2023 Vol. 14 №1

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 meaning of a sign) refers to typified social situations and social roles of participants of a communicative act. Social meaning is actual­ized when it can be interpreted in social interaction as being used to express certain connota­tions. This analytical review presents a contemporary conceptual apparatus and toolkit that enables linguists to describe the social perspective in constructing meaning and interpreting meaning formation in social contexts. The empirical material for the analysis reflects the con­temporary sociocultural and discourse practices using the example of linguistic variability in Russian. The analysis of the Russian nouns “paradnaya” and “pod’ezd” shows how a lan­guage sign acquires a stable indexical character and is used to express social attribution.

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 of new theoretical con­cepts. The general principle of dynamic semiosis is demonstrated — that is the recursive rela­tions when a signified of one sign through intermediate operations (homonymy and synony­my) becomes a signifier of another and vice versa. In this semantic Perpetuum mobile, no single interpretation reaches the final point. It goes back to the previous state without produc­ing new meanings and signs but repeating the already passed cycle. Each of the co-existing interpretations returns to itself, demonstrating — in a paradoxical and tautological way — Luhman’s concept of paradox and tautology as two only possible states of a self-describing system. The same process, but being considered from the starting point demonstrates the par­adoxicality and tautology of the process of signification.

Today the so-called problem of discourse should boil down to (1) identifying relevant con­textual variables, (2) matching these to specific linguistic categories, and (3) operationalizing the former vis-à-vis the latter. Having posited this, the purpose of the article is twofold. In a more theoretical sense, the purpose is to outline one possible model of context each 'tier' of which is potentially related to certain linguistic categories and linguistic analytical toolkits. The suggested model has five tiers of contextual variables and two dimensions cutting through the five tiers. These dimensions are discourse (in the most general sense — as one of the 'moments' of social practice) and individuals (theorized here in two ways — in terms of cognition and as a complex of semiotic resources used to 'perform' identities). In a more prac­tical sense, the purpose of the article is to use (certain fragments of) the model to analyze dis­course. The discourse used for such analysis is a lifestyle instruction video from YouTube. Methodologically, the analysis draws on (1) the category of engagement as described in the Appraisal Model within Systemic Functional Linguistics and (2) the interpretation of dis­course/text as simultaneously invoking different discourses and genres, as suggested in the Faircloughian approach to discourse analysis. When seen as a complex semiotic happening, the discourse is analyzed in terms of it being part of the YouTube media platform. It is con­tended that as a result of the communicative technology in question, which has drastically changed participatory frameworks for mediated communicative events of this sort, a minimal discursive unit of analysis and interpretation should include, in addition to the text and ac­companying modalities (the discourse of the original video), comments made by other users (collaborative discourse). When seen more through the Foucauldian lens, the discourse of the video is analyzed as a discursive and generic hybrid invoking several social practices associat­ed with consumer culture, which can (to a certain extent) be shown to have (pre)defined the contents, the language and possible interpretations by the tentative addressee.

Axiological categories and the concepts they consist of have always been a major area of interest in science. The development of cognitive linguistics has opened new perspectives for the study of axiological events, categories and concepts within them. This article explores the structure of the axiological binary opposition truth-lie, based on the material of the English language. In English, the verbalised concept truth encodes information about both objective truth as well as its subjective perception and re-translation. A combination of methods — definitional, frame and conceptual analyses — makes it possible to investigate and model the structure of the frames TRUTH and LIE, identify their main slots and the type of conceptual information they encode. The results of the analyses suggest that the two frames have the same structure and the same number and type of slots. However, the conceptual content of the slots is different. From the conceptual point of view, the axiological binary opposition truth — lie is a continuum having an intermediate blend zone “neither truth nor lie”, incorporating the axiological paradoxes, which form the conceptual basis of manipulation.