Signed Languages: A Triangular Semiotic Dimension

Since the beginning of signed language research, the linguistic units have been divided into conventional, standard and fixed signs, all of which were considered as the core of the language, and iconic and productive signs, put at the edge of language. In the present paper, we will review different models proposed by signed language researchers over the years to describe the signed lexicon, showing how to overcome the hierarchical division between standard and productive lexicon. Drawing from the semiotic insights of Peirce we proposed to look at signs as a triadic construction built on symbolic, iconic, and indexical features. In our model, the different iconic, symbolic, and indexical features of signs are seen as the three sides of the same triangle, detectable in the single linguistic sign (Capirci, 2018; Puupponen, 2019). The key aspect is that the dominance of the feature will determine the different use of the linguistic unit, as we will show with examples from different discourse types (narratives, conference talks, poems, a theater monolog).

Lexical Quantors: From Term to Discursive Practice

The paper looks into the emergence of terms and neologisms related to COVID-19 outbreak, which are treated as lexical quantors (LQs). A LQ, as a linguistic nominative unit, reflects the amount of language knowledge (LK) represented in a certain segment of language worldview (LWV). It is represented by a word or a phrase, which constitutes some quantum of information to designate a certain segment of LWV. It has a systemic character and is reflected in the semantics of a linguistic unit. This research is aimed at exploring COVID-19 lexical quantors both in terminological and general vocabulary aspects and it defines the major language concepts for special purposes (LSP). It is characterized by the word formation means expressing all types of LK with the prevalence of a denotative special meaning. General COVID-19 lexical units employ all word formation means to render both denotative and connotative components of LQs meanings revealing also social, cultural, and axiological aspects of LK. The boundary between COVID-19 terminology and general lexical units is quite blurred when the transition from one layer of vocabulary to another is observed. Word formation is viewed as the process of constructing LQs in terms of aggregated, condensed and modified knowledge means. In conclusion, the informative potential realization of LQ is manifested in various discursive practices, namely: media, politics, and public service announcements (PSA) that embrace both linguistic and socio-cultural characteristics of communication.

Secondary Somatic Nominations in Media Texts Covering Economy, Business and Politics Spheres

The article set out to reveal the specific features of secondary somatic nominations in media texts in the spheres of economy, business, and politics. The significance of the problem under study is implied by a need for elucidating the evolution of language consciousness by shedding light on how corporeal lexis in the Russian language is involved in verbalization of reality in the spheres in question. The study demonstrated that secondary somatic nominations evolve due to transformation of the meaning of a linguistic unit, whose primary meaning is associated with various aspects of the human body existence. This transformation of the meaning seems to be a common way of denotating reality in the texts under investigation. We specified the sources of somatic expansion, whose semantic content is most frequently redefined in the thematic fields in question. We also identified the denotation areas (conceptual fields) where corporeal lexis is used in their secondary meanings. Our research demonstrated considerable pragmatic potential of the texts including somatic linguistic units. We established that their evaluative content results from axiological connotations associated with various corporeal concepts in the Russian linguoculture. Their expressiveness is achieved due to imagery created by unusual contextualization of somatic linguistic units. The results of the current study made it possible to establish the ways of transforming the meanings of somatic linguistic units in the investigated spheres in the Russian language. Transformation of the meanings of somatic lexis occurs by using metaphors, metonymy, similes, irony, epithets, oxymoron, gradation, language game, etc.

Application of textlinguistic method in language teaching

Texts appear as the highest level units in language teaching. Textlinguistics researchers have put forward the thesis that the largest linguistic unit is the text, not the sentence. The main purpose of this research is to determine the effect of using textlinguistic analysis method and its ability to aid students in understanding the texts in language classes and improving and enriching their comprehension and expression skills. The research conducted an experiment and collected data with interviews. The sample of the research consisted of 30 students studying at the University and taking the text linguistics course. Concept Test of Textlinguistic Analysis Method was used in the study. As a result of the research, it was determined that the "Textlinguistic Analysis Method" increased the students' comprehension and expression success in Turkish classes compared to the traditional method and contributed to the increase of their participation in the class. Keywords: Language teaching; linguistics; Turkish text; textlinguistic analysis; stylistics

Biblical Lexical Items vs Biblical Phraseological Units: Specifying the Notions (Based on English and German Texts)

This article discusses the problem of delimiting the notions of biblical lexical item and biblical phraseological unit within the framework of studying the formation and development of biblical phraseology as a separate branch of general phraseology. The author believes that biblical phraseology should to be considered as an independent research area due to the progressive development of the study of phraseology in general, as well as the growing interest among scholars in phraseology of biblical origin and pertinent research materials that have accumulated over the past two decades. To begin with, the paper specifies the status of the biblical phraseological unit as a phraseological unit. Further, the definitions of the above-mentioned notions are analysed and a typology of biblical lexical items and phraseological units of biblical origin is developed based on a review of scholarly works dealing with various aspects of biblical lexical items and biblical phraseological units. Examples of the use of biblical lexical items and biblical phraseological units in English and German texts are provided as illustrations. The research methods applied here include analysis and synthesis, generalization and hypotheticoinductive method; comparative, contextual, and classification methods, as well as analysis of definitions, phraseological identification, and phraseological analysis. The author concludes that biblical lexical item is a broader notion, which includes biblical phraseological units. Biblical lexical items are numerous and diverse in terms of composition and can be presented in the form of multi-level linguistic units (from a word to a sentence), while biblical phraseological units are structured as fixed expressions, from a phrase to a sentence. Thus, a biblical phraseological unit is defined as a fixed reproducible linguistic unit in the form of a phrase or a sentence, having integrity of nomination and integrity of meaning that is etymologically related to the Bible. It is emphasized that the specificity of phraseological units of biblical origin is manifested at the formal, content and functional levels.

“Word Code” by O.O. Suleimenov in Electronic-handwritten and Printed Versions

The article provides a comparative analysis of an electronic manuscript and a printed book by O.O. Suleimenov Word code. Introduction to the Universal Etymological Dictionary 1001 Words. The similarities and differences in semantic and stylistic nominations of titles and paragraphs in the manuscript and in the printed original are considered. Structural and qualitative differences in the content of the new titles of the book, the peculiarities of the semantic advancement in them, which include a brief reflection of the content of the corresponding section of the study, are revealed and analyzed. The analysis and thesis description of new paragraphs, which were introduced by the author after working on the electronic manuscript of the book, are carried out. The main conceptual approach of O.O. Suleimenov to the search for the ancient primary source of the word (etymon) and writing both in the manuscript and in the original of the book, is to consider in unity, in close interconnection, the main five aspects of a scientific problem: figurative image (drawing, hieroglyph), concept, word, meaning, pronunciation linguistic unit in languages, adverbs, dialects, dialects in antiquity and now, their semantic and sound similarities and differences in different regions of the earth. The evolution of the wording of the titles and the semantic and stylistic advancement in them is significant, which is associated either with a slight lexical change in the wording of the title of the paragraph, or with the introduction of a different (updated) title, or with the introduction of a new paragraph into the structure of the book. These innovations of the author contributed to the improvement of the structural and logical-content significance of the book.

Verbal Extensions and Valency in Limbum

The objective of this paper is to examine the extent to which verbal extensions in Limbum affect valency. Limbum is a Grassfield Bantu language of the Northern group, spoken by the population who occupy a greater part of the Nkambe plateau in Donga-Mantung Division of the North West Region of Cameroon Binan Bikoi (ed) (2012). To attain my set objective, I carry out an analysis of those affixes (in the case of Limbum, they are suffixes), which are usually attached to verbs and the effect the addition of these suffixes has on the number of arguments in the sentence. Some of these suffixes have a valency decreasing effect, while some have a valency increasing effect on the verbs. The orientation of the discussions here centres on the description of the morpho-syntactic structure of the Limbum verb. In this regard, the analysis herein draws inspiration from the theory of Valency as proposed by Tesnière in 1959 and his followers and the Structuralist Framework as propounded by De Saussure and his disciples who hold that linguistic unit: words, phrases and sentences are perceived as a concatenation of smaller units which hold a close relationship between them. The structure of the Limbum sentence containing verbal extensions that express aspectual meanings have three consequences on the number of arguments that the verb takes: the discussions here show that, while the morphemes -ri, -Si, and -se marking the attenuative, the pluractional, and the distributive aspects respectively have no effect on the number of arguments taken by the verb to which they are suffixed, the causative morpheme -si, has a valency increasing effect on the verb to which it is affixed. In the same light, the reciprocative -ni, the separative -ti and the iterative -Nger, when suffixed to a verb, have the tendency of increasing the number of arguments that the verb takes. In a bid to clarify the structural cartography of verbal extensions in Limbum, the last part of this paper is dedicated to a presentation of some suffixes like -ri and -si, which has, with the evolution of the language, fossilized with the verb root to the extent that they have become an integral part of the verb in a way that they cannot be detached from each other. Conclusively, the paper shows that verbal extensions in Limbum are, for the most part, suffixal morphemes. While some of these suffixes have no effect on the number of arguments the verb subcategorizes for, some have a valency decreasing effect on the verb while others, on the other hand, have a valency increasing effect. Others have outrightly merged with the verb root.

Analyzing Social Meaning: How Words Matter in Social Contexts (Based on German Communicative Practice)

The paper discusses the notion of social meaning that has become a central one in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, metapragmatics. The study was informed by these research directions and the main outcomes. The term social meaning pinpoints what linguistic forms convey about the social identity of the users, about their personality, social features and ideologically, value-based orientations. We presume that this is a category of meaning that a linguistic unit (an utterance) obtains as a result of its usage in a certain context. Social meanings are fixed by social practice. It acts as an index to the context in which the linguistic unit is expected to be used and relevant. Indexical relations are open for re-evaluations that are mediated by speakers ideological views. The study is based on German socio-cultural practice and reveals how indexical relations arise between a linguistic unit and the socio-cultural environment, the social occasion of its usage. The analysis is conducted as corpus-assisted discourse analysis, based on the «Digital dictionary of the German language» / «Das Digitale Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache»

Lexicographic portrait of the noun “age”

Lexicography actively studies the integral description of words in order to understand not only the historical change in definition of the work, but also the functionality of certain words. This article describes the lexicographic portrait of the noun “age”, as well as examines the use of co-occurrence denoting the age of a person in the modern Russian language. Working with different types of dictionaries (historical, explanatory, word-forming, associative, and synonym), the author analyzes the changes in the semantics, development of word-formation and co-occurrence capacity of the linguistic unit based on the integral description. The noun “age” has numerous co-occurrence as it has appeared in the Russian language long ago, which also entailed changes in its definition. This author examines co-occurrence of the noun “age” used in dictionaries, as well as conducts their classification by biological, social, psychological, and mixed characteristics. Leaning on the Russian National Corpus, the article examines the use of the noun “age” in the modern Russian language, and its classification by the aforementioned characteristics. The conclusion is made on the frequency of the use of these characteristics.

THE STYLISTIC FUNCTIONS OF REPEATED VERB UNITS IN A SEPARATE TEXT

The article is devoted to the complex study of functional features of verbs and verb lexical-semantic repetitionsin poetic texts M. Bazhan and I. Drach. Advantages of linguopoetic approach, which gives possibility to define, how linguistic unit is included by the author in the process of word-artistic creative work, provides creation of aesthetic effect, structural and semantic integrity of the text is substantiated in the thesis. Linguistic and stylistic approach doesn’t give us comprehensive answers to the question about notional, structural and communicative organization of the text, that is why today they become a prerogative of linguo-poetics and linguistics of text. Taking into account new directions, approaches in modern linguistic science in the last decades, such key concepts as “text”, “poetic text” were specified; advantages of communicative functional approach to its study were specified; constant features of text and text categories were specified; style, idiostyle, idiolect concept was defined. At determining the poetic text, we proceed from the fact that this is a special semiotic system, which has its own laws of formation of self-organization. Decoding the poetic text takes into consideration apertception moments of each word in the works of writer, who, staying within the limits of national-language picture of the world, creates a unique linguistic world according to his world view, his own psychology, philosophy. Let us motivate the use of idiostyle concept, closely connected with the author’s image, which we understand as a “word- conversational structure”, which permeates all work and leads to comprehensive study of literary text. Linguostylistic verb potential as lexicogrammatical word class, which has detailed system of personal-methodical and kindtime morphological forms was analyzed in the work; figurative and expressive features of verbal categories of manner, time, kind and person were tracked in the poetic texts of M. Bazhan and I. Drach; certain writers’ priorities in use of one or another verbal form were revealed. An important means of actualization of poetic content, dynamization of descriptive world, which assists the reader to focus attention on one or another reality, actions, feelings, and provides a link between the parts of the text, is repetition. Decoding of the poetic texts of M. Bazhan and I. Drach provided considering different apperception moments of verbal repetition.