Gender Stereotypes in Teaching Aids on Russian as a Foreign Language for Beginners

The paper brings up the issue of reflecting gender roles in textbooks for international students, investigates which concepts of men and women they can potentially form among foreign students on the basis of these teaching aids. The aim of the present study is to describe the gender roles of men and women in the textbooks of the Russian language for beginners. For that, it was necessary to solve a number of tasks, such as fixing examples of gender-characterized units in teaching aids; creating a system of categories for comparison and comparing the analysis results of all involved textbooks. The following methods of qualitative content analysis, classification method, comparison method were used in the work. Popular textbooks on Russian as a foreign language were taken for the analysis. This study makes it possible to investigate gender roles in Russian culture through the spectacle of the textbooks for foreigners, allowing us to get a new angle on the correlation of gender characteristics. The study can also be used by future textbook authors to further develop textbook characters in terms of their gender roles. The authors of the study conclude that textbook representations convey stereotypic ideas about the roles of men and women, but these images cannot be recognized as corresponding to extra-linguistic reality, which can potentially result in communication failures among foreign students when interacting with Russians.

Pragmatic (In)appropriateness of Diminutives in Russian Language

The article discusses the issue of pragmatic meanings of diminutive forms in the Russian language from the point of view of politeness and speech act theories. The impact of diminutives on the illocutionary force and perlocutionary effects of speech acts raises the question of their appropriateness in various communicative situations. Since there is a negative bias towards diminutives among lay native speakers, it was decided to analyse their opinions, beliefs and feelings in order to define 1) the speakers illocutionary intentions; 2) contexts of use and 3) perlocutionary effects. The online articles, forums, posts on social networks and comments of Internet users were collected, with a total amount of 23 sources and 714 user comments. The emic and bottom-up approach referred to speakers intuition reveal 1) negative attitude towards diminutives in hierarchical relationships, 2) perception of diminutives as a positive politeness tool in low distance relationships, 3) perception of diminutives as a manipulative tool in unequal relationships. Thus, the appropriate use of diminutives calls for pragmatic skills to assess a communicative situation in terms of social variables, such as social distance and power, mutual costs and benefits, rights and obligations of interlocutors.

Semiotics of Advertising Communication in WEB 2.0 Network Social Services

The article is devoted to the study of semiotics in the advertising communication of web 2.0 network social services. The purpose of the article is to analyze the publications of various brands on social Internet services focused on communication with the consumer and the subsequent study of the features of the use of semiotics tools. The relevance of the article is due to the fact that the modern information society has increased interest in semiotic systems, including in the field of Internet communication. The modern vision of semiotics has gone beyond the traditional framework and defined it as part of global and local communication in web 2.0 social network services, not only between Internet users, but also in the areas of B2B and B2C. The study of the possibilities of semiotics in advertising communication on web 2.0 social platforms, using the example of search engine applications, the social network Instagram, and company sites, in this article is based on the works of R. Barthes, J. Baudrillard, Y. Lotman, and U. Eco. This material confirms our hypothesis that today, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, communication on web 2.0 services is not limited only to text with a picture/photos or videos, more and more often there are visualized scenes created with the help of graphic design with the use of symbols and iconic signs that are familiar to the consumer, which he easily decodes, since they are inscribed in his socio-cultural coordinate system. The innovation of the research is based on the fixation of modern criteria of advertising Internet communication: polycode, intertextuality and multimedia, used as a way of working with target audiences. The novelty of the material consists of the understanding that semiotics today is a new look not only at the branch of scientific knowledge, but also at the practical possibilities of sign systems in the digital age, when the sign becomes a part of the socio-cultural space, a trend of the global world, a tool for transmitting information, knowledge, positioning, a tool for manipulation, influence, and attracting attention. Thus, brands working with the audience in todays realities should take into account not only the product preferences of consumers, but also broadcast their social / civic activity.

Structural and Semantic Analysis of English and Russian Proverbs about Marriage as a Source of Expression of Cultural and National Identity

The article is devoted to the comparative structural and semantic analysis of proverbs of the English and Russian languages with the meaning marriage. The novelty and relevance of the study consists in the fact that the proverbs that go to the heart of the current problems of marriage relations were first analyzed with the use of comparative approach in the context of structural and semantic analysis. In the course of the analysis, on the material of the proverbs of these languages, the main meanings of the proverbs were identified and systematized. The proverbs reveal the view on the value of marriage, the view on the predestination of marriage, the roles of husband and wife, controversial aspects of marital relations, as well as the question of the unity and strength of the family. An important part of the article is the study of male and female views on the problem of marriage, family life and the choice of a life partner. In English proverbs, a critical attitude towards marriage and the mention of the advantages of a bachelor life can be found more often. In Russian proverbs, marriage is generally viewed more positively but almost half of the proverbs that reveal the hardships of life in marriage are proverbs that convey a womans view of marriage. The article reveals lexical components, syntactic structures, artistic techniques and figurative means pertain to the proverbs of both linguistic and cultural ethnic groups. The presence of unique and distinctive proverbs in each language reflects the peculiarities of the historical and cultural experience of the two peoples, but the proverbs of both languages also have many common features. This is explained both by the community of human nature and knowledge, and by borrowing from common sources. Both Russian and English proverbs are characterized by using methods of comparison, contraposition, allegory, the use of personifying metaphors, lexical antonymy, the use of zoonyms, proper nouns and somatisms. In Russian, the emotional and expressive component is higher due to the use of diminutive suffixes, vernacular and vulgar words, they represent more widely archaisms and vocabulary associated with the realities of peasant life. Most Russian proverbs are composed according to the laws of the folklore genre and have a compositional completeness due to their rhythmic and phonetic design. Most of the English proverbs contain sayings, teachings, and use more abstract and neutral vocabulary, although there are also bright and original proverbs among them. The author reveals interaction of the figurative means and the conceptual component of proverbs and concludes that the linguistic means and figurative motivation of proverbs are related to the peculiarities of the national-cultural thinking of the both peoples.

Linguistic and Stylistic Means of Satire Construction in the Animated Series

The study is devoted to the description of linguistic and stylistic means of satire construction in modern American animated series. The article deals with a detailed analysis of the linguistic and stylistic means that actualize the satiric and ironic meanings for a satire creation based on the examples of American series. Cartoonists often resort to satire as a unique genre of art to express direct or indirect criticism of the structure of modern society. Modern satirical cartoons contain vivid elements of parody and caricature. An obligatory consequence of satirical creativity is exposure and laughter. The methods of socio-political satire of modern animated serials are enhanced by the interplay of irony and sarcasm, hyperbole and grotesque, allegory and allusion, paraphrase and play on words. American animated series mirror modern reality, they reflect numerous facts of daily life and current environment touching their most critical sides: economics, politics, education, religion, ethnic issues, international ties and relations, interpersonal dealings. Socio-political satire is peculiar in that it does not spare not only the ruling branch of power, but also an ordinary, ordinary, gray person. In this dullness and ignorance of his, the average man in the street is ready to blindly obey the most ridiculous and absurd orders. Of course, an animated series cannot solve acute social or political problems facing society. But the fact that these questions are raised means that the problems are urgent. The purpose of such satire is to reflect on mistakes and not repeat them in the future. For example, South Park, Rick and Morty, Family Guy, F is for Family parody the modern family, social order, exaggerate social issues to the extreme. The relevance of this study is due to several reasons: first, the abundance of cartoon products on the modern film industry market. Secondly, the role that cartoons and serials play in the life of a modern person and in the culture of postmodernity. It is common knowledge that over the past few years, the TV series and animated series industry has changed a lot: streaming services (Netflix, Hulu and Amazon) appear, new formats are released, and more and more cartoon characters are voiced by famous actors. Thirdly, it is confirmed by the idea of the existence of the phenomenon of the "Big Serial Bang", expressed by Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Higher School of Economics V.A. Kurenniy. The fact that modern TV series are a cultural product that accurately reflects the spirit of the times remains an indisputable fact. Such a visual narrative fits perfectly into the framework of modern society.

The Idiolect of Ernestine de Champourcin in Terms of Cultural Accommodation

This article is devoted to the idiolect of Ernestina de Champourcin, a contemporary of the Generation-27, an iconic group of Spanish poets of the 20th century. The authors propose is to consider the poetess's idiolect in the aspect of cultural accommodation beyond the traditional translation discourse, through the analysis of two poetry collections - Presencia a oscuras and Primer exilio which stand at the turn of two stages of Ernestina de Champourcin's creative work. The authors analyse the aesthetic, cognitive and linguistic vectors of the poet's idiolect and systematise the reasons for its dynamics. On the basis of the comparative analysis of the elements of the poetic idiolect of her works of different periods, the authors note that the idiolect evolves in accordance with the conditions created by cultural accommodation, and therefore the consideration of cultural accommodation is possible not only in the context of translation adequacy and equivalence, but also chronologically, at the level of idiolect, as evidenced, in particular, by the use of regional variations of lexical units, syntax and the prevalence of this or that temporal plane. The analysis of idiolect makes it possible to narrow the perspective of the material under study, and thus represents the first link of the work on poetic translation. It is argued that the translation of a poetic text is impossible without considering the internal cultural accommodation of the idiolect, which takes place according to the cultural accommodation of the individual and independently of the translation. Based on their analysis, the authors emphasize the role of idiolect as a key factor in the studies devoted to the chronological description of the creative formation of any poet.

Political Metaphors of the Ancient Chinese Treatise of Confucius “Lun yu”

This article examines the political metaphors of the ancient Chinese philosophical treatise of Confucius Lun yu (The Analects). Confucius often used metaphors for a capacious and figurative presentation of his political views. Translation of Confuciuss political metaphors presents a certain difficulty, since it is necessary to preserve not only the meaning of the statement, but also the imagery. The object of the research is the political metaphors of Confuciuss work Lun yu and their translations into Russian by P.S. Popov, I.I. Semenenko and L.S. Perelomov. The aim of the work is to study the methods of translating political metaphors of the philosophical treatise of Confucius and the possibility of accurately transferring metaphors into Russian. The novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time the translations of Confuciuss political reflections, made by three translators, are analyzed and compared. Political metaphors of the text Lun yu, collected for analysis by the method of continuous sampling, are described and analyzed within the framework of the concept of A.P. Chudinov. Classification of the metaphors of a philosophical treatise into 4 groups - anthropomorphic metaphor , natural morphic metaphor , social metaphor , artifact metaphor - made it possible to identify the peculiarities of translation techniques for different groups of metaphors. The analysis showed that the metaphors of the anthropomorphic group almost always disappear in translations into Russian. On the contrary, natural morphic metaphors, as a rule, are preserved in the translated text. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that at present, the translations of the Chinese philosophical text into Russian have not been sufficiently studied. Analysis of Russian texts Lun yu - Judgments and Conversations (Lunyu) translated by P.S. Popov, I believe in antiquity translated by I.I. Semenenko, Lun yu translated by L.S. Perelomov - made it possible to analyze the techniques of translating metaphors, due to the authors preferences of the translators, as well as the possibility of preserving the original metaphor in translated texts. Three versions of the translation of the title of the ancient Chinese treatise into Russian indicate different approaches to the translation of the text. The conclusion summarizes the results of the study of techniques and methods of transferring political metaphors into Russian.

Russian Diminutives on the Social Network Instagram

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of communication on the Russian-speaking segment of the social net Instagram. The aim of the article makes the analysis of diminutives - the words with diminutive-hypocoristic suffixes. In course of the study, over 250 users pages of Instagram were analyzed, and the most high-frequency lexemes were chosen. The derivational analysis was carried out to sort out the groups of relevant suffixes, and such a phenomenon as the synonymy was revealed. As is proved, despite different formal expression, all suffixes of diminutives bear diminutive-hypocoristic (or just hypocoristic) meaning which helps express subjective positive evaluation in respect to the environment, and demonstrate emotions (also positive) in course of communication. As is marked, the use of diminutives on the social net is not an occasional occurrence, its one of the significant exponents of the world view of the Russian-speaking people. The demand of language bearers for the diminutives witnesses of their high linguistic potential allowing the forms to create aesthetical communication over the Internet virtual space.

Thematic Representation and Linguo-Cognitive Structure of the Businesswoman Image from the Perspective of Gender-Professional Axiology

The article is devoted to the field modeling of the verbal representation of the stereotypical image of a businesswoman - a new phenomenon in the Russian mentality. A comprehensive description is carried out in the sociolinguistic, linguo-cognitive, discursive and gender aspects based on the integrative cognitive-functional analysis of the linguo-culturally marked components of the stereotype image by the methods of a semantic-cognitive, discursive, contextual, conceptual analysis, the method of field modeling and interpretation of the data obtained. The described fragment of the worldview is a pioneering field of comprehension of new phenomena of reality in the framework of the analysis of business discourse and national conceptual spheres. The empirical material of the study was the results of a survey of professional feminine and masculine groups. The nucleus of the heterostereotype of a businesswoman was revealed, based on the ideas enshrined in the minds of the male entrepreneurs - feminine strategies of business communication and an integral set of roles and status positions of the performer and assistant, in which the leading place is given to men, and the secondary - to women. In addition, the analyzed linguistic material demonstrated the transformation of traditional female roles of a wife and a mother towards male roles of a breadwinner and a leader. So, the autoimage of a businesswoman is a complex cognitive structure that includes a set of social roles and functions, numerous gender prescriptions and stereotypes. The nucleus of auto-representations of a businesswoman has also made up a cognitive attribute of female business communication strategies. The feminine role-playing set, according to the women entrepreneurs, includes the traditional roles of a housewife, a mother, a wife, a weak woman, a parity spouse and a hybrid feminine-masculine image. According to the study, the actualization of new feminine roles does not eliminate the socio-cultural background of a womans development in society, but tends to preserve traditional female behavior patterns in combination with components determined by civilizational processes.

Evolution of the Associative-Verbal Network of the Concept “Old Age” in the Language Consciousness of the Native Russian-Language Speakers of the 20s of the XXI Century

The development of information technologies, change of political system and other socio-political changes in the life of any state, leave an imprint on the linguistic consciousness of a typical native speaker. Notwithstanding, the national conceptual sphere or nave linguistic picture of the world has undergone significant changes, for all the changes in the world around us are fragmentally recorded in the collective linguistic consciousness of Russian language native speakers. The concepts of old age that were relevant to the residents of our state three decades ago, have undergone significant changes. Negative attitude to the old age, pessimism, and a sense of the inevitable end of life, have been replaced by the hope of a prosperous, happy, financially stable old age. The younger generation does not hesitate to draw a parallel between such concepts as old age and retirement - this fact was recorded for the first time as previously, the scientific studies based on data from associative experiments, hadnt noted similar approach. The above conclusions were obtained as a result of a chain associative experiment with the word-stimulus old age, which involves obtaining 3 reactions of students to this stimulus (on the basis of the Faculty of Philology of the RUDN). 99 students (aged 17-25), native speakers of the Russian language, were selected to participate in the experiment (these parameters are reflected in the questionnaire of the subjects). Due to the unfavorable epidemiological situation and the conditions of distance learning, the experiment was conducted in an online format using the MS Forms application. The obtained resulting associative-verbal network of the concept old age was compared with the characteristics of the above-mentioned concept, recorded in the Associative Dictionary of the Russian Language edited by Yuri Nikolaevich Karaulov.