of the 18th century, in its various versions: semantic (including hermeneutics), genetic, comparative. The main conclusion is that the reception of the concept of "freedom" from the texts of the European Enlightenment and the formation, on this basis, of the political concept of "freedom", began in the second third of the 18th century, as evidenced by the texts of V.N. Tatishcheva. This reception ended in the 1780s in the form of three basic interpretations of the concept of "freedom" – liberal (texts by N.I. Panin and his associates), conservative (texts by M.M. Shcherbatov) and democratic (texts by A.N. Radishchev).

The harm threshold and Mill’s harm principle

The Harm Threshold (HT) holds that the state may interfere in medical decisions parents make on their children’s behalf only when those decisions are likely to cause serious harm to the child. Such a high bar for intervention seems incompatible with both parental obligations and the state’s role in protecting children’s well-being. In this paper, I assess the theoretical underpinnings for the HT, focusing on John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle as its most plausible conceptual foundation. I offer (i) a novel, text-based argument showing that Mill’s Harm Principle does not give justificatory force to the HT; and (ii) a positive account of some considerations which, beyond significant harm, would comprise an intervention principle normatively grounded in Mill’s ethical theory. I find that substantive recommendations derived from Mill’s socio-political texts are less laissez-faire than they have been interpreted by HT proponents. Justification for state intervention owes not to the severity of a harm, but to whether that harm arises from the failure to satisfy one’s duty. Thus, a pediatric intervention principle derived from Mill ought not to be oriented around the degree of harm caused by a parent’s healthcare decision, but rather, the kind of harm—specifically, whether the harm arises from violation of parental obligation. These findings challenge the interpretation of Mill adopted by HT proponents, eliminating a critical source of justification for a protected domain of parental liberty and reorienting the debate to focus on parental duties.

Лингвистическая безопасность политического дискурса в аспекте экологии перевода (на материале интервью В. В. Путина и их переводов на английский язык)

The aim of the study is to obtain objective scientific knowledge about linguistic security as a linguistic and ecological phenomenon while analysing political discourse in the translational aspect. The texts of interviews of Vladimir Putin to the American news channels NBC and CNBC and their translations into English are considered as the material of the study. Scientific novelty lies in the application of an interdisciplinary approach involving an integrated methodology; the eco-linguistic turn of the study corresponds to the current trends of Russian and foreign social and humanities research. Going through the stage of active formation, linguistic ecology needs to develop its own scope of research, theoretical, methodological and terminological base, as well as to search for practical areas of application of research results in keeping with the linguistic ecology paradigm. In the context of this study, an attempt to consider the phenomenon of linguistic security through the prism of the translation ecology of socio-political texts is made for the first time. As a result of the study, the main characteristics of translation in the field of political discourse that are relevant from the viewpoint of the translation ecology and linguistic security of the target text have been identified.

Experimental study of the influence of translation memory systems on the success of written translations by novice translators

The purpose of the research is to conduct an experiment to study the impact of translation memory systems (in terms of the use of terminology bases) on the effectiveness of future translators. The article substantiates the relevance of the use of translation memory systems, presents various areas of research on translation automation, considers the possibilities and prospects for the development of CAT systems. Article presents the results of an experimental study that would show how much novice translators rely on translation memory systems and whether they have the vocabulary at the proper level, which is typical for socio-political texts. The obtained results confirmed the hypothesis that when translating the original text by means of a CAT tool using a terminological base with erroneously translated lexical units, the quality of the translation of novice translators will decrease, and it will increase without using a terminological base with erroneously translated lexical units.

A Multidimensional Interface and Nigerian Political Discourse: A Case Study of Ideological Issues Underlying Coronavirus Discourse in Nigeria

This article proposes a theoretical framework modelling the Nigerian socio-political landscape through coronavirus news headlines. Drawing on news headlines from major newspapers in Nigeria reporting on the coronavirus pandemic, the article argues that discourses in Nigeria can gain significant insights through the analytic lens of a multidimensional interface. The principle argues that certain multidimensional ideologies are universal to discourses in Nigeria, including all of its participants, the social structure, and all that makes up these structures. It is also argued that a meaningful interpretation and analysis of socio-political texts in Nigeria is only possible through the conceptual elements identified in the proposed model.

Structural and Semantic Types of Terms in Socio-Political Texts and Ways of Their Translation from German into Russian

Structural and Semantic Types of Terms in Socio-Political Texts and Ways of Their Translation from German into Russian

Moderniojo lietuvių parlamentarizmo istorija Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių bibliotekos dokumentuose

The object of the research presented in this article is the history (development) of modern Lithuanian parliamentarism in 1920–2020, i. e. a century from its emergence to this time. The sources for the research are documents and iconography related to modern Lithuanian parliamentarism kept in the Manuscripts and the Rare Books Departments of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences as well as on publications of relevant documents and scholarly research. The article aims to draw attention to less-researched issues of modern Lithuanian parliamentarism based on the documents kept in the Wroblewski Library. Documents on parliamentarism in 1920–1940 reveal the key stages of this period: initial efficacy, later problems, and eventual crisis. The interwar Lithuanian “sejmocracies” and the period of the voiceless Seimas is represented by various documents from the holdings of the Library: three photographs of the Founding Seimas, election proclamations and posters, socio-political texts by Kazys Grinius, invitations, certificates, etc. The iconography of Soviet “imitational” parliamentarism (election materials, photographs) is still awaiting researchers. Documents of various convocations of the Supreme Council of Soviet Lithuania can be found in the collection of one of the most prominent Soviet ideologists, Juozas Žiugžda (F275). The documentary heritage for the post-1990 period is more fragmentary and is just beginning to be collected. The documents on the modern parliamentarism in the three latest decades (1990–2020) can at present be found only in the Ona Voverienė collection (F397), while the election publications are kept in the ephemera collection of the Rare Books Department. Keywords: Founding Seimas; “sejmocracy”; voiceless Seimas; “period of the non-existent parliament”; the second stage of the modern parliamentarism.

Non-equivalent vocabulary in social-political texts of the XVIII century

The article deals with the non-equivalent vocabulary in socio-political texts of the 18th century. The interest to this type of vocabulary is growing (especially in translation and linguoculturology): every year there are more and more works studying non-equivalent vocabulary with national-cultural specificity of meaning in various resources: fiction, textbooks, press, dictionaries. However, these studies are carried out on the texts of the 19th-21st centuries. In this article, we for the first time analyze this vocabulary in the artistic texts of the 18th century. The authors of the texts (the research materials) are well-known historical figures of the period: Catherine II, M.V. Lomonosov, V.N. Tatishchev, V.K. Trediakovsky, A. Matseevich, P.A. Plavilshikov. The main criterion for text selection was the level of knowledge of non-equivalent vocabulary in them. It is for the first time when identification and description of non-equivalent vocabulary was held in socio-political texts. The purpose of this research is to identify, describe and analyze non-equivalent words in the texts. The practical significance of the research is in the fact that its results can be used in classes of Russian as a foreign language, when compiling dictionaries of non-equivalent vocabulary or linguistic and regional dictionaries, when translating the source texts into foreign languages and making comments. The theoretical significance of the research is in the fact that its results became the basis for further research of non-equivalent vocabulary with national-cultural specificity of meaning. As a result of the research, there were identified the quantity and quality of non-equivalent words. The discovered non-equivalent words were classified into several thematic groups: household items, titles, military vocabulary, social groups, etc., and into types of non-equivalent vocabulary: words-realities, lacunae, exotisms, deviations from the common language norm, etc. In order to have a complete picture of this linguistic phenomenon, it is necessary to make wider the chronological and genre framework of the research material in the future. It is possible to use not only texts of the 18th-21st centuries as a source, but also texts of earlier periods; it is necessary to use not only works of fiction, dictionaries, press, but also to research sociopolitical texts: documents, scientific works, letters.

METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF STUDYING PASSIVE PARTICIPLES (PAST PARTICIPLES) WHILE READING FOR DETAIL IN THE COURSE «UKRAINIAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE»

Acquisition of the Ukrainian language by foreign students includes studying its structural features and mastering skills of normative use of parts of speech. Learning grammatical aspects of passive participles is one of the topical problems of linguodidactics that involves foreign students’ acquisition of profound theoretical knowledge of this verb form, formation of practical skills of identifying the participle among other parts of speech, determining their morphological characteristics, developing skills of using passive participles in texts of various functionality. The research aims to describe the system of work on studying passive participles while reading sociopolitical texts for detail. With this in view, the following research methods are used: the method of studying and generalizing national and foreign practices, observation, analysis and explanation methods. The research proves that studying lexis and grammar during reading sociopolitical texts for detail facilitates formation of foreign students’ language and communicative competences. Efficient forms of classroom work include the following: introducing theoretical information on grammatical aspects of passive participles, drawing word parallels between the languages, topic-based grouping of lexis, word formation activities, making notes, answering questions on the text content, identifying passive participles in texts, deriving passive participles from given words, forming word phrases with passive participles, etc. Fulfilment of the above-mentioned assignments will facilitate foreign students’ acquisition of the theoretical material on lexical and grammatical aspects of passive participles and formation of skills of their relevant use orally and in writing.Enhancement of the process of acquisition of all verb forms makes an outline of further research.

Feature of the use of temperaments in the socio-political texts of the modern Chinese

In modern Chinese, unlike other languages, the expression of time is expressed in auxiliary words, fixed constructions, and word groups. There is a slight difference in the use of temperaments between Chinese oral and written style, and this article discusses the features and peculiarities of the use of temperaments in socio-political texts. It should be noted that most Chinese temperaments are word-specific and need to be analyzed in different contexts. In addition, in socio-political texts, fixed constructions are widely used to represent time.

Civic Writing on Digital Walls

Civic writing has appeared on walls over centuries, across cultures, and in response to political concerns. This article advances a civic interrogation of how civic writing is publicly authored, read, and discussed as openly accessible and multimodal texts on digital walls. Drawing upon critical literacy perspectives, we examine how a repertoire of 10 civic writing practices associated with open web annotation (OWA) helped educators develop critical literacy. We introduce a social design experiment in which educators leveraged OWA to discuss educational equity across sociopolitical texts and contexts. We then describe a single case of OWA conversation among educators and use discourse analysis to examine shifting situated meanings and political expressions present in educators’ civic writing practices. We conclude by considering implications for theorizing the marginality of critical literacy, designing learning environments that foster educators’ civic writing, and facilitating learning opportunities that encourage educators’ civic writing across digital walls.

The Grammar of Turkish in Translation Training: Functional Approach

Bu çalışmada çeviri eğitimi gören öğrencinin ana dili olan Türkçeye yönelik
 yapısal bakış açısının çeviri sürecinde yol açtığı sorunlar dile
 getirilmektedir. Bununla birlikte çeviri eğitiminde yapısal yaklaşımı
 sergileyen geleneksel dil bilgisi ders kitaplarının yanı sıra Türkçeye yönelik
 işlevsel yaklaşım doğrultusunda betimlemelerin geliştirilmesi gerektiği fikri
 ileri sürülmektedir. Çalışmada öğrencinin ortaokuldan itibaren alıştığı
 Türkçeye yönelik yapısal yaklaşımın, hedef dile çeviri sürecinde Türkçenin
 “dünya görüşüne” göre türetilmiş yapıların ortaya çıkmasını tetikleyebildiği
 gösterilmekte ve yabancı dil/çeviri bölümlerinde okuyan öğrencilerin
 başvurdukları ders kitapları başta olmak üzere konu ile ilgili kaynakların
 yetersizliği üzerinde durulmaktadır. Çalışmada ana dili Türkçe olan ve
 Türkçenin yapısal boyutu üzerinde odaklanan, geleneksel Türkçe dil bilgisi ile
 çeviri sürecini öğrenmeye çalışan öğrencinin çeviri eğitiminde karşılaşabildiği
 sorunlar Türkçe-Rusça dil çiftine yönelik örneklerle gösterilmiştir. Odak
 noktası, geleneksel Türkçe dil bilgisinde “sıfat-fiil” olarak adlandırılan ve
 Türkçe-Rusça çeviri sürecinde sorun oluşturabilen –dık- yapıları olmuştur. Sosyo-politik metinlerin ayrılmaz bir
 unsuru olan –dık- yapılarının
 Türkçe-Rusça çeviri sürecinde işlevsel çözümlenmesinin şart olduğu
 gösterilmiştir. Çalışmada çeviri eğitimi gören öğrencinin kendi ana diline
 yönelik işlevsel bakış açısının önemi vurgulanmıştır.

Transgressive Leadership and Theo-ethical Texts of Black Protest Music

ABSTRACTLimited academic publications analysing the theologies and ethics of historic Black Freedom Struggles have resulted in minimal inclusion in broader theological and ethical canons. In this article I explore the role of music in Black Freedom Struggles, especially the historic Civil Rights Movement, to argue that such music was a transgressive tool that expanded leadership positions and produced new theo-ethical and socio-political texts. These organic oral texts were published through alternative methods, expanding activists’ theological and ethical beliefs about the social and political struggles in which they participated. Finally, I suggest that protest music in the contemporary Movement for Black Lives offers a view into the lived realities and commitments of participants as they continue the tradition of using music as a theo-ethical and socio-political tool.

Словосполучення з ад’єктивним компонентом політичний у публіцистичних текстах

There several factors that influence language of modern usus (political language and speech). They are processes in a country, political situation in the world, and as a result, its analyses and media coverage in a text. The subject of our attention is a word combination with adjective component politychnyi (political). This combination hasn’t been studies in the Ukrainian linguistics yet. The present research is aimed to systematize and describe structural and functional features of set expressions with the qualifying component mentioned bellow. Stability of such units can be explained by constant lexical composition with the unchangeable grammar meaning, word order, and active usage in speech. Most of the analyzed combinations are built in such a way: noun + adjective. Among terms-word combinations substantive combinations with depended component represented by adjective of attributive type are highly productive. They can be marked as adjective + noun: politychna kultura (political culture), politychnyi vysnovok (political conclusion), politychna manipuliatsiia (political manipulation) etc. Set expressions can be formed with the help of terms and commonly used words. The expansion of word combinations with the adjective component politychnnyi (political) in social language sphere leads to semantically different combinations appearance. Often component politychnnyi (political) adding results in positively / negatively marked set expression with new meaning appearance. Semantic changes take place under the influence of inner-lingual (language environment, context), cultural, social (war, trade, revolution, change of government etc.) etc. Some of them appear because of determinologization as a mean of imaginary. In the media language there are terms of many branches of knowledge used for different purposes – description of events taking place in modern society, popularization of science, the latest technologies and inventions, etc. Terms to change their meaning in combination are often borrowed from the fields of economics, medicine, sports, ecology and computer technology. Modern Ukrainian society sensitively reacts to the political processes that take place in it. It results in new words and phrases appearance, which are kind of litmus, a characterization of events by the citizens of Ukraine. The study of dynamic trends in modern socio-political media texts (the emergence of neologisms, the study of the changes in meanings of terms), will contribute to further regulation of the linguistic political communicative space, taking into account its anthropocentric, polyparadigmatic and interdisciplinary nature.

THE SPECIFICS OF THE TRANSLATION OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL TEXTS

The article is about the aspect of translation in the process of foreign language teaching. The main attention is paid to translation of social and political texts such as statements, addresses and speeches of state, party and public figures, all sorts of articles and publications of international, governmental and non-governmental organizations, the number of which is very large in mass media. They contain information of the leading economists on the activities of international financial institutions, reflect the real world of business, and offer a wide range of views and opinions on political events. Socio-political texts in Russian, as well as in foreign languages, not only provide information about various events or problems, but also make special impact on readers. Particular attention is paid to the lexical units which are used in translation of such texts. Such lexical units reflect the evolution of society, define public relationships. They are in continual «movement», replacing or supplementing the existing notation systems by words and abbreviations which reflect the emergence of new facts and concepts in the relevant field of social life. Knowledge of this kind of vocabulary enables students to solve practical problems of translation, summarization and annotation of this kind of literature.

On Difficulties of Compiling Parallel Corpus of Socio-Political Terms

The paper describes the process of compiling an online bilingual dictionary of socio-political terms and problems facing the lexicographer. It illustrates the challenges with the compilation of the parallel corpus of socio-political texts as the ideological evaluation influences the word choice in English- and Russian-speaking news media. The work began with the creation of LSP corpora of media texts on political and social issues in English and Russian and involved extraction of lexical information via the Sketch Engine tool. There is an attempt to describe a new format of a reference book - a rather large, semi-crowdsourced, mostly-datamined dictionary of English-Russian socio-political lexicon.

The Peculiarities of the Political Vocabulary in French and Georgian Languages

Political language represents one of the complex specialized languages considering the complexity of socio-political texts. Some scholars distinguish between “the language of politics” and “political language”, stating that the former contains the terminology and rhetoric associated with activities employed by politicians while playing their roles in politics; it is characterized by an extreme flexibility and dynamizm. As for the political language, it is open to all members of the linguistic community. It is related to the specific use of a common language as a means of persuasion and control. In other words, it is the language used for the purpose of manipulation. We think that these two terms are somehow interconnected. Both of them serve the purpose of manipulation. Therefore, they can be considered as partial synonyms. The article aims to discuss the French and Georgian vocabulary in order to identify the specific characteristics of each and also to define the status of French lexical units for the purpose of their correct interpretation and expression in the Georgian language.

IN CULTURAL DIALOGUE WITH CDA

Critical Discourse Analysis has excelled with its functional and ideological analysis of socio-political texts. Its capacities and achievements notwithstanding, this tradition is constituted of Western concepts, values, ways of thinking, analytic tools and topics of interest; such becomes problematic when universalised and globalised in international academic discourse. It is against this backdrop of cultural and intellectual tension that a culturally conscious and critical paradigm of discourse and communication research is emerging: Cultural Discourse Studies (CDS). It is manifested in the forms of (a) participation by searchers from the Developing World in significant proportions, (b) development of locally grounded, globally minded research frameworks; and (c) a growing multicultural awareness in the discipline. Inspired by Third World experiences, aspirations and scholarships on the one side and drawing on culturally critical insights in the human and social sciences on the other side, this multicultural scholarship endeavours to deconstruct ethnocentrism, construct culturally diversified modes of research and propel intercultural dialogue and debate in the discipline, all with a view to enhancing human cultural coexistence, harmony and prosperity. One exemplar of this new trend is Chinese Discourse Studies, characterised by a holistic philosophy, equilibrium and discrepancy theory, all-encompassing methodology and development-minded research agenda.

Introduction - Justice framed: law in comics and graphic novels

Justice Framed is born of the passionate and rich – though not always peaceful or courteous – nexus between two long-time companions: comics and law. Comics are utterly gripped by issues of legality, order and justice, but their theoretical and ideological partnership has been conspicuously neglected in legal scholarship. Even in the emerging field of law and the visual, or in the firmly established disciplines of criminal justice studies or law and popular culture, jurisprudential and sociopolitical texts addressing law’s manifestations in, around, and through the comic frame are still an odd rarity – with a few remarkable exceptions. While law’s fascination with control and order is reflected in the existing literature dealing with the governance of comics by legal rules – the law of art – the ways in which comics imagine and depict law – the art of law – are still academically underestimated and underexamined. Fortunately, the situation seems to be rapidly ameliorating. This special issue of Law Text Culture reflects a growing interest among scholars in the insight and opportunity comics provide for illuminating, developing and critiquing law.

Visioning 2035: The future of the higher education sector in the UK

The concept of ‘university’ has been around for centuries and yet the majority of British Universities have yet to reach their 50th birthday. The higher education sector has been through extensive change over a relatively short period of time and this is likely to continue in the future. This paper presents the results of a futures study focussed on the Higher Education sector in the UK in 10 and 25 years time. Following an extensive, broad ranging literature review covering business, education, futures, and socio-political texts and studies, a series of scenarios were developed for the future of the sector as a whole. This study differs from other studies in its field as it is does not focus on individual institutions, but rather at the environmental factors that are going to impact on the sector, setting out a range of scenarios within which institutions will need to shape their individual futures. Five scenarios are presented in this paper with their underlying driving factors, and their implications for the academic workforce being employed in the sector.