Signs and senses as an epistemological problem
The semiotic problem of the triad “sign – meaning – sense” is discussed as a methodological problem caused by philosophy of external realism and the representational theory of cognition based on it. Reification of linguistic signs, along with the erroneous view of the nature and function of language as a communication tool rather than the mode of existence of humans as living (cognitive) systems, impedes scientific explanation of both language and linguistic signs. As an alternative, the core...
The Mobius strip of the pragmasemantics of sense: from culture through subjectivity to nothingness and back
The author endeavors to systematically present sense formation through the lens of the pragmasemantic approach. It enables the demonstration of how the primary factors of sense formation, socio-cultural practices and personal agency interact. Their relationship is non-linear: subjectivity results from the assimilation of socio-cultural experiences and the accompanying narrative communication. Self-consciousness of the Self arises from the socialization of the individual through reflexive self-description...
Really: syntactics without semiotics?
I discuss the relation of linguistics and semiotics on the basis of the Old Russian discourse particle TI1 ‘indeed’, ‘verily’, ‘truly’ discovered by Andrej A. Zaliznjak in 1993. Linguistics and semiotics are different research programmes: the first one deals with specific features of language structures, while the second one discusses general characteristics of all sign systems, from a perspective of interpreting most or all of them as secondary respective to natural language. Formal models of language...
Strategy and practice of partial non-translation in contemporary poetry (a case study of Hong Kong and Russian authors)
The paper centers on the phenomenon of non-translation in the texts of bilingual poets who perform self-translation into the lect of a dominant, ‘larger’ tradition (Putonghua / Russian). Non-translation is set in motion in the conditions of enhanced linguistic reflection of its authors and serves as a marker of a special affective connection with a lect that is permanently associated with a weaker position. Paradoxically, the attempt to expand readership by translating into ‘larger’ lects relies...
Petroleum as a space for non-translation: Hikmet, Negarestani, Parshchikov
In 1927, Nâzım Hikmet composed several poems based on his impressions of his visit to Azerbaijani capital, the city of Baku. They will be included in the collection Song of the Sun-drinkers (1928) and will soon be translated into Russian. The Baku cycle was one of the first attempts at a symbolic representation of petroleum in Russian poetry, in many ways foreshadowing the later poetics of the subject, which will develop on Russian material only in the 2000s. One can look at these poems by Hikmet...
Dispute about Holbein as a dispute about faith: discussion around Fedor Dostoevsky’s novel ‘The Idiot’
... ed., 2005. Biblioteka F. M. Dostoevskogo: Opyt rekonstruktsii. Nauchnoe opisanie [F. M. Dostoevsky’s Library: Experience of reconstruction. Scientific Description]. St. Petersburg (in Russ.).
Capilupi, S. M., 2007. The question of the fall into sin and universal salvation in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. In: Roman F. M. Dostoevskogo «Brat'ya Karamazovy»: sovremennoe sostoyanie izucheniya [Roman F. M. Dostoevsky “The Brothers Karamazov”: the current state of the study]....
Conceptualizing emotions through discourse: a pragmatic view on the reader's interest
The paper adopts a sociopragmatic approach to the study of emotion processes and investigates discursive traits of the reader’s interest. The field of written popularization was examined to establish how it conceptualizes the reader’s interest through discourse structures. The text materials were obtained experimentally. They consist of 104 pairs of expository text; each of the pairs includes a text published in an academic source and a popular science text created by the participant for provoking...
Experimental deixis in the space of poetic text
The article deals with the linguopoetics of deixis as one of the key mechanisms for expressing subjectivity in artistic communication. The aim of the study is to discuss the specifics of deictic words and constructions in experimental poetic discourse. The second part of the article analyzes the functions of personal, spatial, and discourse (textual) deixis in the visual layout of a poetic text (spatial design of verse). The material for analysis encompasses Edward Cummings’ experimental verse, conceptual...
Units of the lexical-semantic group ‘Information search and receipt’ as personifying metaphors in Russian poetry
The article analyzes a fragment of the metaphorical system in the language of Russian poetry from the 19th to 21st centuries. Specifically, the analysis focuses on personifying metaphors related to the semantic class of ‘Language and speech’ and the lexical-semantic group Information search and receipt’. The study aims to determine the functioning of these lexical units in Russian poetry, identify the semantic classes of the objects of personification they are combined with, and establish their role...
The semiotic perpetuum mobile in action: OMON, homonyms and antonyms
We address the interaction of various interpretations of lexical items, which leads to a change in the correlation between signifieds and signifiers and the formation of new signs. Addressing the polysemic slogan ‘ОМОН-И-МЫ — АНТОНИМЫ’, we explicate the mechanism of semiotic Perpetuum mobile, that is, the cyclic recursions that allow simultaneous actualization of various interpretations of this utterance. We demonstrate that the analysis of semantic relations in their dynamics requires the introduction...
“They call the main entrance a porch”: social meaning in semantics and metapragmatics
The paper analyzes the concept of social meaning, which has been conceptualized in lexical semantics since the 1980s and has become central in modern sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. It has been used to describe pragmatic increments in the meaning of a language unit, which it receives in context. New explanatory approaches have developed from a sociolinguistic perspective in metapragmatics, where social meaning is seen as a social index that emerges in context. Social index (the index...
Idyll, history, rationality: city images in “Real Journey to Germany in 1835” by Nikolay Gretsch
The article explores the images of the German cities, Lubeck and Hamburg, presented in Nikolay Gretsch’s travelogue “The real trip to Germany in 1835”. The author determines the link between the images of the two cities and the tradition of describing Germany as an idyllic place. This tradition was widespread in Russian literature at the end of the 18th century — first half of the 19th century. In Gretsch’s text, Lubeck and Hamburg are depicted as idyllic but to different degrees. The locus of Lubeck...
Neo-Kantian Question on Method, the Problem of Form and the Meaning of Variability in Gustav Shpet and Ernst Cassirer’s Philosophy
The Kantian legacy has had a key impact on the landscape of theoretical philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. Philosophers both in Germany and in Russia saw Immanuel Kant’s ideas as seminal for their philosophical research. The main schools of that era were formed in discussions of the problems and the solutions which were proposed by Kant. The methodological legacy of the critical philosophy effectively became the main benchmark of the thinking of a whole generation of intellectuals...
Kantian and Anti-Kantian Philosophy of Language
This paper examines two models of language philosophy. The first is the Kantian philosophy which sees language as an instrument of conveying mental content. I have selected Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl from amongst its numerous representatives. In this tradition, a language expression, i.e. an expression that has meaning, is determined by the objectively ideal character of the meanings (“rules”) given through the subject’s intellectual acts. The main task is to fix with a maximum degree of accuracy...
Grammar. Linguistics. Language (in response to opposing views)
I discuss the criteria of defining linguistics against other science branches. Linguistics is not a proper part of semiotics, since the foundations of language do not necessarily rely on the theory of sign systems. Grammar always operates on sets, including the sets consisting of one element. Not all language objects can be treated as signs. The connectors, i. e. segmental means marking the levels of clause linkage are legal linguistic objects, but the analysis of individual texts is a prerogative...
Polynominativity of geographical objects in the linguocultural context
The article attempts to analyze the linguocultural factors contributing to the phenomenon of polynominativity—multiple names for a single object. This investigation employs toponyms as a case study. The exploration delves into several key factors that give rise to polyonyms: 1) linguosociocultural factors: these factors play a pivotal role in shaping subsystems of names, encompassing both official and unofficial, widely used and niche terms, as well as neutral and connotatively charged expressions...
Technological Metaphor and Communicative Models in Contemporary Russian Poetry
The article investigates the functioning of technological metaphor and communication models in poetic discourse. The aim of the study is to explore contemporary Russian poetry in its relation to digital technologies, employing cognitive-discursive and media-cognitive approaches. Technological metaphor is an implicit property inherent in both technical objects and poetic texts, which manifests itself on two levels: lexical-semantic and cognitive-communicative. The article proposes an approach to...
Speech acts and speech genres: the case of the compliment
This article is devoted to the speech act of compliment, which is treated herein as expressing the speaker's attention and partiality to their interlocutor. The similarities and differences between speech acts of compliment and praise are analysed, with the characteristics of compliment linked to the gender and age of the interlocutor. Particular attention is paid to the concepts of speech act and speech genre and the applicability of these notions in analysing the speech act of compliment. When...
Category of politeness: Russian imperative speech clichés in dialogue
This study identifies and characterises a class of lexical units — imperative speech clichés, exemplified by expressions such as krepis'! [hold on!], prekrati! [stop it!] or ne lez' [back off!]. It defines the concept of imperative speech clichés and investigates the role of pragmaticisation in their formation. The general properties of imperative clichés are described: most are either never employed with the negative particle ne [not] or are utilised exclusively with this particle. In speech communication...
Brian Bilston’s multimodal poetic practices: interactions between the digital and the analogue
This article examines texts by the modern British poet Brian Bilston from the perspective of their semantic and syntactic organisation and the lines of the author's investigation into paralinguistic, i. e. visual, elements. To this end, it draws on contemporary research into complex communication objects — multimodal texts. The study provides an overview of the principles of new media: modularity, numerical representation, automation and variability. Formulated by Lev Manovich, these precepts find...
Language of digital poetry description: the semiotic and literary aspects
There is a dearth of empirical literary studies devoted to digital literature, primarily due to the poor development of a methodological framework for analysing digital texts and a lack of clarity as regards the text/meaning-generating capacity of the new communication channel, the language of digital texts' literary meta-description and the limits of freedom in interpreting such volatile texts. This article attempts to answer these and other questions, providing a semiotic understanding of communication...
Digital poetry between the printed page and cinema: the difference in agency structures
This article delves into the early era of 'digital poetry', focusing on poems from the digital poetry collection First Screening (1984) by bpNichol — a poet renowned for his 'movies of words'. Two poems from this collection — 'Letter' and 'After the Storm' — were initially published in print, coming out in 1967 and 1973, respectively. The poet's creative journey from crafting 'poem-pictures' to producing 'poem-movies' sparks inquiries into the contrasting subjective frameworks of printed poems versus...
The State Academy of Artistic Sciences versus Petrograd formalism: Verse theory. II. On Zhirmunsky’s “Rhyme, its history and theory”
The article presents a historical and scientific analysis of the oral presentations and other works that criticized Boris Eikhenbaum’s “Melodics of Verse” and Viktor Zhirmunsky’s “Rhyme, Its History and Theory” from the perspective of Moscow formalism. The overview relies on unknown materials, which can thus be introduced into scholarly discourse. It refers to the presentations made by the philologist and philosopher Maksim Kœnigsberg and the literary scholar Mikhail Shtokmar, a student of Boris...
Russian folk verse and the main approaches to its study
This paper addresses general issues in the study of Russian folk verse. A critical examination of the major theories related to this topic highlights their significance in the history of Russian versification. The unique characteristics of folk verse, which exist in an oral-musical form, necessitate the development of specialized methods for its analysis. While traditional studies of versification offer a variety of methods and resources for analysing different forms of literary verse, they often...
Solidarity strategies in adolescent communication
The study aims to reveal politeness strategies used in natural interaction within a particular community group. The article analyses excerpts from audio recordings of conversations of teenage male friends. The chosen interactional approach relies on Goffman’s notion of face and Brown and Levinson’s model of linguistic politeness, ethnographic methods of collecting data, and conversation analysis. The case study continues the discussion of gender and age aspects of politeness realization and communication...
Influence of selenium nanoparticles on basic cultivation parameters and phytostimulating properties of Lactococcus lactis
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of selenium nanoparticles on the key cultivation parameters and phytostimulatory properties of Lactococcus lactis IMB B-7352. Cultivation of L. lactis IMB B-7352 was carried out in MRS medium supplemented with nanoselenium at concentrations of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0 mg/L (based on selenium content). The antagonistic activity of L. lactis IMB B-7352 against cultures of phytopathogenic bacteria was assessed using the agar block method. It was found...
Antihyperglycemic effect of peptides of colostrum hydrolysate
... trypsin hydrolysate of cow colostrum demonstrated antihyperglycemic and antioxidant effects. Blood glucose and glycated hemoglobin levels decreased in T2D rats receiving the trypsin hydrolysate compared to untreated T2D rats. Administration of the trypsin hydrolysate to Group 3 rats reduced body weight loss relative to Group 2 and was accompanied by less pronounced hyperglycemia. Levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) and catalase activity decreased, while the levels of reduced glutathione and lipoprotein ...
Peripetien der Erfahrung. Kants „Erfahrungserkenntnis“ und Hegels „Erscheinungen“
It was not until German Idealism that philosophy briefly regained the importance it had in antiquity. This is indicated precisely by the “peripeteia” in the concept of experience. When Kant and Hegel write about experience, they mean quite different things on the other. Kant’s concept of experience is law-like, invariant and rigid. Only for this reason can it form the basis for a critical reflection on the validity of knowledge. However, Hegel’s analysis of object experience “dynamises” Kant’s concept...
Why Did Shpet and Husserl Talk about Kant? (Based on Archive Materials)
While working on the archive materials of Gustav Gustavovich Shpet, one of the authors of this article came across notebooks in black covers in which, over the years, he had made entries (ranging from self-observations to tentative formulations of his thoughts which became part in one form or another of works that were later published or prepared for publication. One such notebook was the “1913 Diary”, which contains hurried jottings belonging to the period when Shpet was in direct communication...
Self-Ownership and the Categorical Imperative
This article examines the attempts of many libertarian philosophers to justify the self-ownership principle using the second formulation of the categorical imperative. It begins by reconstructing the self-ownership principle, according to which each person has a natural property right over her body and person. There are many versions of this principle, each recognizing a different set of such property rights; but what all formulations have in common is their radical anti-paternalism and, consequently...
Kant’s Philosophy of Chemistry and Nietzsche’s Cosmology: On the Material Hermeneutics of Alchemy and Cinnabar. Part I
By reading Kant on chemistry as a science, including his definition of science as such, this essay reviews Kant and the history of chemistry. Kant’s Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens is read in terms of contemporary axiomatic systems, via the astrophysicist Rudolf Kurth’s 1956 account, along with Nietzsche’s account of logic and causality. Nietzsche cites Kant’s theory in the context of a sustained discussion of Anaxagoras’ pre-Platonic cosmology. The paper includes reflections...
On the question of the syllabic system of versification: the poetic practice of Theophan Prokopovich
The study is devoted to the analysis of the accentual architectonics of the isosyllabic works of Theophan Prokopovich. The primary objective of this analysis was to examine the hypothesis regarding the gradual emergence of the syllabo-tonic system within the framework of syllabic verse. This hypothesis challenges the views of numerous scholars of versification, who argue for a revolutionary shift in Russian poetic tradition, attributed to the publication of Vasily Trediakovsky's 1735 treatise. Additionally...
Hybrid genre in persuasive communication
This paper discusses the notion of hybridity as related to text genres. The study pinpoints a particular kind of hybrid genres referring to texts that mix and combine in their structure the features of two or more different genres but maintain their primary genre identity. This kind of genre mixing results inter alia in an advertisement that is shaped as a chat in internet, private talk or recipe but sustains its genre status as an advertisement. The analysis is based on advertisement texts functioning...
Prerequisites for the formation of Neostructuralism as an integral linguistic paradigm
This work is the result of methodological reflection related to the comprehension of more than two hundred years of experience accumulated since the secularization of linguistics, and the formation of a reasonable forecast regarding the near and medium-term development of linguistic science. The development of linguistics is determined by the dynamics of paradigms. In understanding the latter term, the author follows the tradition laid down by Kuhn, taking into account the nuances of its transfer...
You, you, you: second-person narrative in the “Invisible” by Paul Auster (2010)
‘Second-person narrative’ is defined by Richardson as one of the most significant narrative forms since the introduction of the stream of consciousness. And not by chance: it not only changes the reader's interaction with the narrative world, but also imposes its own requirements on contemporary narratology, it demands new language and a new way to describe it. ‘Second-person narrative’ problematizes the boundaries between narrator and narratee, actual and virtual, subject and object. More than...
The question "Who am I? / What am I?" as a marker of identity search
The article is devoted to the questions "Who am I? What am I?", which have been actively spreading in the Russian language since the end of the 18th — beginning of the 19th century, both in poetry and prose. As a linguistic means of self-presentation and self-identification, questions are used in situations that encourage a person to reflect on their place in society and their own rank feelings. The very fact of using the rhetorical questions "Who am I? What am I?" excludes...
Speech and gesture regulations in expressing vague reference in expository dialogue
This study explores the organization of multimodal systems, mediated by two types of hierarchical regulations: systemic regulations governing each mode (speech and gesture) and multimodal regulations operationalizing mode alignment. To identify these regulations, we examine the variability of the multimodal speech-gesture system, modulated by the cognitive factor of vague reference in expository dialogue. The data were collected in an experiment involving native Russian speakers explaining the differences...
“Rhetorical question” in linguistics and speech
The article examines the concept of the rhetorical question, which — quite surprisingly — is still not part of the standard and widely recognized inventory of linguistic categories, and the term ‘rhetorical question’ is rarely used in linguistic studies. At the same time, the expression ‘rhetorical question’ is actively employed in discourse, and, at first glance, seems to be used in a rather broad and undefined sense. The goal of this article is to distinguish between these two fields: linguistics...
Pragmatics in the digital age: the Routinicon database
This study focuses on the Routinicon database as a digital tool for describing routines — a distinct class of formulaic phraseological units that represent reactions to or comments on standard extralinguistic situations. For instance, the formula Kogo ya vizhu! (Whom do I see!) serves as a reaction to an unexpected meeting, while Kto tam? (Who’s there?) is a standard formulaic reaction to a knock at the door. The collection, classification and study of units of this kind is of undoubted interest...
The phenomenon of heterogeneity of the speech subject in German retrospective discourse
The article highlights the features of self-presentation of the subject of retrospective mental and cognitive activity recorded in the texts of memoirs of German-speaking writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The texts of fiction, which are fictional memories of the narrator and the main character of the narrative in one person, were also used as linguistic material. The novelty of the research is determined by the linguocognitive approach to the problem of interaction of the writer’s / hero’s...
Towards a dictionary of urban untranslatables
The article presents a comprehensive study of urban untranslatables — unique cultural practices, terms, and semiotic codes deeply rooted in specific historical and social contexts. Focusing on phenomena such as Russian ‘ЖКХ-арт’ (municipal utility art), French ‘flânerie’, Indian ‘jugaad’, Spanish ‘tertúlia’, and Argentine ‘merendero’, the authors demonstrate that these concepts resist translation due to their embeddedness in local collective memory and everyday practices. The central thesis...
The space of metaphor in the space of the created locus (based on Hrant Matevosyan’s prose)
The article provides a comparative description of different types of metaphors based on an analysis of the prose of Hrant Matevosyan (1935—2002), a classic of Armenian literature. To analyze the specific type of societal relations reproduced by Matevosyan in his Tsmakut Cycle, the article uses the model of ‘mix of mores (Sittlichkeit), which refers to the spontaneous movement of morals considered from an ontological point of view. In the hopeless struggle to preserve this syncretic environment of...
English language in the context of diglossia in the modern world
The article examines the transformation of the concept of diglossia from the moment of its introduction by C. Ferguson to denote a stable language situation to the comprehension of the phenomenon of polyglossia, which is characteristic of many countries in the modern world. It is noted that code-switching between the H-variety and the L-variety may occur in any social domain, the most significant of which are family, religion, education, and work. The basis for the analysis of diglossia is the theory...
The plot of Melusine in Russian literature of the XVII— XIX centuries (translations and interpretations)
The article highlights the reception in Russian literature of one of the most popular
Western European plots — the story of Melusine. The aim of the study is to examine the attempts to appropriate this plot in Russia from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The story of Melusine formed the basis of two French-language novels at the turn of the 14th—15th centuries, and a 15th-century German translation contributed to the wide dissemination of the novel in non-Francophone Europe, primarily in the form...
Time synaesthesia in W. Shakespeare’s texts: the semantics and pragmatics of colour
The article analyzes the features of synesthetic conceptualization of time through the prism of the category of color, based on the works of W. Shakespeare. It is demonstrated that color, not being an independent entity but a quality, acquires in the space of the literary text additional metonymically conditioned meanings through its correlation with the phenomena of existence, in some cases rising to the level of value-laden symbolic co-meanings. The semantics and pragmatics of each color that...
Lexical and grammarical characteristics words with the root рыж- (red-) in the poetry of the first third of the XX century
The study examines the description of the artistic color space constructed with lexemes containing the root ryzh- (“reddish-brown” or “ginger”), which differ in their grammatical characteristics, in Russian poetry of the first third of the 20th century. It is revealed that color designations with the meaning ryzhiy were predominantly used by poets in 1916, with the most frequent usage observed in the poetry of E. Bagritsky, I. Selvinsky, V. Mayakovsky, Sasha Chyorny, and M. Tsvetaeva. Uneven frequency...