In the news language as a special media genre, changes in the lexical and semantic system of the language are very quickly manifested, reflecting the dynamics of social, political, and economic life. The research of news texts in critical eras is very relevant in terms of identifying trends in new vocabulary functioning. The pandemic is created a “pandemic” discourse in which new words are an important part of the lexical and semantic level of discourse. The study of neologisms in the active phase, at the very peak of functioning, allows us to comprehend the linguistic mechanism of new words formation, the external generation factor of which is extralinguistic reality. We establish that new words in the pandemic discourse appear in several ways: intralingual borrowing from highly specialized terminology (herd immunity, “cytokine storm”), foreign borrowing (coronavirus), as a result of metaphorization (wave, cover, crowned) and word-formation processes (corona, coronacrisis). Coronavirus is personified, it is presented as the evil of global and planet dimension, as a threat to humanity. We also reveal that the general emotional-expressive negativization of discourse determines the choice of native speakers from potentially possible extensions of the word semantics of meanings with negative evaluative connotations (crowned, burst). Semes of suddenness and intensity dominate in synonyms describing the coronavirus spread. The metaphor of wave contains a predictability component, which predicts the possibility of the next coronavirus wave, its timing, and the degree of danger to people. The enrichment of common words with highly specialized medical terms can be named as a specific tendency of the “pandemic” discourse.

We analyze the semantics and usage of French borrowing of military partisan themes from the moment it entered Russian at the turn of the XVII–XVIII centuries to the present time. We give an etymological and historical analysis of the word, and consider the evolution of its semantics in Russian language due to the functional diversity of its use both in the donor language and in the recipient language. The study of lexeme history in cultural and historical terms helps to trace the development of the form and meaning of the word partisans and its derivatives, the peculiarities of its functioning as a representative of battle vocabulary sphere in Russian language. We conclude that the sememe is completely borrowed from the French language into the Russian literary language in terms of its form (phonetics, grammar, peculiarities of word usage) and meaning. We indicate and analyze in detail the sources of word study in the synchronous-diachronic aspect, lexicographic, documentary-historical, and artistic-textual sources both on the material of the modern Russian literary language and in the previous periods of its development, and we identify the transformation of its semantic structure. We pay attention to the disclosure of the extensional value of the word in the text of Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace”, which is the most valuable source for studying the lexical and semantic system of Russian language of the pre-Pushkin era. A number of examples from different spheres of the modern usus of Russian language show changes in the functional and stylistic coloration of the word and the acquisition of enantiosemicity features and other additional shades by the word. We conclude that the word partisan is adapted as an element of the battle term system of Russian language and that its use in modern conditions of conducting combat operations is inevitably fading away, turning it into historicism.

The relevance of the study of Russian folk patois is due to the rapid penetration of the literary language into all spheres of human life and the process of urbanization. In this context, in the 21st century, there is a need to fix the dialectal speech that is preserved among residents of settlements remote from metropolises. The subsequent analysis is important for understanding the language processes occurring in it, which are interesting for dialectologists. The goal of this work is to describe the interesting word-formation features of the Russian-Ukrainian patois of Shchuchye village, Liskinsky district, Voronezh region in its current state. To achieve the goal, the following methods are used: interviewing, description, comparison and analysis. The objects of the researcher’s close attention are lexemes formed in different ways. In the course of its consideration, it became obvious that word-forming units represent a rich linguistic material in terms of language. The most striking dialect features serve as evidence that the speech of indigenous people has the properties of patois of the Ukrainian language and southern Russian patois. It represents a rather curious system that has developed over time with certain relationships. To sum up, it is noted that the local dialect is Ukrainian in origin, influenced by Russian patois and literary language. It is concluded that the sonorous language of the respondents contains information about the results of interaction and interpenetration of two closely related languages and cultures. Getting acquainted with the linguistic world view of the dialect speakers of the Central Black Earth Region, we get an idea of the current state of one linguistically valuable folk patois.

The subject of the study is the lexical parallels of the Smolensk patois, the Belarusian language, and the borderline Vitebsk and Mogilev patois. The relevance of the study is explained by the general history of the region, the proximity, and sometimes identity of the material and spiritual culture of the Russian-Belarusian border area. A language continuum is developed along the Russian-Belarusian border, which is of great interest to researchers, since it demonstrates the parallel existence of a number of lexical entities that were once part of a single language idiom from the point of view of synchrony. It is known that the modern Belarusian language is formed based on Belarusian patois. Some of the words of the Smolensk patois are found not only in the Belarusian patois bordering the Smolensk Region, but also in the modern Belarusian language. As a result of the research, the article identified more than 100 non-derivative dialect concrete-subject nouns that find a match in the Smolensk patois and in the Belarusian language and along with this are found in the neighboring Smolensk Vitebsk and Mogilev patois. We conclude that the lexical features of Smolensk patois in the context of their interaction with the Belarusian language and Belorusian patois.

We investigate the features of variable names standardization of villages ending with -ova/-ovo, -eva/-evo, -ina/-ino. The relevance of the study is to improve the standardization of geographical names in order to ensure their unified and consistent use. The novelty of the study consists in the use of quantitative research methods towards the toponymy of different time samples covering the last century and a half. As a source of variable and standardized names of villages, the State catalog of geographical names, normative legal acts, reference books of administrative divisions, lists of localities of the Russian Empire, and topographic maps are used. The toponymy of the territories of the modern Moscow, Bryansk, Vologda, Kaluga, Kurgan and Sverdlovsk regions is subjected to quantitative analysis. We establish that in the second half of the 19th century the names of villages ending with -ova, -eva, -ina prevailed in a quantitative sense over the names of villages ending with -ovo, -evo, -ino. Over the next century and a half, the proportion of names ending with -ova, -eva, -ina in all the analyzed regions consistently decreased, while the proportion of names with -ovo, -evo, -ino grew. If currently in some regions the names of villages with -ova, -eva, -ina are practically absent, in others they may still prevail over names with -ovo, -evo, -ino. This fact should be considered when standardizing variable toponyms.

We analyze Slavic interlingual cognate-homonyms in terms of content. The aim of the study is to explore the process of semantic deviations of modern words with initially common etymon and to reveal the reasons of such deviations. The main methods of linguistic research are comparative, comparative-historical and component analysis. The problem of Slavic interlanguage homonymy is connected, on the one hand, with the globalization of communication, as the result of which the importance of linguistic comparative analysis is increased in modern language study, and, on the other hand, it is connected with the division of the Slavic world, which makes the revival of the Slavic historical roots urgent. The novelty of the research is due to the systematic approach to the study of cognate-homonyms. The optimal system for studying homogeneous homonyms is the diachronic field. We reveal that the foundation of the diachronic fields’ evolution, which supplied the material of Slavic interlingual cognate-homonyms, is continual generating of polysemants, the consecutive one being modeled on the basis of the prototype generated by the previous. We substantiate that semantic deviation in modern words with a common etymon and consequently the formation of homonyms is determined by the split of a polysemant in the process of breaking classificational and associative connections which define its integrity, and subsequent actualization of polysemantic complexes (fragments) and separate meanings. We conclude that it is possible to use the study results in etymological research in the reconstruction of prototypes and original polysemy as a source of late homonymy. 

We describe the established relationship between linguoecology and emotioology, which is manifested in the emergence and development of emotive linguoecology. We substantiate the use “ecology” concept in the refraction of emotivity. We consider the influence of emotivity on the boundaries of ecology. The material of the work is an artistic emotive text, on the example of which its ecology is established by the method of emotive analysis. As an assumption, the following is accepted: emotive analysis is universally applicable to any text, both in terms of its functional, stylistic, and genre affiliation, and in terms of its temporal relevance; ecology of the text is related to the emotional motivation of its author and is determined by the rating sign of emotives in the text. The main result of the work is to clarify the emotional coordinates of ecology by referring to the role of emotions as the motivational basis of all human activity. The work concludes that ecology is manifested in the emotional motivation of the author who produces an emotive text. We noted why the relationship between emotive and ecological linguistics ensures their mutual development and resilience. We list the main emotive perspectives of linguoecology and linguoecological perspectives of emotionology. We predict the possibilities of their further integration.

We consider the general phonetic features of the northern patois (patois of the north-western group) of the Azerbaijani language. We analyze long and short vowel variants, offence of the harmony rule, sound transitions, phonetic differences created by consonant sounds in patois, as well as the characteristic features of phonetic changes in morphology and syntax in the comparative context of Oguz and Kipchak languages. We also address the problems of naming dialects and patois of the Azerbaijani language. We examine the specific features of the Kipchak language elements in the phonetic characteristics of the northern dialects. We determine that in the 17th-18th centuries the Azerbaijani language developed under the influence of various dialects of the Oguz and Kipchak languages, as evidenced by the peculiarities of phonetic changes. These are, in particular, the more frequent use of velar n, a lot of sonorant consonants, the replacement of the sound ə with e, more stunning vowels, etc. The analysis of the patois vocabulary of the Azerbaijani language northern dialect confirmed the opinion of researchers about the influence of migration processes and the presence of many Turkic ethnic groups in the region on these processes. Some of these features of linguistic influence are observed to this day.

The work attempts to consider a separate interlinguistic function in the language function system, which is focused on language contacts, resulting in interference of language systems. The lexical borrowing material in Russian language examines the types of language changes that are manifested in language interaction. It is found that the impact of one language system on another is largely manifested in one-directional language changes. The interlinguistic function of neologisms manifests itself in the form of convergence, reflecting the convergence of two or more linguistic facts. A number of borrowings from the English language with a combination of sounds [ДЖ], Japanese sounds (Ж and С) are considered to adapt foreign-language words to the articulation system of the Russian language. It is substantiated that modern language changes are due to the brought-up cultural determinism of borrowing, which makes it possible to consider language an element in the culture system, and the important factor is the understanding that language is not only a system of systems, but also a system of signs. The results of scientific and technological advances are contributed to the openness of the language function system and new functions. 

The work is devoted to the study of semantic content of negative emotional concepts of Boredom, Anguish, Sadness and Sorrow in the language consciousness of modern Russian youth. The theoretical basis is the doctrine of V.V. Kolesov (conceptology), the provisions of which determine the algorithm of the study. The research material is a survey of native speakers of the Russian language, based on the analysis of which adjectives and predicates are identified and classified, and the figurative concept and semantic constants of these concepts are obtained. Comparative analysis of the concept of the considered concepts in the modern Russian consciousness and their interpretation in the Dictionary of Russian mentality is also provided. The interpretations of the concepts under study in the Dictionary of Russian mentality and in the minds of native speakers differ in that the dictionary definitions reflect the conceptual content of the word, and the representation of these concepts in the minds of ordinary people has a more emotional and evaluative expressive color and is associated with the associative field.

Political linguistics in Russia is characterized by a large number of directions and topics varieties, especially political metaphor and discourse-analysis, which serves as the main method of linguocognitive interpretation of the text as a whole and the word separately. We analyze the scientific results presented on the pages of the journal “Political Linguistics” for 2006–2017 (editor-in-chief A.P. Chudinov). During this period, 46 published issues, distributed in 33 countries, highlight the main directions (theory of political linguistics, fundamental linguistics, rhetoric, sociolinguistics, cultural linguistics, cognitive linguistics, semiotics, semantics, pragmatics, corpus linguistics and intercultural communication) that stimulate research in the field of political communication and the language of politics. We establish that more than 90% of all directions are intercultural communication, which focuses on the study of communication strategies and language manipulation. We justify that the context of the 12-year development of Russian political linguistics reflects the expansion of political discourse and contributes to the activation of the critical discourse analysis as a direction. We substantiate that in Russian political linguistics, there are directions that are just emerging: polylinguistic forecasting, polylinguistic personality, political self-presentation, comparative studies of political texts.

Russian literature is an important part of world literature and is studied all over the world. In comparison with the history of literature, the history of literary criticism is more an interaction between the objectivity of literary facts and the personality of the compiler of this history. This work presents a description of the personality in research using the example of the book “History of Russian and Soviet literary criticism of the XX century” written by Chinese scientist Zhang Jie, the main task of which is to provide a theoretical basis and methods of criticism for analyzing the mechanism of reproducing the meanings of literary texts and images. We analyze the functions of literary criticism and explain the interaction and harmony of objective historical facts of literature and the compiler’s personality in the study. We define three currents of Russian and Soviet literary criticism of the 20th century: religious and cultural criticism, real literary criticism, and aesthetic criticism. We prove that history reflects not only the objectivity of factors, but also its compiler’s personality, which is an indicator. We explain the need to coordinate the objectivity of historical facts and the subjectivity of the compiler, and we present a value-based reflection of a scientific linguistic personality in the Chinese ethnoculture.

Almost two centuries after death, Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov (1794-1829) continues to influence social processes. To unravel the mystery of this phenomenon, it is necessary to answer the question about the character of perception of the writer and diplomat and to find out what features of his image appeal to modern people. The subject of this work is the perception of Griboyedov in the electronic environment. The work shows how the search engines index the blogosphere, which is dedicated to “the author of Famusov and Skalozub”, what topics are popular among its readers and what kind of audience it is, what influences the attendance of the only online-diary about the writer’s discourse, what is its history creation, purpose, structure, genre and style of material presentation, what factors determine the demand for the content of this resource and in which way it differs from similar media, what Web borrows from this project and in what manner. The basis of the narrative is made up of information that is not available in the public domain, observations over the media space are commented in the light of the state of affairs in griboedovistic. The request for the new data about the writer and diplomat on the virtual space is correlated with the attitudes of researchers and relevant publications of 2012–2020, the prospect of overcoming the identified discrepancies is associated with the changing of the agenda in modern science and disclosed by the characteristics of its tasks.

We consider the history of Russian refugees who found themselves on the territory of Turkey. They were placed in the Naked Field. Despite the conditions that are difficult to compatible with life, they maintained discipline and led an active social life within the settlement, however, the profits and achievements of this activity went far beyond these limits and, thanks to the works of I.S. Lukash and G.I. Gazdanov, became the property of Russian classical literature. The fate of these two pen masters is sometimes literally parallel, sometimes exactly the opposite. Not all the writers of the Naked Field had such a lucky literary star as they had: the young poet junker V. Rutkovsky died of wounds in the “Valley of Roses and Death”. I.S. Lukash and G.I. Gazdanov never write about each other, but the analogies in their prose coincide, sometimes word for word. We carry out an indicative analysis of several pages. They write about the same events that became part of their personal and collective experience. We analyze the book “Gazdanov” by O.M. Orlova from the “Life of Wonderful People” series. The work contains evidence of the Gallipoli standing of Russian refugees practically from first hand, provides information about the chronicle of their everyday life. 

We consider the reflection forms and opposition functions of the “house – world” in the poetics of M.A. Bulgakov’s plays of the 1920s: “The Days of the Turbins”, “Zoyka’s apartment” and “Flight”. We conclude that this opposition organizes their spatial composition. In “The Days of the Turbins”, an acute confrontation between home and world is brought out, and the victory is for the former on the plot and ideological level, which is emphasized by the cyclic spatial composition. In “Zoyka's apartment”, the external world is mostly only implied, but its expansion is so active that its space at home begins to double, distort and in the denouement is lost by the characters on the plot level, while maintaining its value significance. This significance is preserved in the “Flight”, where the stage space is the outside world, and the home is only implied as a memory and a dream accompanying the actors. In Bulgakov’s mind, the home confronts the world as a women’s space to a men’s. The character of the relationship between the hero and the heroine, the strength of the personality of both sexes lead to the dominance of one of the types of space in each play.

The interrelation between the novel and Aksyonov’s autobiographical essay “In Search of Melancholy Baby” is traced. The mythopoetics of the novel reveals the contamination of two social myths of the 20th century – the revolutionary utopia, which gave birth to socialist Russia (Bolshevik, Stalinist) and the American democratic myth, which formed the consciousness of Aksyonov’s generation and the attempt to implement which gave birth to post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s. The heroes of the novel are analyzed as “people of two utopias”. The mythological poetics of Aksyonov’s novel is associated with a carnival world perception. We reveal the style of the menippea in the novel, with its violation of the generally accepted and usual course of events, reflecting the era of a person's any external position de-valuation, the epic integrity destruction. We present the basic features of the carnival chronotope, which asserts the “merry relativity” of every position, as the dominant of the novel’s mythopoetics. We substantiate that, as in Dostoevsky’s novels, we have a special carnival chronotope – “carnival as a way of life”, which erodes all moral concepts and condemns its participants to death. The key images for analysis are labyrinth, Minotaur, modern Theseus, perishing in the labyrinth of his historical time. The poet in the novel is seen as the creator of its main mythological meanings and a man of utopia. We conclude that utopian consciousness leads to transformations, inversion of ideas, concepts, which is explored by menippean poetics.

The study reviews the activities of one of the leading authors of the “Igbal” newspaper, Haji Ibrahim Gasimov. In his works, the publicist covered the most important socio-political and socio-cultural problems of his time, expressed his attitude to them and conducted analytical work on their generalization and forecasting. He lived in turbulent times, where global problems affected not only the country, but all of humanity. All of them, having passed through the filter of
G. Gasimov’s pen, appeared on the pages of “Igbal”. Addressing the leading issues of the time, such as the promotion of education and culture, instilling a national spirit in people, Islam, religion and politics, the ongoing political processes, and the protection of women’s rights, the publicist actively wrote in every issue of the newspaper about ignorance, religious fanaticism, and the need to protect women’s rights. He persevered against oppression, not as an ordinary citizen, but as a force that could influence the course of events, which at the same time changed their course, he could direct them. This fighting can be clearly seen in his works published by “Igbal” in almost every issue. The workes, which are almost a century old, are relevant and have not lost their value to this day. They played an exceptional role in shaping public opinion, spreading science and culture. This process is influenced by the deep observation of the publicist, as well as by his patriotic, effective civic position.

We consider the current situation associated with the revival of icon painting traditions. It is believed that the icon, despite all the difficulties of understanding, is the element that contributes to the revival and formation of internal foundations, so necessary at the current stage of society development. The work traces the situation associated with the destruction of traditional spiritual values in the post-revolutionary period. We tell about those people who, in such a difficult time, tried to preserve the basic dogmatic canons of icon painting. We prove that it is their constant desire to preserve and spread the original values, as well as tireless work, that help such a vibrant cultural heritage not disappear. We analyze the features of traditional statutory icon painting existence in Tambov. We substantiate that the emerging Tambov icon painting direction with its own traditions, development stages and expressive means, based on the pious and artistic experience of our ancestors, preserves and enhances the icon painting traditions in Russia. Also, the use of malachite color gives the created images uniqueness, filling them with its own semiotic context. We note the peculiarities of this direction. We conclude that it is necessary to revive a highly spiritual personality by studying this direction.

We refer to the concept of the country’s image, which arose in the practice of politicians, government executives, and marketing specialists and has been actively developed in recent decades in the works of representatives of various branches of scientific knowledge: linguists, political scientists, sociologists, philosophers, etc. Media discourse becomes a communication space within which messages are created, on the one hand, reflecting the stereotypical attitudes of the internal and external audience regarding Russia and the Russian people, on the other, correcting negative and reinforcing positive ethnic stereotypes. In this work, the media image of Russia is modeled on the basis of texts of commercial, social and political advertising, speeches of political figures, in particular, in the framework of the election campaign. As a basic methodology, we use the frame modeling method, reconstructs the “Russia” frame in Russian and foreign advertising discourse. Russian commercial advertising forms a positive image of a great, beautiful country with a strong and spiritually rich people, and the concept of “Russian” is used in texts exclusively with positive connotations. Russian social advertising creates the image of a country with a rich history and a great past, however it represents modern Russia as a country in which spiritual values play an increasingly smaller role. The external image of Russia can be generally assessed as negative. The sphere in which the least attractive image is realized is politics. The political theme is updated in all considered types of media discourse and forms the image of a backward, undemocratic state with high corruption and Soviet heritage.

We consider the relationship between the terms regiolect and dialect, and note that the regiolect has the following features: 1) geographically limited, found only on the territory of the subethnos’ residence; 2) socially limited, is the speech of people who consider themselves as a subethnos; 3) has homogeneous linguistic features; 4) may have prestige associated with positive ideas of native speakers about their subethnos; 5) has its own onomastic space consisting of special models of onym formation and onyms characteristic only for this subethnos; 6) includes dialects with some specific linguistic features, but do not destroy the homogeneous unity of folk speech; 7) presented in folklore, artistic and publicistic texts. In the book review of Donetsk linguists “Donetsk Regiolect” we note that the authors convincingly prove the existence of analyzed idiom., which: 1) is limited to the territory of Donbass; 2) is based on the professionally colored speech of miners; 3) is quite homogeneous, distributed throughout the region; 4) is positively evaluated by native speakers who are careful about the words and phrases of their Donetsk speech; 5) has a rich onymic space; 6) has a consistently used katoikonym донбассовцы (and донбассцы), which reveals ethnonymic features; 7) operates outside of Russia; 8) includes some phenomena of the neighboring Ukrainian language; 9) is convincingly presented in folklore, artistic and publicistic texts.

Information about the 18th International Research Conference “Onomastics of the Volga Region”, September 9–10, 2020, Kostroma is given. Organizers: Kostroma State University and Volgograd State Socio-Pedagogical University. Funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. 144 participants from 34 regions of Russia and 9 foreign countries. The conference proceedings in 2 volumes are published.