Parental Mentalizing During a Pandemic: Use of Mental-State Language on Parenting Social Media Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a demanding caregiving context for parents, particularly during lockdowns. In this study, we examined parental mentalization, parents’ proclivity to consider their own and their child’s mental states, during the pandemic, as manifested in mental-state language (MSL) on parenting social media. Parenting-related posts on Reddit from two time periods in the pandemic in 2020, March to April (lockdown) and July to August (postlockdown), were compared with time-matched control periods in 2019. MSL and self–other references were measured using text-analysis methods. Parental mentalization content decreased during the pandemic: Posts referred less to mental activities and to other people during the COVID-19 pandemic and showed decreased affective MSL, cognitive MSL, and self-references specifically during lockdown. Father-specific subreddits exhibited strongest declines in mentalization content, whereas mother-specific subreddits exhibited smaller changes. Implications on understanding associations between caregiving contexts and parental mentalization, gender differences, and the value of using social-media data to study parenting and mentalizing are discussed.

Язык государствообразующего народа. Об одной поправке к российской конституции в контексте мифологической функции законодательного текста

In the conditions of a rule-of-law state, the Constitution is the main reference point of its legal system, while in the realities of modern society living in a state governed by the rule of law, it may also have significant symbolic functions. The new wording of Article 68 of the Russian Constitution, proposed in the law of 2020 on the amendment to the Constitution, defines the state language – Russian – as "the language of the state-forming nation belonging to the multinational union of equal nations of the Russian Federation". In this article, this term is analyzed as evidence of the strategy to impose mythological functions on the legislative text. In case of the concept of "Russian language", this strategy manifested itself already in 2005 in the federal law on the State language, which established the status of the Russian language as a tool to "strengthen inter-ethnic relations in a unified multi-ethnic State". The law on the amendment of the Russian Constitution goes beyond the very introduction of mythological components into the legal text and presents a strategy to legitimize mythology through an act of general vote.

Language Policy of the CIS Countries: Current State and Prospects

Language policy issues are inextricably linked with the socio-political vectors of development of a state. The significance of this problem field is actualised with a number of examples from modern history, when the "language issue" became a source of social tension, led to various kinds of conflicts, including interstate ones. The article is devoted to the analytical study of the modern specifics of language policy in the CIS countries. Research attention is focused on nine states that are active members of the integration association (Ukraine, which de facto does not participate in the activities of the Commonwealth, and Russia are not considered due to the presence of administrative national autonomies and the number of different ethno-cultural communities, as well as the need to reflect in the work the peculiarities of the functioning of the Russian language, which has a special status in the region). The practice of implementing the language policy pursued in the CIS countries allows to generalize and compare the experience of states that have relatively recently received sovereignty and the ability to form an appropriate agenda independently. The analysis made it possible to identify the general directions of language policy, typical for individual countries: 1) protection of the languages of the titular nation with the consolidation of their status as the only state and official for all spheres of communicative interaction (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Uzbekistan); 2) carrying out an alphabetical reform in order to switch to the Latin alphabet (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan); 3) implementation of the policy of state bi- or polylingualism (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan); 4) attempts to solve precedent linguistic problems (nomination of the state language for Moldova, the status of the Russian language for Armenia and Georgia).

Лінгвальні та позалінгвальні аспекти функціонування суржику в Україні

Lingual and Extralingual Aspects of Surzhyk Functioning in UkraineSurzhyk is a mixed type of speech that is typical within modern Ukraine, where we can observe the coexistence of two major language codes, namely Ukrainian and Russian. These are represented by both literary variants and numerous subcodes, primarily Ukrainian dialects (including transitional dialects, with features related to Russian and Belarusian dialectal areas) and Russian colloquial speech with elements of slang. Some language scholars rank Surzhyk as a separate language subcode – as a peculiar type of pidgin – and try to study its structure (lexical composition, grammatical structure) and areal distribution of elements accordingly. At present, in addition to “classical” Surzhyk, a new type of mixed speech has also arisen on the Russian phonetic-grammatical basis with the involvement of a large number of Ukrainian lexemes (original or borrowed by the Ukrainian language), mainly terms, taken from different fields. This new type of mixed speech is Russian-Ukrainian Surzhyk.The report analyzes several samples of mixed speech. On the basis of this analysis, criteria for the qualification of a text are proposed either as an example of Surzhyk, or simply as speech with signs of interference. Such criteria include lingual (Ukrainian or Russian phonetic basis, levels of interference, number of foreign language implementations, variations within the text), social (language is higher in status at the moment of the occurrence of the phenomenon; the scope of the functioning of the idiom itself), territorial (depending on the speaker’s place of inhabitance – urban or rural) and personal (native/first language of the speaker, level of education, knowledge of the literary language). It was concluded that the new mixed speech differs from Surzhyk in terms of the number of used units of another language, linguistic levels of manifestation, scope of distribution, conditions of occurrence and personal characteristics of speakers, among which the level of education and possession of standard subcodes are of leading importance. It is a tran­sitional phenomenon in the process of the formation of Ukrainian as a state language. Językowe i pozajęzykowe aspekty funkcjonowania surżyka w UkrainieSurżyk to mieszany typ mowy, typowy dla współczesnej Ukrainy, gdzie obserwujemy współistnienie dwóch języków, ukraińskiego i rosyjskiego. Języki te są reprezentowane zarówno przez ich warianty literackie, jak i liczne subkody, przede wszystkim przez dialekty ukraińskie (w tym również dialekty przejściowe do rosyjskiego i białoruskiego obszaru dialektalnego) oraz przez potoczną odmianę języka rosyjskiego z elementami slangu. Niektórzy językoznawcy uważają surżyk za odrębny subkod językowy – swoisty rodzaj pidginu – i podejmują próby analizy jego struktury (leksykonu, gramatyki) i uwarunkowań z zakresu geografii językowej. Obecnie obok „klasycznego” surżyka pojawił się nowy typ mowy mieszanej, oparty na bazie fonetyczno-gramatycznej języka rosyjskiego, z udziałem dużej liczby leksemów ukraińskich (oryginalnych lub zapożyczonych do języka ukraińskiego), głównie terminów z zakresu wielu dziedzin. Ten nowy rodzaj mowy mieszanej to surżyk rosyjsko-ukraiński.W niniejszym tekście poddano analizie próbki tego typu mowy mieszanej. Na podstawie analizy zaproponowano kryteria dwojakiej kwalifikacji tekstu, bądź jako przykładu surżyka, bądź po prostu jako przykładu mowy z cechami interferencji. Kryteria te mają charakter lingwistyczny (ukraińska lub rosyjska baza artykulacyjna, zakres interferencji, liczba jednostek zaadaptowanych z języków obcych, poziom wariancji tekstowej), socjologiczny (język o wyższym statusie w momencie wystąpienia danego zjawiska; zakres funkcjonowania idiomu), terytorialny (w zależności od miejsca zamieszkania mówiącego – miejski lub wiejski) i indywidualny (ojczysty/pierwszy język mówiącego, poziom wykształcenia, znajomość języka literackiego). Stwierdzono, że nowa mowa mieszana różni się od surżyka pod względem liczby używanych jednostek z innego języka, płaszczyzny językowej jego realizacji, zasięgu i warunków jego występowania, indywidualnych cech mówiących, wśród których poziom wykształcenia i znajomość subkodów standardowych mają pierwszorzędne znaczenie. Mamy tu do czynienia ze zjawiskiem przejściowym w procesie uzyskiwania przez język ukraiński statusu języka państwowego.

Attention to the State Language in the Educational Process

The main idea of the article is to further increase the focus on the state language, to use it wisely, aimed at replacing the educational process in achieving speech conformity to literary language norms among students and pupils. However, the author provided information on how important a teacher’s speaking skills in learning process. As well as, there are some information about speech culture. Keywords: state language, specialist, teacher, student, pupil, public speaking skills, language culture, to increase practice, oral and written speech.

THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The purpose of the article is to substantiate the socio-philosophical aspects of the functional development of the Uzbek language as a "state language". The article defines the content and structure of the concepts of "state language" and "functions of language" on the basis of a new approach and shows its connection with the development of national identity. The growth and enrichment of the existing social functions of the Uzbek language as the state language - the impact on the competitiveness of the national economy, as well as the social, political, economic and spiritual significance of the transition of the Uzbek script to the Latin alphabet in Uzbekistan and the problems in this area were critically analyzed.

The second language acquisition: problems and challenges for Georgian Deaf community

As stated in the title, the paper is devoted to the issue of second language acquisition by Deaf people in Georgia, describing the current situation and the challenges. There are about 2500 Deaf and hard of hearing residents in Georgia. Being the linguistic minority in the country, these people communicate with each-other in the Georgian Sign Language – GESL. The second native language for local Deaf and hard of hearing people is the Georgian spoken language – the State language. In many countries Deaf people are bilingual, while it is hard to consider the local Deaf and hard of hearing people bilingual, as the knowledge of spoken Georgian on the level of a native language among the Deaf residents is not observed. Unfortunately in Georgia there are no studies concerning the second language acquisition for Deaf and hard of hearing people. The main problems are the agrammatism in written communication on the state language and the ignorance of deferent hierarchical levels of spoken Georgian. This short paper offers the key issues for the plan of strategy of spoken Georgian acquisition for local Deaf and hard of hearing residents.