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The article presents a reflection on Alexander Fedorov's project aimed at analysing the future and the model of production. This model facilitates the correlation of factors related to subjectivity and sociality within the process of future production. Notably, the work emphasizes Alexander Fedorov's assertion regarding the pivotal role of children and childhood and the typology of actors involved in this process. The proposed concept and model establish a fertile ground for further interdisciplinary research. From the perspective of social semiotics and pragmasemantics, shaping the future emerges as a form of meaning-making and institutionalization, unfolding through a series of interfaces that enable interaction across socio-cultural practice contexts. In this framework, subjectivity is identified as a crucial interface for such interactions. Moreover, a comparative analysis of natural and artificial intelligence underscores the complex potential inherent in this research problem. While human beings possess advantages stemming from bodily experience, sexual dimorphism, and other forms of vitality over artificial intelligence, the future is largely grounded in this vitality, exemplified by the essence of childhood. Consequently, the question of management possibilities and the ethical dimensions of future production, as well as the balance between permissible and impermissible means employed, becomes particularly salient.

It is known that almost all hereditary information about the innumerable characteristics of a multicellular organism, including the human body, is encoded in a certain way in the nucleus of a fertilized egg. The principles of the unfolding of genetic information in the development of a multicellular embryo have long attracted the attention of both biologists and representatives of various sciences. While molecular biologists concentrate on the infor­ma­tional and cybernetic aspects of the storage and transmission of genetic information, the au­thors of biosemiotic studies insist on the specificity of biological signs in these processes and on the special nature of biological texts. We focused on the information aspects of these pro­cesses and, in order to demonstrate the analogies between them and with linguistic-semiotic concepts, we describe the problems of complexity and hierarchy of genetic mechanisms for the implementation of genetic information in embryogenesis, as it is seen in systems biology.

This article demonstrates that the concept proposed by Alexander Spirov reflects the ongoing paradigm shift and inspires new approaches in biosemiotics and semiotic pragmatics. The shift involves a move from describing coding languages to describing languages that regulate them. This requires considering the agentivity (or quasi-subjectivity) of sign systems, which leads to a scenario where the sign system functions as both its subject and object, thus reviving Peirce's idea of the sign as a quasi-mind. An analysis of the primary regulatory mechanisms shows that regulatory codes: (a) create specific conditions for coding, (b) govern and control coding processes, and (c) consist of the same elements as coding elements, although are interpreted differently. Their interpretant is not amino acids or proteins but the processes of activation or suppression. Communication and information processes at the biomolecular level allow pragmatics to be understood as semiotic operations associated with intra-system self-regulation and the system's external interaction with its context (environment). The processes within a system, as described by Alexander Spirov, create contexts and interfaces for interaction between different systems. This implies that a system of signs can act as an agent that communicates or interprets, akin to Peirce's notion of the quasi-mind. This understanding has the potential to significantly reshape the current approaches to pragmatics and semiosis.

The role of verbal aggression in the promotion of specific value-regulatory systems, par­ticularly those of a religious nature, has not been extensively explored in contemporary schol­arship. This study aims to investigate the mechanisms by which verbal aggression is produced and employed as a means of preserving and advancing the Rodnoverie ideology within the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. To achieve this, a comprehensive methodology is employed, incorporating both functional-semantic and pragma-semantic approaches. The study identifies the motives and conditions under which verbal aggression tends to arise in online discourse. Key speech acts that manifest this aggression—such as insults, rude de­mands, reproach, accusations, mockery, negative evaluations, and ill-wi­shing—are analysed, with hypotheses offered regarding their function and frequency. Furthermore, the study elucidates the composition and nature of the primary goals behind the aggressive speech behaviour of Rodnoverie adherents.

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 styles. The article reveals the following interactional solidarity strategies: teasing and group jokes, where participants add details to exaggerate the comic effect; ritual insults, in particular making up nicknames; synchronized speech pacing, even leading to creating spontaneous poetry. In the case of a request, the following politeness strategies and means are noted: repetition of words, both literal and with variations; increasing the volume and varying the speech rate, which express the common emotional state; decreasing the imposition with lexical means, markers of in-group identity; friend’s supporting through an offer and a jokily threat, language game (rhyming and deliberate mispronouncing), politeness marker "please" and its slang equivalent “pazhe”, minimizing the degree of a favour; using markers of group identity (“brother”), offering help and threating jokingly, using puns (rhyme and deliberate change of the phonetic form of a word), and increasing volume and prosodic emphasis that express an emotional state. Participants experiment with communicative strategies, sometimes pushing the degree of their expression to the edge and turning it into a performance. Applying the solidarity strategies in a more expressive and playful way seems to be a feature of the adolescent communication style. The data analysed reveals the local, cultural (and supposedly age) specifics of employing the universal face-saving mechanism of the communication.

The paper explores the evolution of communication etiquette between humans and artificial intelligence (AI), focusing particularly on the adaptation of traditional politeness strategies. While the politeness of AI can enhance the human level of trust, human politeness towards AI is equally important as it can impact the efficiency of communication. To demonstrate this, I conducted a pilot experiment with ChatGPT 4.0, using polite and non-polite prompts in Russian. The results suggest that politeness is likely to positively impact the accuracy of responses. Furthermore, the paper examines changes in speech etiquette, highlighting how interactions with AI often omit traditional greetings and farewells, reflecting a more functional approach to communication. Although the paper does not provide definitive answers on how politeness strategies between humans and AI should function, it underscores sociolinguistic points that are likely to become increasingly pressing over time. Overall, the paper illustrates a significant shift in communication practices, driven by the integration of AI into daily interactions, necessitating a reevaluation of the established social norms and speech etiquette.

The article presents the findings of a study on the attitudes toward profanity among Muscovites born between 1962 and 2011, all from families with higher education backgrounds. The research explores how respondents understand the term ‘mat,’ their views on societal restrictions regarding profanity, self-assessed frequency of using profanities and purposes for it, as well as the evolution of the attitudes toward profanity over different life stages. The study is based on the analysis of 20 interviews and 182 questionnaire responses. It also offers a concise overview of scholarly and lexicographical interpretations of the term ‘mat’. The author proposes her own definition of profanity, distinguishing it from other forms of obscene language. Preliminary statistical insights are presented. For example, 26 % of the respondents report rarely or never using ‘mat’ (excluding quotations), with 23 respondents claiming they have never used it. 14 % of the respondents identify themselves as frequent users, while 60 % admit to using it occasionally or only in specific social settings. Many respondents believe that profanity is used to some extent by everyone. However, a significant portion express discomfort when it is used simply to fill pauses in conversation. 35 % of the respondents admit to using obscene language in the presence of children, while 10 % more people are likely to limit its use with strangers compared to close friends or acquaintances. Opinions on profanity regulation vary, with 14 % supporting a strict ban, 44 % supporting a ban in specific situations, and 17 % advocating complete freedom to use profanities. In conclusion, the author offers a model for the perception of profanity: its infrequent, primarily oral speech use, restricted to private settings or among close acquaintances of either gender, but generally avoided in the presence of children. Profanity is used indirectly, not in an invective manner, and serves two main functions: psychological release and as a form of expressive or entertaining speech.

The present study addresses the interdisciplinary issue of conflict and its linguistic specificity as a component of the emotive dimension in artistic discourse, with a focus on the novel “Qin Qiang” by Jia Pingwa (2005). The aim is to analyse the aspects of speech and language conflict, as well as its destructive forms, within the lexico-semantic, syntactic, and functional-stylistic units of the language. A conflictual communicative act is viewed as the result of specific failures in speech interaction and the violation of conventions and rules governing discursive behaviour. Linguistic contradictions and conflicts are analysed within the framework of emotiology, at the level of emotivity and the emotive field in the pragmatic space of artistic discourse, as a multimodal phenomenon shaped by systemic relations of emotionalism. Discursive contradictions function as key elements of the structural tension in the text, serving as linguistic and semantic dominants or attractors. These contradictions materialize as stylistic units at various levels and can be employed as a tool to create the desired effect in artistic narrative. Linguistically, conflict arises from violations of pragmatic-semantic and stylistic-syntactic conventional norms. Drawing on empirical material, the study demonstrates that the use of conflictogenic discourse in prose is a distinctive feature of Jia Pingwa’s idiosyncrasy, integrating various communicative strategies. The findings provide a foundation for further research into speech collisions in Chinese fiction.

Any system of terminology serves as a map of the field within which it is employed. The history of terminology, as an integral component of intellectual history, offers valuable in­sights for methodological reflection. It often prompts a reevaluation of specific issues by re­turning to their origins and rekindling potential implications and developments that were set aside in the course of the subsequent evolution of the discipline. This paper focuses on several terms that emerged during the formative decades of Russian verse theory (1910s and 1920s). These include: ritmicheskii kursiv [rhythmic italics], a term coined by Mikhail Shtokmar, which became common after the works of Kiril Taranovsky and Mikhail Gasparov; slo­vorazdel [word boundary], a term coined by Osip Brik, which has lost its association with Formalist terminology in modern-day use; and, eventually, dol’nik [strict accentual verse], one of the most debated concepts in Russian verse studies (the difference between this concept and the related but defunct concept of pauznik [pause-based verse] is also discussed). The concluding section of the article is devoted to the history of the overarching term for verse studies, stikhovedenie (a calque of the German Verslehre). The study of versification ter­minology allows us to more effectively develop modern verse theory, which dates back in many respects to the polemics between the Russian Formalists and the Symbolists.

The core idea of formalism is that literature is not merely a function of psychology or so­cial theory and cannot be explained using the tools of these sciences. One could say that poet­ics is almost the only philological subdiscipline that has managed to preserve the fundamental idea of formalism, explaining poetic facts in terms of poetics itself, rather than through eco­nomic, sociological, or psychological means. This is precisely the approach taken by Mikhail Gasparov in his article on the history of Russian rhyme, where, without resorting to reduc­tionism, he constructs his concept of cultural history as a sequence of crises and their resolu­tions. Maxim Shapir, in his well-known work on the evolution of the Russian iambic tetrame­ter, specifically highlights the unusual method he employs—the explanation of a poetic fact through historically documented and socially significant events. Poetics, more than any other branch of literary studies, maintains its hermetic nature, which presupposes the explanation of literary data through literary circumstances. The situation in which literature finds itself having to defend its autonomy from other sciences is reminiscent of the position once faced by sociology and linguistics, where Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Saussure fought for their separation from psychology. In recent times, Franco Moretti has attempted to mimic the methodology of formalists, though he still advocates the stance of a methodologically opposed party, which assumes that literary facts can be explained using the logic of social sciences.

The present stage of verse studies is marked by a rekindling of interest in the theoretical approaches of the 1920s and 1930s that emerged in the milieu close to the Russian ‘formal school’. In this respect, one of the most significant figures is Georgii Shengeli (1894—1956), who is known primarily as one of the most insightful researchers of verse theory and Russian non-classical metrics. Less attention has been paid to Shengeli’s own poetic experiments, which have remained in the shadow of his work in verse theory, translation and publishing. This study analyses, against the backdrop of Shengeli’s concept of ‘leimic verse’, his experi­ments in the domain of tonic metrics, including numerous examples of classical dolnik, deriv­atives of antique logaoedic verse, and rarer types of dolnik on disyllabic base. Shengeli’s cor­pus of tonic verse demonstrates an affinity for the classical and slightly loosened dolnik: most of his ‘leimic’ texts have lines of regular three-syllable meters, variable anacrusa is not un­common, and there are isolated extensions. This repertoire is close both to the metrics of the younger Acmeists (especially Georgy Ivanov and Georgy Adamovich) and to the metrics of the poets of the Maximilian Voloshin circle (primarily Sofia Parnok).

One of the first Russian-language works aimed at creating a general theory of verse was Mikhail Malishevskii’s short book “Metrotonics” (1925), which offered a common theoretical frame for the whole structure of metrics. Later, some of Malishevskii’s ideas were developed by Aleksei Kviatkovskii, who proposed a unified treatment of classical and non-classical verse. Theoretics of the ‘Russian method’ in the theory of verse considered these theories unverifia­ble, although a closer analysis of them allows us to show that they were precursors of modern metric typology. The present article explores Malishevskii’s theoretical views both in the con­text of theory of verse of the Russian 1920s and in the broader context of ‘tactometric’ theory, which before Malishevskii was represented primarily by the works of Aleksei Kubarev. It shows the development of ‘tactometric’ theory from Kubarev to Malishevskii and how it fits into metric typology, a subdiscipline that developed later and whose program was first pro­posed in the works of Roman Jakobson and John Lotz. The article concludes with a formal analysis of the poetic legacy of Malishevskii, who was active not only as a theorist but also as a poet. His oeuvres in poetry are examined against the background of his views on metrics, which, in fact, are hardly applicable to the structures of his own poems, which are much more traditional than his theoretical frame.

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 fall short when applied to folklore verse. A flexible approach to the study of folk poetry is essential, given the diversity of folklore forms. In addition to classical folk accentual verse, many genres adhere to the principles of syllabic-accentual versification. Methods for analysing syllabic texts from other Slavic cultures may also be relevant. Each genre must be contextualized within its historical framework; thus, folklore requires a differ­entiated analytical approach. Furthermore, the degree of convergence with musicology can vary: in verse linguistics, traditional versification methods may often suffice. The approach based on counting beats holds particular promise, as it relates to the concepts of isochronic metrics, which remain underexplored in the field of Russian folk versification.

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 Yarkho at the State Academy of Artistic Sciences. In addition, the data from the newly discovered article by Maxim Kœnigsberg, “Compound Rhymes in the Lyrics of Innokentii Annenskii” (1924), is explored. The theses of Kœnigsberg’s exposé are published for the first time, with notes. The aim of the article is to reveal the polemical layer in the works of Moscow formalists. This is achieved by identifying key positions in the analysed texts, by their historical commentary, mutual comparison, and the discovery of authors’ logic. The results of the research include the publication of archival materials and their interpretation in the context of internal formalistic polemics. New materi­als reveal that Zhirmunsky allowed Kœnigsberg to develop his own theory of verse with an orientation towards semantics; whereas Shtokmar, on the contrary, rejected an important part in Zhirmunsky’s rhyme theory. The interrelation between different branches of the Russian formalism become clearer.

The spread of new poetic meters in the works of both older and younger generation of symbolists inevitably led to attempts at their scientific comprehension and description. This paper demonstrates that in writings on Russian verse, starting with Andrei Bely's “Symbol­ism”, the concepts of ‘dolnik/pauznik’ have been consistently analysed in comparison with German tonic verse in general and Heine's poetry in particular. The theoretical interest in ‘dolnik’ was fueled not only by the prevailing poetic processes but also by new translation experiments, primarily the equirhythmic translations of Heine by Alexander Blok, published in his collection “Night Hours” (1911). The formal similarities between Russian and German ‘dolnik’ prompted scholars to develop comparative metrics and theories of tonic verse, while the rhythmic differences led to the refinement of concepts related to rhythm and meter in non-syllabic verse, as well as the establishment of ideas concerning formal and functional equiva­lence of metric forms in poetic translation. In addition to scientific discussions from the 1910s—1930s, the paper addresses the rhythmic strategies employed in Russian translations of Heine’s three-ictic dolnik of the early decades of the 20th century by Alexander Blok, Yuri Tynianov, Viktor Zorgenfrei, Evgenya Knipovich, and Vera Arens. The equirhythmic tradi­tion established by Blok in translating Heine’s verse is contrasted with Tynianov's functional approach. This study deepens the understanding of the connections between symbolist and formalist poetics, as well as between symbolist translation and the so-called philological trans­lation of the 1920s and 1930s.

This paper analyses the operation of the ‘qui pro quo’ principle in Zinaida Gippius's sto­ry “Ivan Ivanovich and the Devil.” Rooted in a comedic literary device based on misunder­standing and confusion, the ‘qui pro quo principle’ was identified by Rita Kleyman as a key element in the poetics of Fedor Dostoevsky's works, particularly in his novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. Scholars have frequently noted the connection between Gippius's story and Dostoevsky’s novel. However, the presence of another link — the ‘qui pro quo principle’ — has yet to be explored in Gippius's text. The analysis demonstrates that the principle mani­fests through the symbolic pairing of the main characters and is closely tied to the theme of temptation. The use of the ‘qui pro quo’ principle in the story results in an inverted portrayal of the motif of temptation. It is argued that one of the defining characteristics of Gippius's imagery — the contradictory nature of the protagonists — is shaped by this principle. The ‘qui pro quo’ is a constant feature of Dostoevsky's works and is reinterpreted by Gippius. The principle is an additional thread linking 19th-century Russian classical literature with Rus­sian modernist literature.