Philology, pedagogy, and psychology

The development of the business letter as a separate type of documents is the issue the present article focuses on. The material for the study is collected in the Volgograd Oblast State Archive (Fund 332, Inventory 1). The linguistic and documentary analysis of business letters dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when Cossack administrative entities incorporated into the state social-and-political system of Russia, was carried out. It was aimed at determining the status of business letters in the local system of documents. There have been identified several indicators of business letter consistency, like its self-designation, the direction of communication, capability of initiation, inclusion into a particular group of documents on the basis of their function. Within the system of business correspondence, which existed in the offices of the Don Cossack Army, business letters were informing and regulatory documents that accompanied the process of investigation, provided multi-level business communication (from a superior to an inferior, from an inferior to a superior, between equal-status communicants). The business letter is established to occupy a peripheral position in the system of the Don Army documents, because, despite obtaining unity in some form features, it was still an underdeveloped document type. It was manifested in irregular self-designation, variable directions of communication, and capability of initiation implementation options; the combination of functions, as well as lack of specific differentiation between the letter and the donoshenije (report), reflected in the available documents.

The study of narrative within various scientific paradigms is determined by the narration interest to an event in the life of an individual and society. Epic narrative genres are characterized by a consistent presentation of the series of events. The purpose of the article is to identify the features of various narratives in a work that reveals the syncretism of genre structures. The research methodology includes comparative and historical-genetic methods, as well as philological interpretation. A. I. Kuprin’s “Four beggars” is defined by the author as a legend, though this is not the only genre structure where the narrative is developed by the author. Significant influence here is the narrative strategies of the parable and the novella, transforming the genre structure of the legend. The genre identifiers of the legend are found in the title complex and the plot structure, objectifying the precedent picture of the world, however, the components of the imperative and occasional picture of the world make it possible to present events from different narrative angles, characterizing the hero and his actions in broad value coordinates. Priority in the genre structure of the A. I. Kuprin’s “legend” becomes the narrative of the novel, focusing the reader’s attention on the role of the category of chance in the fate of the hero, thus establishing an analogy of events in his life with gambling, which can have any outcome. The genre structure of the novel is formed by the personality of the hero and his free choice in the coordinates of the most incredible circumstances, and the interest in the category of choice in the syncretic genre structure is largely determined by the specific historical conditions of the literary process.

One of the characteristic features of Yevgeny Vodolazkin’s idiostyle is the appeal to linguistic reflection as a way of explicating the conceptual and emotive-evaluative meanings of the work, de-automating its perception by the recipient, ensuring and updating the dialogue between the text and the reader. The purpose of this study is a multi-aspect description of the reflexives contained in Evgeny Vodolazkin’s novel “Justification of the Island”. The use of a complex research methodology that combines functional, interpretive and receptive types of analysis, allowed us to come to some conclusions. According to the main one, reflexive as a meta-statement about any element of a literary text (word, phrase, sentence, subtext) is a regulative, i.e a component of the text, guiding the process of the reader’s reception. In Vodolazkin’s novel “Justification of the Island” reflexives are regulators of a special kind, since they bring linguodidactic information into the text of the work, aimed at the formation of the reader’s linguistic and communicative competencies.

The article examines the specific aspects of functioning of the modal predicative necessary and its derivatives in the novel “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy. The contexts of their use are analyzed in relation to the artistic aspect of the linguistic world view. The author investigates the usage pattern of the predicative necessary for the main characters in various plot situations. The interrelation of the artistic image and the representation of individual reality perception by explicators of the modal meaning of necessity is revealed.

Direct internal monologue, stream of consciousness, internal replication and internal dialogue are the ways of presenting the character’s inner speech which are actively studied by linguistics. The article considers author’s account of internal monologue (AAIM). AAIM is the object of rare research in linguistics due to loss the features of natural inner speech. They are transformed into the content of the AAIM. Scientific interest to AAIM lies in its writing style, manner of expressing Chekhov’s individual style. The linguistic features of the narrator and the character distinguish the verbal-analytical, subject-analytical and impressionistic internal monologues in Anton Chekhov’s stories 1880— 1903. Structural, semantic and functional features determine AAIM. Actively the verbal-analytical AAIM presents the inner speech in Anton Chekhov’s objective narration period. AAIM approaches the forms of free indirect speech. The linguistic features of the AAIM actualize the subject-speech plan of the narrator and the character. Stylistic elements and syntactic constructions make up Chekhov’s polyphonic narrative. Quotations in external speech organize the dialogization of the AAIM. It dramatizes the characters’ stream of thinking. On the contrary, the subject-analytical AAIM excludes the speech identity of the characters. It conveys the general content of reflection, but it is not characteristic of Chekhov’s multi-voiced narrative. Impressionist AAIM presents inner speech in works of all Chekhov’s creative periods. Memories of characters are congested into conceptual meaning and reflect the impressions of the characters. Structurally meaningful and functional features of inner response reveals Anton Chekhov’s individual style.

The article continues a series of author’s works devoted to the study of various types of landscape in the works of French writers of the 19th century. A understudied novel by H. de Balzac “Seraphita” reveals the specific ways of creating the northern landscape. It is determined that Balzac’s landscape does not only create an additional emotional background, affect the perception of the characters of the characters, but also becomes a plot-forming factor. Natural space is depicted in the novel using various means of verbal expression, which are carefully analyzed. The author notes that a holistic picture of northern nature is formed in the novel, paving the way for future generations of writers in describing the Nordic landscape.

The article analyzes H. Ch. Andersen’s works, published in Russian in 2016 under the title “The Forgotten Stories of Hans Christian Andersen”. Their content and poetics are considered at the background of the writer’s creative evolution. The authors studies the reasons that determined the incompleteness of a number of works, and the circumstances that prompted the author to refuse to publish completed texts. “The Forgotten Stories” become the source for analyzing the writer’s creative manner and his work on expressing historical, moral, political, philosophical and religious meanings in such genres as fairy tale, parable, allegory.

The article is dedicated to the spatial organization of the novel by M. R. James “Number 13”, published in his first book of collected stories. A shift in the poetical paradigm is noted: the transition from traditional Gothic topoi to modern urban space. According to the Gothic view on the distant past and antiquity, certain architectural features are ascribed to the reinterpreted Gothic topoi. In he novel, space does not only function as an arrangement of the hero’s inner state, but also as a plot-forming component. There is a contraction of space, proportional to the presence of the supernatural in the canvas of the narrative. A particular attention is paid to oneirosphere space functioning (J. Faryno) as a place of unreal events localization. James’ story showcases the multi-sensory imaging experience through the additional possibilities of dance, voice, correlation of light and shadow, light and dark. The heterogeneity of the temporal organization contributes to the functioning of the space of the novel as oneiric. Special attention is paid to the border of the real and the unreal, its permeability and the means of artistic depiction of these processes. The duality of the chronotope corresponds to the principle of the liminality of space (room 13 in the hotel appears at night and disappears during the day). Thus, the diversity of spatiopoetics, the variability of oneiric spaces, the liminality of the Gothic toposes, the permeability and impenetrability of the borders of the surreal space stand out as the main means for modeling the text.

The relevance of the topic is determined by the request of modern literary study to revise the Soviet ideological interpretations of Decembrism, as well as by the task of thorough analysis of Bulat Okudzhava’s novel “Journey of Dilettantes” (1971–1977), an iconic book of the late Soviet era. The most important artistic statement of the writer is considered in the context of the “Decembrism myth” of the Soviet intelligentsia, which achieved the peak of its popularity in the 1970s. The purpose of the study is to clarify the originality of the author’s concept of Decembrism at the background of two versions of the idealizing myth about the heroes of the past (official and oppositional). The hypothesis of the research is based on the ideas of Galina Belaya: it is challenging “indisputable” historical values in the work of Okudzhava and the close connection of historical issues with the present. The article addresses the continuity of the Decembrism theme in three Okudzhava’s novels (“Poor Avrosimov”, “Journey of Dilettantes”, “A Date with Bonaparte”), analyses the metaphor that characterizes the tragedy of idealists in the harsh historical reality.

The article deals with the issue of reception the German literature in Syria in the general context of German-Arab literary relations. It has been established that now the problem of German literature perception among the Arabic language speakers is relevant. Syria is not considered to be a center for translation of works into Arabic, though the number of translators and publishers popularizing German literature in Syria is growing. The activities of translators (for example, Abdo Abbud, Fuad Ayub, Mohammed Jadid, Ahmed Al-Hammo), who played an important role in promoting the works of German-speaking authors, are examined in detail. The novel by German writer Patrick Süskind «Perfumer» («Das Parfum») was chosen as an example for a more detailed analysis.

The article considers the issue of audience absorption by traditional media and by social networks. The main characteristics of this new integrated mass audience are identified. The authors describe the correlation between the mentioned absorption processes and the quality of traditional media content. In general, there are trends in the integration of traditional media into new digital communication spaces, and the authors question the prospects for such integration. The conclusions are verified on the activities of the regional news portal, which are traced in the audience profile metrics and site traffic data within the framework of the implemented project.