When does an epidemic become a ‘crisis’? Analogies between Covid-19 and HIV/AIDS in American public memory

This article critically interrogates historical analogies made between the Covid-19 pandemic and HIV/AIDS epidemic in American public discourse, highlighting the role of cultural memory and normative frameworks of ‘crisis’ and its temporalities in shaping collective responses. It situates the Covid-19 pandemic in a multidirectional mnemonic frame by analysing borrowings from other usable pasts, particularly the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States, which in turn drew upon memory of the Holocaust. A reading of Susan Sontag’s ‘The Way We Live Now’ affirms the value of multidirectional cultural borrowing while also revealing its limits. Notably, the ever-growing AIDS Memorial Quilt may serve as a model for memorializing victims of Covid-19. While analogies between pandemics may be comforting or mobilizing, their meaning must remain open to contestation and also preserve particularities and differences. The history of HIV/AIDS centres the question, ‘crisis for whom?’ and cautions against prematurely declaring the ‘end’ of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Translating the transition: the translator-detective in Post-Soviet fiction

This article explores the ways in which the figure of the translator-detective in contemporary Russian literature functions to express and neutralize a range of fears and anxieties engendered by the post-Soviet transition. Tracing the roots of the motif of the translator in Russian literature back to F. M. Dostoevsky ’s Crime and Punishment, the paper then examines the translator-hero in the detective fiction of the best-selling contemporary authors Aleksandra Marinina, Boris Akunin, Dar’ia Dontsova, and Polina Dashkova. Representatives of the embattled Russian intelligentsia, their translator-detectives embody resistance to mindless cultural borrowing from the West.

‘n most…’: Internet rating as a speech genre

The research is focused on the genre of Internet rating (an article representing a group of homogeneous objects in the form of a ranked, most often numbered list) and is based on approx. 600 texts of Internet rankings (2019–2020) from approx. 120 sites. The article analyzes the following characteristics of the Internet rating: general speech-genre, structural, thematic (thematic areas, key lexemes, semantics and pragmatics), evaluative (ranking principles, author’s subjectivity, values) ones. A lot of attention is paid to such speech-genre dominants of the Internet rating as the principles of assessment / ranking, author’s subjectivity, expression, as well as some factors of cultural borrowing (“ratingness”). Three parts of the Internet rating structure have been identified: 1) the heading, which the content aggregator brings to the news browser; 2) a description of the Internet rating; 3) the ranked objects themselves. The article singles out and describes the linguistic markers of the Internet rating genre and its main structural types, as well as the most common topics of Internet ratings: cinema (TV shows, cartoons, anime), books / writers, signs of the Zodiac, the world of cats and dogs, tourism; the most common numbers (10, 5, no number, 3, 7, 1, 6, 4, 20); illocutionary types of Internet ratings (entertaining ones prevail, among non-entertaining ones advice and (presumably) hidden advertising stand out) / The author offers their quantitative indicators as well. The article analyzes the principles of ranking objects of Internet ratings and their relationship with the image of the author and addressee of the Internet rating. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the author tries, on the one hand, to prove the objectivity of the rating (to refer to the conducted research, survey, authoritative opinion, etc.), on the other hand, to explicate their subjectivity (for example, to encourage readers to express their own opinions).

“His Master’s Voice” and (R)evolutionary Signifyin’

Chapter 6 turns to sampling as it is usually understood: integral to Hip-Hop culture. The track in point is “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott-Heron, a track that others have sampled, or alluded to, countless times since its release in 1970. The chapter analyses this well-known track for its other, equally formative sonic dimensions. Lyrics do matter here for they are part of African and African American practices of “signifyin’.” Through her “sampling back,” namely, a form of answer rap, Sarah Jones inverts this iconic track thirty years later to launch a blistering critique of sexism in not only the Rap/Hip-Hop business but also the music business in general. The chapter considers the ways in which Jones’s signifyin’ on “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” literally and sonically, illustrates how musico-cultural borrowing and or as sampling are part of a broader repertoire of African American signifyin’ practices, as these are, in turn, understood as Black culture and, thereby, Black American politics.

EAST AS A CULTURAL TREND

The article is devoted to one of the most complex phenomena of the dialectic of cultural development – individual spiritual identification through the selection and development of individual components of a foreign cultural spiritual resource, in this case – the traditional cultures of China and Japan. Contrary to its predominantly factual scientific consideration in the context of issues of cultural borrowing, "spiritual migration" to the East is analyzed as a stable trend, which has its source in the essential intentions of man, remaining not only constant in the centuries-old past of mankind, but also inescapable in its further cultural movement. In this context, the author considers the historical manifestations of heightened interest in the treasures of the Far Eastern cultural area, its transformation from a simple admiration for exotics to confessing the philosophical and worldview guidelines presented by them. The phenomenon of the cultural trend studied in this way, having demonstrated its ability to identify and preserve spiritual recreation, is revealed in its direct connection with the dialectical processes of the cultural development of mankind. In culturology, fashion and the processes of trend formation belong to the issues of the essential series, because they reveal a person's constant desire for change motivated by self-development. According to historical evidence, the orbit of fashion as a way of cultural identification includes not only material and procedural phenomena, but also cultural and ideological complexes with their own model of worldview and behavioral regulations. The emphasis on them arises from the needs of personal self-identification, problematized by the circumstances of personal or public life. The motive for such a choice is the search for a spiritual optimum conducive to self-realization and inner freedom of self-expression. Its absence forms compensatory "trend nodes", the appearance of which is thus predictable, as well as the resource needed to meet this cultural demand. It is at the disposal of cultures formed on the basis of philosophical and worldview universals that consider man as a significant unit of the universe. Some of them are gone, but the cultural memory of mankind preserves the memory of their legacy left to intellectuals. The existing traditional cultures, which for thousands of years nurtured their spiritual core, becoming a Mecca for the spiritually thirsty, have the integral effectiveness of the resource.

Sociolinguistics and history: An interdisciplinary view of bilingualism in imperial Russia

Using a study of the historical phenomenon of Franco-Russian bilingualism in imperial Russia as its point of departure, this article has three interlocking aims. First, it reflects on the common interest that historical sociolinguists and certain types of historian have in language use and language choice. Secondly, building on recent work by historical sociolinguists, it considers the ways in which historians’ and historical sociolinguists’ investigation of such matters as the social, political, cultural and literary functions of the French language in lands where French was not the mother tongue can be broadened and deepened by familiarity with each others’ findings. Thirdly, it seeks to illuminate the role of linguistic meta-discourse in the sort of grand narratives about the history and culture of national communities in which historians may be interested. In the specific case I examine, the narratives concern the relationship of Russia to the West, the wholeness or fragmentation of the Russian nation, the effects of cultural borrowing, the nature of Russian national identity and culture and the degree to which Russia is historically and culturally exceptional. In pursuit of these aims, I hope to illustrate the importance of linguistic matters in the history of societies, polities, and cultures and the potential that an interdisciplinary approach has to lend scholarship on these matters richer context and finer nuance than work which falls purely within either the historical or the historical-sociolinguistic domain tends to yield.

Linguistic Borrowing and Translanguaging in Multicultural Obollo Speech Community, Southeastern Nigeria

Historically, the influx of people with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds (e.g., Onitsha, Hausa, Yoruba, and Idoma) in Nigeria to Obollo from 1970s onward led to language contact and its consequences on an unprecedented scale. The influx of people needs sociolinguistic awareness as they develop a complex mosaic of multiple communicative competences. In addition, the mass movement of people associated with globalization, business transactions, high rate of mobility of people, and their linguistic repertoire entails new sociolinguistic configuration of a type not previously experienced. This study therefore explores linguistic borrowing and translanguaging in the superdiverse Obollo region using translanguaging and linguistic borrowing theory. Data from Obollo through semi-unstructured oral interview and participial observation were analyzed descriptively. The article identifies core and cultural borrowing, code-meshing, and translanguaging. The study contributes to translanguaging and linguistic borrowing literature and provides relevant information for education and research into contemporary language use in multilingual contexts.