The Creation of the Alphabet and words spelling of Chinese Mandarin is a landmark event in the history of Chinese civilization. It breathes new life into ancient Chinese characters. Great “dumb” the Chinese character − for the first time since 1958 has become known to the whole world by sounds of Beijing speech. Today the two types of writing − Chinese Mandarin traditional ideographic and innovative phonographic writing, in their unity, provide the linguocultural unity of the Chinese society and the progress of science and technology of China. Millions of people in China and beyond are studying the Chinese language based on the sound letter standard of the words of Chinese Putonghua. Letter orthogramms of Chinese words provide tele- and Internet communication of hundreds of millions of Chinese. Based on the theory of Chinese phonological system elaborated within the frames of Russian Chinese studies, the technology of phonological system of Chinese in the alphabet and orthogramms of words of Chinese Putonghua is considered for the first time. Chinese alphabet, based on Latin letters and letter-spelling forms of Putonghua words are a huge scientific achievement of Chinese linguists. Outstanding contribution to the creation of the alphabet and letter words of Chinese Mandarin was made by a brilliant Chinese linguist Zhou Youguang (1906-2011), called the «father of pinyin zimu» or Chinese alphabet in China.

This article discusses the features of speech manipulation on the Russian theme in modern German political texts. The need to write such a work is due to a number of factors.

First, the authors note that this topic, despite its relevance in the context of increasing information warfare, especially over the past five years, is not sufficiently described. The problem of speech violence is practically not considered in the theoretical part of the relevant dissertations, scientific articles and textbooks. In the exercises for students on abstracting, listening and socio-political translation there are no tasks related to the detection and analysis of speech manipulation means, speech demagogy or speech aggression in foreign media.

Secondly, in the presence of a large amount of literature, one way or another devoted to the problem of media manipulation, it is possible to find relatively little linguistic research of foreign texts.

And, thirdly, it should be noted that there are theoretical gaps in this area of research, in particular, the lack of generally accepted points of view on the classification, the terminological name of speech strategies, tactics and techniques used for the purpose of covert introduction into the consciousness of the addressee of the necessary information to the manipulator, which complicates the analysis of speech facts of manipulative influence.

With regard to the German political language, the authors of this article pay attention to the manipulative linguistic techniques of the German media in publications on Russian (and in fact - anti-Russian) topics, on the extralinguistic background, especially related to the reunification of the Crimea with Russia and the conflict in the Donbass. German media, ranging from the relatively respectable newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung“ to the Boulevard “Bild” write and talk about Russia either in a bad light or nothing at all.

Thus, a pejorative function directed at a negative characterization of our state without any serious argument comes to the fore. Since different types of language manipulation require contexts of a greater length for their demonstration, the authors confine their material to the adduced one.

A new interpretation of a “diplomatic war” is considered in the context of changed diplomatic communication – a complex organized system consisting of various components: diplomatic, political, economic, historical, legal, linguistic, and other. The article analyzes the examples of the verbal component of diplomatic communication on the basis of the communicative tactics in the process of information and diplomatic war, currently developing in international relations. The research material includes texts of speeches made by the Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN Security Council V.A. Nebenzya and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine P. Klimkin (2014-2019) in a situation of diplomatic confrontation. The strategies of verbal confrontation, and the characteristics of emotivity and clichéd character of a diplomatic text are considered; the concept of implicitly evaluative diplomatic cliché is introduced. UN Security Council speeches are singled out into a separate subgenre of public speeches and verbal and structural characteristics of speeches obtained by quantitative computer tools are analyzed. Based on the results of quantitative linguistic analysis and the analysis of the extralinguistic situation, a linguopragmatic model of the speech situation of a diplomatic confrontation is suggested.

The increased interest of international cognitive linguists in the mechanisms of conceptualizing modern social phenomena has necessitated cognitive linguistic analysis of such phenomena as globalization, which is one of the most important trends setting the vector for modern society development.

This study attempts not only to identify key concepts and means of their representation in terms of the globalization phenomenon, but also to build with the help of these concepts elements of the modern moral system inherent in the English-speaking community. To this end, a conceptual and cognitive-semantic analysis of contemporary English-language political discourse was carried out on the basis of speeches delivered by delegates to the United Nations.

The investigation is premised on the theory of conceptual metaphor, emphasizing the need to understand the metaphorical foundations of human consciousness and communication. The study collected and analyzed empirical data that can be used to draw conclusions about the models of representation and assessment of reality by members of the English-speaking community, which in turn opens up prospects for further research in a linguistic pragmatic way and studying the specific features of English-speakers’ view of the world.

As a result of lexicological and discourse-based analysis of speech transcripts, the paper uncovers several basic metaphorical models (Morality as 1. Commitment; 2. Nurturant Parent; 3. Resilience; 4. Fairy Tale of the Just War; 5. Progress), which outline globalization within the conceptual view of the world and which are underlined by such antitheses as “moral - immoral,” “success - loss,” “strength - weakness” etc.

The article aims at providing an adequate linguistic and sociocultural description of rhyming slang based on the use of the names of prominent British government and public figures and politicians, who were widely represented in the British media at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, and are thus included in modern cultural collective memory of the carriers of the English lingual culture. The rhymes contain precedents of onyms − the personal names of well-known, fashionable, popular, or scandalous politicians. The noted tendency of the preferred creation of new rhymes, exploiting the precedent onyms, has become dominant in the development of rhyming slang at the turn of the century. The emergence of rhyming slang units based on the use of the precedent names of politicians and statesmen is a relatively new and insufficiently studied phenomenon while onomastic rhymes that exploit the names of celebrities from the world of cinema, pop music, popular culture and sports are more common and are better studied. The article contains the rhymes that have not yet been recorded in authoritative slang dictionaries. They surely deserve linguistic and sociocultural descriptions.

The authors focused on a special and research-promising layer of vocabulary that reflects the sociocultural and historical items in the context of the so-called cultural literacy and is of certain value from the point of view of culture-oriented linguistics, cross-cultural communication and the general study of culture.

The results of the research can be useful and interesting for specialists who develop topics of cross-cultural communication, culture-oriented linguistics, linguistic culturology, euphemy, contrastive linguistics of the English and Russian languages.

The article examines the dual nature of language as a system: actual (individual information system) and potential (individual conceptual system). If from the standpoint of the information system the act of speaking performed by the individual is a linguistic reflex, then from the standpoint of the conceptual system, the thought-speech activity actualized by the linguistic personality appears as an experience of reflection.

Using the example of creolized discourse, it is shown how operating with language at the level of an information system puts an individual in the position of a passive consumer of the existing meanings (given), which excludes the possibility of considering him from the position of a speech subject. The latter turns out to be achievable in the case when the conceptual system is actualized as a correlate of thought-speech activity, the effectiveness of which is recognized at the level of meaning (created). It is substantiated that if a language as an information system can function without regard to the conceptual system, then the actualization of the language as a conceptual system is impossible without an information system, in the bosom of which it is hidden.

It is argued that, in contrast to meaning, which, being objective, is subject to arbitrary subjectivization in the process of use due to the emotive valence of a word, meaning appears as an intersubjective phenomenon. Moreover, if the actual emotives are directly related to the language as an information system, then the potentials demonstrate their belonging to the language as a conceptual system.

The article is addressed to philologists-communicologists, philosophers and culturologists who are interested in the issues of language as an activity, emotive linguistics, meaning formation.

The article focuses on the usage of idioms for characterizing the image of Russia in the English language media discourse. To understand the meaning of the phraseological unit one should apply the method of discourse analysis. The discourse analysis of the mediatext takes into account extra-linguistic, linguistic and cognitive factors. Extra-linguistic factors include political situation, current events, and ideology of a state and media outlet. Linguistic analysis provides for the investigation of the semantics of the idiom and its connotative potential. Cognitive analysis shows the intentions of the author to create either positive or negative opinion of events described. Connotative meaning is determined by means of linguocognitive analysis considering extra-linguistic factors. The semantics of the idiom contains subjective modalities (axiological, emotive and deontic) representing different assessments of the reality. Modality can be identified with cognitive-modal operators specifying different types of evaluation: rational, emotional, normative. The analysis of the semantic structure of phraseological units is conducted in our research. It is aimed at characterizing the role of Russia in the global world by means of idioms. The discourse approach enables to determine the connotative potential of phraseological units and to describe the image of our country in the English language mass media.

The issue of gender equality is currently being studied on the basis of different languages and from various positions, most intensively from the point of view of language policy. In this case, we are talking about the choice of language tools in oral or written speech that allow to unambiguously reflect gender and the social role of the named person. The word-building capabilities of the German language, in particular suffixation and substantiation, represent a significant potential for creating gender-correct lexical units. The main objective of the study was to identify lexical means of expressing political correctness in the speech of representatives of various political parties of Germany (Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union, Social Democratic Party of Germany, Free Democratic Party, Green Party, Left Party, Alternative for Germany) in close interconnection with extralinguistic factors. In the research process, the continuous sampling method, semantic, contextual, and statistical analysis were used, which made it possible to identify units with a gender marking. Based on semantic attributes, the identified lexemes were classified into four groups: feminitives, gender-neutral, gender-asymmetric, and gender-symmetric units. The analysis shows the changes in the German language towards gender equality. The main tendency of this process is feminization, the signs of which are found primarily in the language of female politicians, which also reflects the national-cultural specificity of the modern German language.

Phraseologisms as a part of cultural heritage contain the experiences, thoughts and traditions passed from one generation to another over millennia both orally and in writing. The object of this research work is a phraseological unit in the Russian and Persian languages. The subject of this study is a phraseological unit related to the concept of “hospitality” in these languages. The analysis is based on a corpus consisting of 120 phraseological units that carry meaning of the word “hospitality” in Russian and Persian. The work consists of three main parts: The first part is devoted to the analysis of stable phrases with the meaning of “hospitality” and the situations in which they are used. In the second part of the work, proverbs and sayings that are used in the guest label situation in the Russian and Persian languages are analyzed; cultural features of “hospitality” and reception of guests among the Russian and Iranian people are revealed. In the last part, the equivalence the Russian and Persian phraseological units with the meaning of “hospitality” is analyzed. The results of the analysis mainly demonstrate the similarity of linguistic and cultural features in the guest etiquette situation of the Russian and Iranian people.

The article considers a type of headlines – clickbait – that is common in modern mass media discourse. The novelty of the research is in the object of research and the material represented in three languages – Russian, English and French. Clickbait as a phenomenon has not been investigated before, neither has its national and cultural specificity in the three analyzed linguistic cultures; this fact determines the relevance of the study. The analysis of the language material was based on hypothetical-deductive method, continuous sampling method, and method of stylistic and contextual analysis. The purpose of this work is to identify the content and stylistic characteristics of clickbait in the Russian -, English- and French-speaking information space. Initially, the English-language lexeme “clickbait” was borrowed into Russian and also French, where it received additional nominations. In the Russian language this word is almost assimilated as a language unit. The authors believe that clickbait is a type of a manipulative influence exerted on perceiving mass audience, the essence of which is to attract and retain the recipient’s attention using false or dubious information. To this end, a variety of language and audio-visual tools are used that allow assigning clickbait to a creolized text type. The authors believe that clickbait is a global phenomenon in modern information space, which national and cultural specificity is determined by a national “agenda”. The article is addressed to philologists, psychologists and sociologists. The research results can as well be useful for undergraduate and postgraduate students specializing in the Humanities.

The 21st century is characterized as the century of globalization, the integration of cultures, which, of course, leaves its mark on the development of cognitive linguistics. Linguistics as a science of language, reflects all the changes that occur in the thinking and speech behavior of modern society. Cognitive linguistics makes it possible to identify and trace the logical foundations of the emergence and development of the human language as a general cultural phenomenon of human life and its features within the framework of a national culture. Cognitive studies in the language bring people together with different levels of development, culture and religious affiliation, which is necessary in the high-tech age, as they promote tolerance, religious tolerance and mutual respect. The article analyzes the mythological and religious texts of different peoples and faiths in order to identify one of C. Jung’s archetypes. It is a collective unconscious modeling function of certain words. Three centuries ago R. Descartes called such archetypes “the alphabet of human thoughts”. Then this expression was partially used in the late 1650s by the mathematician Blaise Pascal, and later applied in the works of G. Leibniz at the end of the 17th century. It is noteworthy that Descartes, Pascal, C. Jung and some other famous scholars were among the first in linguistics and the history of philosophical teachings to point out the importance of studying the symbolic primitives of thought in linguistic culture. They believed that such archetypes, thanks to symbolism, are part of the general linguistic picture of the world. At the same time the analysis was carried out, confirming one of the main provisions of modern cognitive linguistics about the interplay of language and culture, the originality of the linguistic picture of the world put forward in the Middle Ages by E. B. de Condillac, later proclaimed by W. von Humbolt, and underlying Sapir-Wharf’s theory of linguistic relativity.
Not trying to “grasp the immensity”, the author of the article did not set a goal to indicate the use of the tokens “bull” and “cow” in different ancient languages. For example, in Asia and the East they acquire individual meaning in the group of Semitic languages (Arabic, etc.) or Turkic-speaking (Turkish, etc.). They are beyond the scope of our study. Comparisons and comparisons of these lexemes only in Russian and Hindi and a group of Indonesian languages come into view. Some other isolated parallels relate to the so-called “background information”. The study relies on a systematic analysis of the famous anthropologist K. Levy-Strauss and on the analogy method, widely used by linguists, culturologists, and anthropologists.

The article explores the cognitive, linguistic and pragmatic potential of Spanish political slogans as an integral part of political communication. The relevance of the investigation, carried out as part of a comprehensive methodology combining discursive, pragmalinguistic and content analysis, is determined by the need for a profound study of discursive mechanisms of influence on public consciousness and behavior, as well as ways to recognize and resist manipulative tactics. Slogans represent a variety of discursive texts and operate in the communicative-pragmatic contexts of “Protests” and “Elections”. Their illocutionary characterization is determined by the discursive situation: for protest slogans, demand dominates as the main speech act, while for electoral slogans, the main task is the desire to attract voters, to force them to vote for a particular candidate or party. Due to the linguistic, pragmatic and structural features, slogans influence the conceptual picture of the world of the electorate and serve as a mechanism for controlling public opinion and behavior. The addresser creates a slogan with regard to its perception by a recipient. Metaphors and other language techniques serve as linguistic means to create a desired perception vector and behavior algorithm, as well as cognitively integrate images and symbols, which often become precedents for the national language community.

The article is devoted to the study of the national-cultural specifics of the German language in Austria in the fields of economics, politics and law. The introduction examines the pluricentric and pluriareal approaches to considering the status of Austrian German, which differ in understanding the language and the way it is described, emphasizes the role of the Bavarian-Austrian dialects in the formation of the German literary language and gives factors that influenced the linguistic development of Austria. The author introduces the typology of culturally-marked vocabulary. The study provides examples of full equivalents in German German and Austrian German, Austrian tokens, which serve to express concepts that are not in German culture and are denoted by the term ‘equivalent vocabulary’ and partially equivalent lexemes having a mismatch in the volume of denotative meaning. The main content of the study is to analyze the national-cultural specifics in the Austrian national version of the German language in the framework of the thematic groups “Economic vocabulary”, “Socio-political vocabulary” and “Legal vocabulary”. The results of this study may be of interest for use in linguistic studies courses in German-speaking countries and in pedagogical practice, as well as find application in lexicography.

The paper sums up the results of empirical research in teaching foreign text summarizing to Russian university students and introduces an updated approach to teaching summarizing. Summarizing is interpreted as an intellectual process involving semantic compression of the original text and converting it into a concise summary. In this context a summary is viewed as a control measuring tool for assessing foreign language reading and speaking skills. The paper is focused on shaping skills of reproductiveproductive transforming information retrieved from a printed text. Particular emphasis is placed on the analysis of the means of language teaching and the ways of developing universal cognitive-communicative competencies and a set of useful transferable skills. The paper introduces techniques to motivate screenagers to examine a printed foreign text and to hurdle the shortcomings of clip thinking and short attention span through teaching summarizing. The main stages of the summarizing process are analyzed. Detailed guidelines are provided for developing cognitive skills for profound text comprehension, and such means of semantic compression as generalization, paraphrasing, mind mapping, and producing a summary.

The article represents an effort to specify the essential characteristics of the relationship between the intentionality of consciousness, language and culture, and on this basis to reveal the features of the process of foreign language teaching.

The author considers intentionality as a phenomenon that defines and provides the content of consciousness, allowing one to commit an act of self-determination and gaining subjectivity. In the activity of 

consciousness, the author distinguishes intentional flows of both relatively objects and subjects, which is a prerequisite for comprehending another I, a different cultural entity, and at the same time a condition for self-knowledge and deeper penetration into one’s own culture.

Culture is a complex semiotic text, it is a context in which the language being studied as a secondary modeling system acts as a means where various phenomena can be sequentially described and interpreted by students.

The openness of the subject to the world, nurtured in the course of intentional teaching of language and culture, allows its utter uniqueness, and at the same time utmost universality, to manifest itself. Such an attitude actualizes the internal regularity of human actions, the possibility of self-development and the formation of a system of deferred actions, which allows a person to realize, take place, actualizes the intentional field of his capabilities.

The author comes to the conclusion that the process of foreign language teaching should be interpretative, significative, semiotic in nature. Taking into account during teaching а foreign language the intentional conditioning of any action, including speech, will ensure the achievement of a coordinated consciousness.