2024 Issue №2

This article analyses university textbooks on introduction to linguistics. The most commonplace textbook topics present a comprehensive overview of the main problems of linguistics. Yet, many confine themselves to a system-structural approach to language, neglecting or superficially addressing linguistic issues that became a priority at the turn of the 21st century. The topics most frequently covered include the essence of language, language levels, language as a system of signs, the origin of language, language and society, writing systems, languages of the world and the laws of language development, each explored in more than a third of the analysed textbooks. In addition, the following topics are occasionally raised: applied problems of linguistics, linguistic methods, speech and communication, language and thinking, history of linguistics, linguistics among other sciences and the comparative historical method. None of the textbooks, however, provide a rationale for introducing the topics in the selected order. Questions and assignments aiding in consolidating the knowledge are an uncommon occurrence, as are linguistic tasks. Most textbooks expect students to merely read, memorise and reformulate the material for seminars or exams without engaging in other activities. These and other problems of the course Introduction to Linguistics stem from a notable lack of discussion of its content and teaching methods in scientific periodicals. Discussing the general, rather than specific, issues related to the content and teaching of the course is essential for teaching it effectively in current conditions. This approach would also help unify educators teaching this course into a cohesive community with shared challenges and goals.

This article analyses how media texts utilise phraseological units featuring family relationship vocabulary, aiming to identify the relationship between the semantics of kinship terms and the overall phraseological meaning while describing possible semantic shifts in the understanding of these phraseological units by modern Russian native speakers. Empirically, the study draws on the newspaper corpus of the National Corpus of the Russian Language. A broad understanding of phraseology is adopted, encompassing phraseological expressions and fixed naming units. Continuous sampling methods were employed, along with observation, lexicographic, lexico-semantic and contextual analysis, systematisation and classification of linguistic material.

The analysis demonstrates that contemporary media language unveils the semantic richness of phraseological units containing kinship terms, elucidates the cultural connotations embedded within them and highlights usage trends, including individual variations in how native speakers interpret such expressions. A comparison of dictionary definitions and usage contexts made it possible to identify four types of connections between the meaning of a family relationship term and the idiomatic meaning of a phraseological unit: the preservation of the semantics of consanguinity in the meaning of the phraseological unit; the dependence of phraseological semantics on the figurative meaning of the kinship component; the augmentation of the meaning of the fixed expression; the development of a figurative phraseological meaning that does not directly reflect kinship semantics. It is demonstrated that media texts favour phraseological units that express direct kinship through patrilineal units.

This article delves into the ambiguous terminology surrounding intermediate translation, defining terms like intermediate translation, indirect translation, relay translation and support translation. Distinguishing between open and hidden variants of intermediate translation, the study is the first to examine intermediate translation from the perspective of translation output using a lingua franca as the source language. Additionally, it discusses the positive and negative effects of intermediate translation on the source culture and language, emphasising the dominant influence of the mediating language and intermediate culture.