Mass media inform people about the most important social, cultural, and political processes. However, news coverage is seldom objective and unbiased. The way mass media assess social events influences public opinions and attitudes. The article describes op-eds, namely the genre-dependent and stylistic devices that journalists use to express their civic position. Based on the anthropocentrism of modern media linguistics, the research involved previously understudied materials and subjects, i.e., linguistic tools used by opinion writers to bring their political views to the reader. The sample consisted of 90 op-eds in the series of Dmitry Popov Weekly published in Moskovskiy Komsomolets in 2021–2024. The op-eds touched upon complex issues, encouraging the readers to think and develop values that make a responsible citizen. The journalist sees the reader as a like-minded patriot and a reflecting personality. Dmitry Popov expresses his attitude to the events indirectly, via allusions, meta-commentaries, hypophoras, rhetorical questions, irony, etc. Dmitry Popov Weekly is a genroid that combines a news report, an analytical review, an essay, a feuilleton, a set of tips, and a forecast. Irony proved to be the most popular device used to cover domestic and foreign political events. Strating with the headline down, irony is realized in the text through speech, stylistic, and graphic means, i.e., tropes, euphemisms, stylistic contamination, quotation marks, etc. When applied to political opponents and politicians with anti-Russian views, it borders on sarcasm and mockery. The sarcastic and mocking tone is supported by blunt metaphors, occasionalisms, and evaluative labelling

The article describes the verbal means of expressing a negative assessment in online reviews. The study included online reviews on the Shashlykoff restaurant in the Russian digital directory 2GIS. The author addressed the issue of virtual genres, e.g., online reviews, online comments, etc. Online reviews as a genre appeared to be secondary and dialogic in nature, linguistically unlimited, informative, and evaluative. Evaluativeness was the main genre-forming component. While objects of evaluation were diverse, the article concentrates on the means of expressing a negative assessment towards cuisine, which proved to be units of the lexical level, i.e., adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and idioms. Colloquial and slang words with a negative connotation proved especially popular. Adverbs of measure and degree intensified evaluation at the lexical level. The group of stylistic means included hyperbole, litany, irony, and pun. Vocabulary expressed the negative assessment explicitly, while grammar and graphics only enhanced the evaluative component. Exclamation points, interrogative sentences, and comparative phrases also helped to bring forward the negative assessment. Graphic means included excessive punctuation, capitalization, and emoji.

: The science of cognitive-discursive terminology and linguistic metaphor is developing very fast. The range of professional metaphors expands with new factual data. In this respect, metaphorization is an effective tool for expanding the terminological system in the fi        of building and construction. The authors used the lexicological, componential, cognitive, and statistical methods to analyze 2,134 metaphorical terms in the construction discourse registered in the English-Russian Construction Dictionary (1995). The part-of-speech and quantitative parameters demonstrated the prevalence of di- and trilexemic models over mono- and polylexemic ones. This phenomenon can be explained by the dual nature of metaphorization, as well as by the terminological precision of scientifiс and technical discourse. The conceptual metaphor approach made it possible to identify the source domain behind each metaphorical transfer. The thematic categorization revealed the following metaphorical models: anthropomorphic (914 units, 43%), artifactual (633 units, 30%), nature-morphic (435 units, 20%), and eschatological (152 units, 7%). 

Euphemisation is a popular research topic in linguistics. However, no reliable classification has appeared for the study of cryptolalic euphemisms because the adjacent position of this concept in the terminology of euphemisms remains understudied. Old English texts are vessels of cultural transmission in the linguistic aspect of death euphemization via written speech. In this regard, they seem to be a promising material for the semiotics of culture- language relations, which makes it possible to use linguistics to interpret cultural phenomena and vice versa. The research objective was to analyze the conceptual domain of death in Old English based on euphemistic lexemes. The samples were obtained from the explanatory Anglo-Saxon Bosworth-Toller Dictionary that covers the period of VII–XII centuries. The materials were subjected to the lexicographic method, conceptual analysis, semantic analysis (semasiology and onomasiology of euphemisms), classification, and systematization. The article introduces cryptolalic euphemism as a term at the intersection of taboo euphemisms and cryptolalia. The research revealed a number of micro-motives of death and dying in Old English. In line with the semasiological and onomasiological affiliation of the lexemes, death was represented as a path, as two entities separated, as a rest, as a manifestation of fate, as a form of life, as a downward movement, and as a point in time and space. The author identified the framework of the conceptual domain of death by a lexicographic, conceptual, and semiotic analysis of the euphemisms, as well as outlined the principles and methods of euphemization for the phenomenon of death in Old English. Death as a path appeared to be the most popular micro-motive, its euphemisms being word-formation replacements of mostly descriptive nature.

The Every (2021) is an anti-utopian novel by a contemporary American writer Dave Eggers. The study relied on domestic and foreign research on the issues of artistic worldview, as well as on the genres of utopia, antiutopia, and dystopia. Modern anti-utopian fiction still remains understudied from the artistic outlook perspective. The research objective was to determine the key features of the anti-utopian worldview and analyze how they were implemented in the novel. Eggers’ world of the future is a possible world implemented through the system of images and ideas. It differs from other anti-utopian worlds because it combines anti-utopian and realistic features. In addition, both the future and the present are subjected to satire, which is combined with irony, absurdity, and paradox. The Every develops the theme of totalitarian power of an omnipotent corporation and its consequences. The chronotope is unlimited; the main character is a rebel, an active opponent of the authorities. The author’s modality is a straightforward criticism of the fictional reality. 

This article introduces the associative-verbal field migrant in linguistic consciousness based on the reactions of native Russian speakers to the word-stimulus migrant. The research determined the specifics of Russian speakers’ attitudes towards migration and migrants. Relying on the value orientations of modern Russian speakers, the author modelled a fragment of linguistic consciousness using associative dictionaries based on the association game. The analysis revealed the core and periphery of the associative-verbal field migrant and the predominating paradigmatic connection between words. The systemic organization of semantic groups included similarity, hypo-hyperonymy, and synonymy. The thematic groups obtained focused on the spheres of migrants’ activities in Russia, crime, reasons behind migration, and the geographical and national identity of migrants. The national and cultural specifics proved to be that under migrants, native Russian speakers mean workers from post-Soviet countries. The value system of the recipients demonstrated a certain degree of tolerance: they accepted the foreign cultural values if they were material, e.g., national cuisine or clothes. However, the emotional and evaluative words were mostly negative, e.g., expressive ethnonyms, depersonification, and zoomorphic metaphors. The results obtained can be used to compile and supplement the article migrant in associative dictionaries.

Contemporary comparative studies present synonymous relations between texts at the highest and most complex linguistic level of syntax. This approach is especially important in legal linguistics, an interdisciplinary direction that focuses on resolving real-life disputes. The practical need for new comparative and contrastive methods yields a new type of expert research, i.e., forensic examination of intellectual property. Formal and substantive similarity between texts leads to their similarity in the aspect of linguistic personality. The research featured fi e texts analyzed in line with the contemporary methods applied by linguistic experts to comparative and contrastive copyright studies. The texts had similar names but belonged to different internet bloggers. The contents demonstrated significant similarity, with almost identical formal components and minor differences. So great was the linguistic similarity that it neutralized the linguistic personality of the authors. The authors proposed copyonymy as a term for this phenomenon: texts that are so similar in form and content that the linguistic personalities of their authors disappear.

Meta-reflexivity is an interdisciplinary object of psychology, psycholinguistics, traditional linguistics, and communication studies. The authors classified reflexives sampled from contemporary Russian fiction based on the features of the object and the level of metalanguage reflection. They used the method of typologization, as well as the semantic and discursive analyses, to develop a multilevel typology of reflexives. Based on the object of reflection, the reflexives were divided into the statements about the sign form and the statements about its meaning. On the second tier of typology, the statements about the sign form were divided into reflexives of external and internal forms whereas the statements about the meaning were divided into reflexives of close and distant meaning. Another taxonomy was based on the metalanguage reflection process as superficial or deep. The superficial metalanguage reflection generated stating reflexives that recorded the observed characteristics of the sign. The deep metalanguage reflection yielded operational reflexives that reflected the comprehension results. The research opens up new prospects for further scientific interpretation of the ontology and epistemology of metalanguage reflection, as well as contributes to the autoreference studies. The results of metalanguage reflection in fiction proved to be heterogenic in content. The taxonomy depended on the features of the object and the peculiarities of the metalanguage reflection process.

The current globalization and digitalization keep reducing the gap between the virtual text and the event it describes. Protest movements are capable of changing the vector of national or regional political and sociocultural development. They have a serious communicative impact on modern society. The article describes a new linguistic corpus of digital lexical units based on socio-political protest movements and illustrates its operating algorithm. A digital lexical unit is a virtual hypertextual construction with a denotation, a signifier, and a lexeme. It includes a set of other digital and regular lexical units, as well as various media files, e.g., photos, images, audio, video, etc. The authors analyzed several socio-political cases to illustrate the fundamental principles of creating a corpus of digital lexical units based on protest socio-political movements. The digital lexical units were represented by three thematic groups: social protests, political protests, and protests of indigenous peoples. The technical parameters made it possible to limit the search by social network, user name, URL, date, text, type (audio, link, video, etc.), connotation, and popularity count. The extralinguistic analysis of digital lexical units may reveal the role of a particular protest movement in the social and political life of the country. The corpus algorithm can be applied to various operating systems

Mass audiences usually learn specialized terms from mass communication media. This research featured political terms obtained from 50 political news pieces published in the French-language magazine GEOAdo (2013– 2022) with 10–15-year-olds as target audience. The authors used general scientific methods, as well as the lexical analysis and the qualitative content analysis, to divide the terms into three groups, i.e., political organizations, political documents, and political activities. The political organizations from first group were often represented by abbreviations, which were accompanied in the news text by their dictionary definition or an explanatory interpretation of the main functions. The terms from the second group were explained by introducing a full or brief dictionary description. The terms from the third group were introduced by paraphrasing their dictionary definition with a stress on the main activity or other political references. In general, the political terms were explained by paraphrasing their dictionary definition with the key feature emphasized, which made news comprehension easier for young readers.

In his poem The Gypsies (1824), Alexander Pushkin used various lexical means to polarize the system of characters: the proud Aleko is opposed to the peaceful Gypsies. The author clarifies the origin of the savage and peaceful types in Russian literature using the method of diachronic typological comparison. The proud man was a romantic hero in the Byronic context of the 1820s. In the traditional Russian Christian context, however, pride was a sin. As a result, Pushkin counterweighed the proud man by the meek personages, i.e., the Gypsies. This character system turned out to be paradigmatic for the Russian classics of the XIX century: its structure corresponded to the essential aspects explored in the nineteenth-century literature. Naturally, it was picked up by the most important literary texts of that epoch, which was widely recognized by the literary criticism of the 1850s, e.g., by Apollon Grigoriev and Pavel Annenkov, who made the greatest contribution to the preservation of Pushkin’s literary heritage. Pushkin’s model manifested itself in the classical texts by Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Alexander Ostrovsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy. The model proved so effective it entered the Russian literature of the XX century.

Abstract: Screen adaptations remain a relevant issue for both cinema and literary studies, especially those of such complex works as Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse Eugene Onegin. The article compares the versions by Martha Fiennes (1999) and Sarik Andreasyan (2024) from the perspective of Pushkin’s poetic code. Cinematic interpretations inevitably transform the irony, lyricism, multilayered structure, and unique metanarrative of Pushkin’s text because films have a different narrative pace and expressive means. The author used the semiotic approach, as well as comparative, cultural-semiotic, descriptive, and intertextual methods, to study the transformation of Pushkin’s poetic code on different levels in the context of its visual interpretations. The analysis concentrated on such aspects as the reduction and / or adaptation of the original text, the image transformation of the main characters, and the visual interpretation of the original chronotope. M. Fiennes’ version is a significant attempt to transpose a classic work into a cinematic format. However, its focus on the visual and dramatic elements simplifies the poetic complexity of the original, resulting in a profound modification of Pushkin’s poetic code. S. Andreasyan’s version simplifies and adapts the text to suit contemporary cinema: as a result, the film becomes an illustration to the plot that fails to render the deeper poetic layers.

Bureaucracy was an extremely popular theme in Russian drama in the 1850s. It seems to be a promising direction for modern historical and literary studies, as well as narratology. The article describes the functions of retardation in nineteenth-century plays that featured bureaucracy. It focuses on the artistic device of retardation, its place in the composition, its effect on the reader, its role in the speech of minor characters, etc. The research compared Vladimir Sollogub’s The Official (1856), Aleksei Potekhin’s Tinsel (1858), and Nikolai Lvov’s The World Is Not Without Good People (1857) against Alexander Ostrovsky’s iconic A Profitable Position (1856). The plays were subjected to the structural-semantic method, which made it possible to identify and describe their composition and characters with their ideological-conceptual impact on the story. The typological analysis of the plays was compared with that of Ostrovsky’s epic drama. In the minor plays, retardation helped to increase the tension before the denouement; in Ostrovsky’s comedy, it relieved the tension. Ostrovsky used the continuous retardation in the narratives of secondary characters to slow down the plot development and emphasize the semantic multifacetedness. In the epic drama, retardation blurred the boundaries of the dramatic situation to showcase its uncertainty, making the denouement nothing but a formal ending.