MESSENGER of Kyiv National Linguistic University. Series Philology

Multilingual corpus as resource for working with political speeches by European public figures

2024-01-31T12:20:47+02:00

The article examines the use of the multilingual corpus as a tool for analyzing political speeches by European public figures. The novelty of the article lies in the automatic and semi-automatic compilation of the corpus, focusing on speeches delivered by European leaders, key figures and economists. It introduces a novel approach to the analysis of political speeches by European public figures through the compilation of a multilingual corpus. The semi-automatic compilation mode, facilitated by Sketch Engine functionalities, allowed for efficient processing and visualization, offering course participants a unique insight into influential speeches in the contemporary digital era. This corpus approach facilitated the creation of a comprehensive library of political speeches, serving as a valuable resource for teaching European Studies. The compilation of the corpus primarily includes famous speeches delivered by European leaders, key figures and economists. The process of compilation involved several stages resulting in the corpus of speeches available for in-depth
analysis and study. Using the functionalities of Sketch Engine, we processed the compilation in a semi-automatic mode. The focus on visualization aimed at making the course participants aware of the most prominent speeches in the modern digital era. The speeches available for the public access were formatted into txt files to supplement the corpus. The remaining part was entered in the automatic mode of corpus compilation. The results of the study included Good Academic Examples extraction from Sketch Engine and the corpus of European public figures’ speeches verified by popularity (the frequency score).

Estereotipos de género en el humor español y portugués: expresión léxico-semántica y estilística

2024-01-31T12:42:03+02:00

El artículo está dedicado al humor de género en el español y portugués. El objetivo del estudio es el análisis de los recursos léxico-semánticos y estilísticos de la expresión de los estereotipos de género en los chistes españoles y portugueses. El material de estudio comprende los chistes machistas, feministas, de suegras, escolares españoles y portugueses que critican o “atacan” a los representantes de cierto género. Se hace el análisis comparativo de las definiciones de estereotipo en los diccionarios de la lengua española y portuguesa, las definiciones de algunos científicos, para destacar los componentes lógicos dentro de la noción de estereotipo de género. El análisis léxico-semático y estilístico revela el uso de epítetos zoomorfos para caracterizar a los representantes de género femenino o masculino, tales como cerdo (del hombre), doberman (de la mujer), serpiente (de la suegra). No hemos encontrado los chistes que critiquen al suegro. Los chistes de género en las lenguas española y portuguesa son similares en mostrar su actitud negativa a la suegra y el deseo del yerno de deshacerse de ella, lo que se expresa en el humor negro. Según la estructura narrativa los chistes de género son en mayoría los diálogos sobre los roles sociales de hombres y mujeres. Los chistes machistas y feministas pueden ser ofensivos y sexistas, subrayando con exageración las características negativas del género opuesto. A nivel léxico-semántico se revela la crítica de mujeres como cotilleras, amas de casa, menos inteligentes que los hombres, más descontentas que sus maridos. Los hombres en los chistes de género aparecen como seres menos perfectos que las mujeres,
estúpidos, perezosos, inútiles. Los chistes reflejan de manera cómica y exagerada los estereotipos de género que persisten en la mentalidad española y portuguesa. La perspectiva de los estudios de género y humor consiste en la comparación de los chistes en distintas lenguas para revelar la persistencia de los estereotipos de género en dependencia de la cultura y de la época.

The categorization of causatives in modern Chinese

2024-01-31T12:53:19+02:00

The article presents a model for applying methods of corpus linguistics to the categorization of causatives that convey semantics of causality in contemporary Chinese. The author employs the core functions of the corpus manager Sketch Engine, including thesaurus, concordance and word list in order to select contextual synonyms, search to find illustrative material and generate lexical units with preset parameters accordingly. Specifically, online corpus of Chinese Web 2017 (zhTenTen17) Simplified, which contains approximately 16.6 billion tokens, was used to conduct the study.
Notably, in modern Chinese, the category of causality is primarily realized through causative constructions, which/whose type is determined by the causative predicate. The present paper studies both lexical and grammatical causatives. The results illustrate that lexical causatives include mono- and
multi-component types, while grammatical causatives are divided into those formed by two full verbs; those formed by a full verb and a resultative component; and those formed by a combination of light and non-causative verbs. Besides, grammatical causative constructions are divided into two main subtypes: morphological and analytical. The morphological one conveys semantics of causality either through causative affixes or phonological changes, while the analytical one being the most prevalent in modern Chinese are further classified into three models, namely: those formed with causative markers; those formed with the causative preposition 把; and those formed with the word 得. Future research may focus on the pragmatics of the choice in different types of causative constructions, with a regard to the conceptual and linguistic worldview of the Chinese people.

Translation strategies in the process of conveying neologisms, abbreviations and acronyms in English language computer texts

2024-01-31T13:10:09+02:00

The rapid advancement of technology gave rise to the emergence of numerous neologisms that have permeated various languages, with a particular emphasis on personal computers. This research still remains relevant as ongoing technological advancements continue to shape language usage. Translation of computer messages and the terms that make them up – abbreviations, acronyms, etc. – remains a crucial area of study. Thus, this article aims to examine the usage of acronyms and abbreviations in English language computer texts, identify patterns in their frequency, and characterize the diverse categories in which they appear. Special attention is given to translating computer abbreviations. The present paper employs a comparative analysis of the structural, semantic and functional characteristics of English acronyms and abbreviations, facilitating a contrast of these lexical units and the identification of defining characteristics. The descriptiveanalytical approach and continuous sampling method were also used to illustrate the research findings. The
most effective approaches identified for conveying English language computer abbreviations and acronyms include direct translation of the full form of the abbreviation, finding equivalent shortenings in the target language, transcoding, transliteration, descriptive translation and loan translation. The author highlights the significance of context awareness and appropriate interpretation in light of the fact that some acronyms and abbreviations have multiple meanings, and some of which may be lexically opposed to the required one. Given the distinctive features of computer texts characterized by a specific structure and abundance of computer neologisms, particularly acronyms and abbreviations, stemming from the rapid evolution of information and communication technologies, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the production and translation of computer acronyms and abbreviations.

Constructional modeling in the formalism of cognitive-quantitative construction grammar

2024-01-31T13:30:37+02:00

This paper discusses the findings of constructional modeling in the formalism of cognitive quantitative construction grammar, a newly developed research framework within a cognitive-quantitative grammar approach. Triangulating theoretical tenets, methodological principles and research tools of cognitivesemiotic frameworks with quantitative corpus studies, cognitive quantitative construction grammar provides a comprehensive qualitative-quantitative approach to examining cognitive foundations, general and idiosyncratic linguistic features, usage patterns and distribution of linguistic constructions. In this context, constructional modeling entails applying a computerized linguoquantitative procedure for a construction profile parametrization. This procedure yields operationalized and statistically verified data on the essential parameters that determine a construction’s linguistic behavior. The modeling uses the boxbracket notation, which integrates the box notation to represent holistic construction-level information and construction’s constituent-level information, and the bracket notation to detail specific linguistic properties and constructional constraints.
The constructional modeling in the integrated box-bracket notational system applied to English ꞌdetached nonfinite/nonverbal with explicit subjectꞌ-constructions allows for a comprehensive representation of their external and internal linguistic properties and captures inheritance links between
the constructions at macro-, meso- and micro-levels of the constructional network. The research findings demonstrate the feasibility of applying the cognitive quantitative construction grammar formalism to model the linguistic properties and constraints of complex clause-level constructions and how these constructions are likely to be represented in the mental grammar of speakers.

Prosodic features of public speech in Chinese political discourse

2024-01-31T13:47:14+02:00

The article addresses the prosodic features of Chinese political speech, conducting an in-depth analysis through the lens of existing research by Ukrainian and Chinese linguists. The scientists emphasize the pivotal role of prosodic characteristics of political speech in shaping the audience’s perception of the speech text within the realm of political discourse. The study delves into the concept of political discourse in modern linguistics, dissecting its features and associated political rhetoric. It emphasizes the vital role of prosody and its pragmatic influence in political communication, substantiating the importance of employing prosodic means in the construction of political speech to outline the dominants of the text content and emotional impact on the listener. The author determines prosody as a crucial component of political discourse and finds out that Chinese political speech is characterized by a pronounced logical and phrasal accentuation, slower speaker’s speech rate, and longer pauses before and after semantically significant words and phrases that are of important semantic significance for the entire speech. Notably, the research findings demonstrate that the speaker changes the rhythm of the statement in order to overcome monotony and draw attention to the significant parts of the speech. Illustrating these findings with examples from the speech delivered
by Chinese President Xi Jinping in October 2022 to representatives of the Chinese Communist Party, the study shows how the rhythmical adjustments in the speaker’s statement effectively mitigate monotony. The author determines the specifics of the implementation of Chinese-language political discourse through the mechanism of prosody and concludes that the effectiveness of public speech depends on its sound patterns, demonstrating their capacity to enhance imagery and expressiveness of speech.

The inconsistency of sentential subjects’ analysis in English

2024-01-31T14:09:30+02:00

The article presents a critical analysis of approaches to defining sentential subjects as non-canonical syntactic units consisting of a finite or a non-finite clause. The major issue discussed is the position of the sentential subject in the tree structure debating whether it lands in subject position as a result of movement or it is base-generated in the subject position. Additionally, a claim is made that sentential subjects are not true subjects, but rather topics, suggesting that a different constituent occupies the canonical subject position. Therefore, sentential subjects appear to behave akin to both topics and regular subjects. They cannot generally occur in subject positions in embedded clauses, subject-auxiliary inversions and after topicalised units, yet they trigger subject-verb agreement. When considering these two alternatives, the author finds it important to distinguish between the pragmatic function and the syntactic position. Though subjects have been studied in various linguistic schools, a common consistent opinion on the sentential subject status has not been reached. The discrepancies in existing views are revealed in similar examples analyzed as grammatical or ungrammatical within different scientific frameworks. Distributional and transformational tests, along with the study of the information structure of the utterance aimed at proving the acceptability / unacceptability of sentential subjects show mixed results and sometimes contradictory analyses. The research suggests that ungrammatical sentential units are normally neutralised by alternative structures that function as syntactic blockers. To address the complexity in exploring sentential subject,
the author advocates for a multifactor approach, which takes into account structural, distributional, weight ratio, semantic, pragmatic and psycholinguistic characteristics of subjects in a variety of configurations to ensure understanding the degree of subjecthood of syntactic structures and their systemic arrangement from the core to the periphery. In conclusion, the article emphasizes the need for a comprehensive approach to studying sentential subjects, acknowledging their multifaceted nature and aiming for a systemic understanding of subjecthood within linguistic frameworks.

Strategies of rendering non-verbal components in multimodal constructions comprising nationally-biased lexical units (based on British political video interviews and debates)

2024-01-31T14:24:38+02:00

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the research exploring non-verbal components observed in modern British political texts across two video genres, particularly focusing on the rendering of nationally-biased units. The emphasis lies on the phenomenon of realization of non-verbal speech
components in Ukrainian translations of political discourse texts and the claim that the strategy of rendering significantly depends on the emotional pattern of the presented material, such as interviews and political debates. Each genre of the political discourse has unique parameters for conveying information
to the interlocutor. Since the communicative aim differs in each of the presented genres, an interpreter encounters challenges in grasping the gist of the main idea in the utterance. Notably, non-verbal components of a communicative act are considered as the confounding factor in choosing the appropriate strategy of source language text translation. This article also investigates features of non-verbal communication, aiming to create a novel paradigm for rendering non-verbal components. To achieve this objective, the author analyses videos of two video genres such as interviews and political debates featuring nationallymarked lexicon of Great Britain. The study concludes that the genre-specific nature of multimodal texts is the contributing factor in selecting the suitable strategy for rendering discourse as a semantic unity. Specifically, the author considers two ways of non-verbal lexical units representation including subtitling and stenographic description and suggests “The Code of Subtitling” comprising criteria of subtitles creation, namely: accuracy, timing, length and readability, punctuation and grammar, speaker identification, handling accents and dialects, capturing audience reaction, censorship and sensitivity, font style and size and localisation. It is proved that the use of non-verbal components in multimodal constructions comprising nationally-biased units poses difficulties for translators and interpreters, who are therefore required to possess skills in understanding cultural awareness, empathy and a profound knowledge of both the source and target languages.

Translation specifics of English language comics into Ukrainian

2024-01-31T14:42:08+02:00

The article addresses the issue of translating comics, a special type of text characterized by a high degree of visuality and textuality. The research is aimed at studying the linguistic aspects of translating multimodal comic narratives, particularly English language comics, into Ukrainian in order to preserve their
comic potential and effective communication with the audience. Having analyzed numerous approaches to the translation of comic speech, the authors identify key factors that influence the preservation of the pragmatic effect and emotional sphere of the original. Additionally, they focus on the main linguistic and stylistic tools used in multimodal comic narratives, analyze various approaches to the translation of multimodal comic narratives, determine the impact of applied linguistic and parasemic tools on the perception of emotional and informative effect, and explore the specifics in translating various genres of comics. There was employed a combined methodological approach, which includes the analysis of linguistic and stylistic aspects of multimodal comic narratives, a comparative analysis of translations, as well as experimental studies on the audience’s perception of the emotional and informative effect. Overall, the article helps deepen the understanding of the translation process and approaches to preserving the emotional and informative effect in comics, contributing to further research and practical application in the field of stylistics and translation studies.

History of the development of machine translation systems (from the early stages to the beginning of the 21st century)

2024-01-31T15:22:44+02:00

The article examines certain periods of machine translation development and the methods used to create various machine translation systems. To ensure correct historical periodization, the author defines the criteria for classifying the development of machine translation. Special attention is paid to the development of individual machine translation systems, as well as the events that had a significant impact on both the development and the hindrance of progress in the field of machine translation. Additionally, the author considers the ALPAC report and its subsequent “quiet period” of machine translation development, analyses the key specialists who have been involved in the development and improvement of machine translation systems and machine translation technologies, categorizing them into four large groups. The article reviews the dominant basis of machine translation research until the late 1980s, rooted in various linguistic rules such as parsing rules, lexical rules, lexical transfer rules, syntactic generation rules, morphology rules, etc.
The author traces the emergence of the corpus-based method in machine translation, as well as its further expansion through experiments in computational modelling of cognition and perception, including the study of parallel computing, neural networks and connectionism, which offered the prospect of making the systems “learn” from past successes and failures. Besides, the author also examines the emergence of the interlingual
approach for multilingual translation of technical manuals and the history of the “pivot language”, along with the use of SLLP (specialized languages for linguistic programming).

Conveyance of feature gradation semantics in modern Turkish

2024-01-31T15:38:33+02:00

The aim of the article is to study the Turkish adjective from the point of view of a complex and systematic description of the means that serve to indicate the semantics of feature gradation. Having analyzed the works of Ukrainian Turkologists and representatives of various grammar schools in Turkey and in European countries, which focus on the adjective, we determined that most of them study certain features of the adjective structure or functioning in modern Turkish. Besides, means of denoting the feature manifestation intensity, particularly those having diminutive semantics, especially word-forming affixes that realize this meaning, also became the subject of the scientists’ research. At the same time, we did not record any work that deals with a holistic
description of linguistic (grammatical, word-forming) means as a system that serves to denote the semantics of feature gradation, which determines the relevance of our research. In the present work, we set the task to carry out such a systematic description of these means and determine the features of their interaction within this system. Along with this, the paper discusses the general problems of qualification of the adjective as part of speech in the Turkish language and differentiation of its lexical and semantic classes. Within the framework of the study, we offer the description of the degrees of comparison of adjectives, the intensive adjective forms, the polyfunctional affix -ca/-ce, the word-forming affixes with diminutive and augmentative semantics as well as the pair words (lexical repetitions) and syntactic models of the implementation of feature gradation semantics. The methodological prerequisite of the study is the functional and semantic approach.

Multicomponent structure of conflictive in modern English fictional discourse

2024-01-31T16:15:04+02:00

The current paper presents an overview of the multicomponent structure of conflictives as discursive constructs in modern English fictional discourse from the standpoint of pragmalinguistics, semiotics, multimodal discourse theory and paradigmatic and syntagmatic approach to the analysis of linguistic
units. The article elucidates the results of a linguosemiotic study of interpersonal conflicts in modern fictional discourse realized through the analysis of different multimodal semiotic modes, which collectively construct the meaning, communicated in conflict situations. This constructing is proceeded with the help of conflictives as emergent discursive constructs. Verbal, nonverbal and graphic semiotic resources are involved in this process at different stages of conflict communication. As a result of the multifaceted study of conflictives in modern English fictional discourse, the peculiarities of its multimodal and multicomponent structure have been revealed. Moreover, the detailed study of the successive stages of conflict development in fictional discourse involving the MDA method, linguosemiotic analysis, pragmatics and communicative linguistics allowed for singling out a conflictive as a discursive construct which in its form coincides with a certain phase of conflict communicative process, and structurally corresponds to the concept of a communicative act.
The research also aims to establish a link between different approaches to the interpretation of conflict communication development and methods of their research in modern linguistic studies. The multimodal nature of conflictives comprises several modes of multimodality which are represented at least in onemode structure of conflictives constructed in a definite phase of the conflict communicative process. These patterns of meaning multiplication through different semiotic modes collectively construct the meaning, communicated and interpreted in the situations of interpersonal conflicts in modern English
fiction discourse. Besides, the multicomponent structure of conflictives also includes its deep and surface elements involved in the process of construction and interpretation of these meanings. The obtained results show the decoding potential of interpreting conflict interpersonal communication at different
levels of linguistic analysis to achieve the corresponding aims.

Idiomatic space of the concept MOTHERLAND in the English and Ukrainian languages

2024-01-31T16:37:01+02:00

The article presents the study of the verbalization of the concept motherland in the Ukrainian and English languages. In today’s world, the question of importance of the concept motherland is more pressing than ever. In view of the tragic events in Ukraine and the sociopolitical situation in Britain, the
concept motherland acquires a special resonance, which determined the relevance of this study. The research establishes the theoretical basis for examining the concept motherland, unveiling its essence in philosophical and theoretical contexts. The concept is analyzed in the studied languages, considering both diachronic and synchronic perspectives. The study reveals that in Ukrainian ethnic consciousness, the concept motherland is associated with home, family and evokes warm feelings, although the illusions of the ideal are no longer present. The English concept motherland is slightly different, as the country’s rich history inspires a sense of pride, but often grappling with issues such as a lack of unity. Common basic cognitive-invariant archetypal constants of both peoples as descendants of Indo-Europeans include benevolence, patriotism, hospitality and success. However, in the process of historical and cultural development, each ethnic group acquired distinct variant profiles. Rational kindness is characteristic of the British, while openness and sincerity are typical of Ukrainians. The British exhibit abstractness in expressing feelings towards their native country, whereas Ukrainians demonstrate a close-intimate attitude towards their homeland. Stereotypically, the British may possess a sense of national superiority over other peoples, while Ukrainians harbor an interested attitude towards foreigners. Although researchers refer to the linguistic and cultural concept motherland as abstract and universal, as its deeper reconstruction shows, it has a clearly expressed ethno-cultural marking.

Review of the training manual. Khomenko Oleksandr. (2023).

2024-01-31T16:53:58+02:00

Tutorial on effective business communications: electronic educational publication for students of the second (master’s) level of higher education under the «Marketing and Management» educational programme: KNLU