Communication of COVID-19 consequences in the Baltic States inforsphere

This article seeks to describe the dynamics of COVID-19 in the Baltic States and to analyse the ways of communicating the threat and its consequences. Particular attention is paid to the media strategies pursued in the study area. The research is based on Russian and English texts from the Baltic media, WHO official documents and datasets, as well as initiatives of the Baltic Sea region organisations (2020) counteracting COVID-19. A combination of these sources builds up an objective view of the situation and demonstrates how the pandemic and its consequences are represented in public consciousness given a certain pragmatic goal. The pandemic is a new type of threat; its consequences demonstrate a tendency towards negative synergy and a category shift from soft threats to hard ones. The research shows that several key strategies - counter-active, projective, conservative, mobilising, resilient, and reflective - are used to communicate the threat and its consequences in the media

Sense disambiguation in polysemous words: cognitive perspective

In this paper the authors put polysemy research into the broader context of research into the mental lexicon, cognitive context conceptual priming, and probabilistic conceptual modelling. The article adopts a novel approach to the resolution of polysemy and puts it to an empirical test. The authors argue that priming plays a key role in the activation of an adequate meaning of a polysemous word. Mental structures, represented by a prime lexical unit, contain relevant conceptual information on the target word meaning. The prime triggers a cognitive context that influences the selection process of the target word sense

Unveiling the unseen: the challenge of phenomenological conceptual untranslatables

This article aims to explore the significant challenges posed by phenomenological un­translatables while also emphasizing their role as cultural phenomena. Phenomenological untranslatables are typically associated with a specific cultural, historical, or social context, and their meanings are shaped by the unique experiences of the community that uses them. They encode complex elements of human perception, emotions, or phenomena that do not have direct equivalents in other languages. Yet, the absence of direct linguistic equivalents should not be misconstrued as the absence of shared human experiences. By employing a multidisci­plinary approach that encompasses linguistics, cognitive science, and cultural studies, we have conducted an analysis of the conceptual framework underlying this type of lexis and identified macro- and micro-conceptual attributes that may necessitate various verbalizations in different cultural and contextual settings