The Tourist Booklet as a Genre of Professional Discourse: Interaction with the Customer

This paper discusses touristic communication practices, specifically the tourist booklets as a genre of professional discourse. Using the framework that is informed by discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, genre studies and professional discourse studies, the author views a tourist booklet as a complex multimodal genre and sets the goal to reveal how booklets construct interaction between professional agents and non-professional customers. Using a set of tourist (predominantly English language) booklets collected in 2005-2019 around the world, the author discovers professional agents seeking to strike a balance between their image as experts in tourism and the need to construct rapport with the customers. These goals are achieved through the employment of various strategies, which are implemented through a range of linguistic and visual techniques. The validity of the professional image relies on such discursive mechanisms as providing expert knowledge on the touristic objects and services, explicit indications of expertise, presentations of professional agents as law-abiding and formally recognised businesses, and references to socially important values. The meanings evoked by the linguistic resources are reinforced visually. To mitigate the asymmetry of sta-tuses, rapport with the customers is developed by means of offering biographies and interviews with the company representatives, the demonstration of attention to the customer, the construction of common emotional space, and the conversational style strategy. The customer is also involved in cognitively entertaining or challenging activities. Thus, the study shows that professional-to-layperson communication is a multi-faceted phenomenon, whose complexity is predetermined by the combination of various intentions and multimodal resources that help implement these intentions discursively. © Tatiana V. Dubrovskaya 2021.The study is supported by Russian Science Foundation, Project No. 20-68-46003 ‘The Semantics of Unity and Animosity in Russian Lexis and Phraseology: Language System and Discourse’

Soviet Socio-Cultural Practices from Perspective of Genres in <i>Pioneer</i> Magazine

The article presents some results of the project that is aimed at constructing a mediatised model of the Soviet society in periodicals for children. The data has been drawn from the Pioneer magazine published in the 1970s. This paper focuses on its structure and contents, as well as typical genres that construct the representations of the Soviet society and socio-cultural practices. The degree of ideology is defined that characterises various genres. In terms of methodology, the study draws on constructivism, critical discourse analysis, theory of journalistic genres, theory of speech genres, and semiotic analysis. Genres are interpreted based on their ideological charge, types of socio-cultural practices they represent, and the semiotic resources employed. The findings show that the ideological charge can be graded from being non-existent to dominating the factual information. The ideological component is secondary in genres of popular science and general education, whereas genres that reproduce adults’ institutional socio-political practices demonstrate a high degree of ideological charge, which is conveyed through specific semiotic resources. At the same time, the magazine adapts the representations of Soviet values for adolescents through the use of everyday language and visual images of routine life

Strategies of Positive Representation of Russian-Italian Relations in Russian Foreign Policy Discourse (based on the Russian Foreign Ministry Website)

The paper focuses on discursive construction of international relations in foreign policy discourse. The author uses the data retrieved from the Russian Foreign Ministry website to define the strategies of positive representation of Russian-Italian relations and reveal linguistic resources employed for the purpose. The strategies include the following: strategy of positive evaluation, strategy of legitimizing the partnering actor’s negative characteristics, strategy of positive forecast, strategy of involvement, strategy of demonstrating similarity of problems or views, strategy of indicating the legitimacy of relations and activities, and strategy of positive emotionalisation. The author demonstrates that strategies that represent a partnering actor are actualised in different genres of foreign policy discourse, which assists in constructing a consistent picture of Russian-Italian relations. The author claims that numerous strategies of positive representation are a convincing proof that foreign policy practices demand not only strategies that perform a conflictual function. Strategies that are aimed at harmonizing relations, constructing partnerships and grouping political actors are also in demand in international relations

Paradigms in Modern Russian and Foreign Linguistics: Nature, Dynamics, and Philosophical Grounds

The author discusses the category of paradigm introduced by Thomas Kuhn, systematizes and summarizes the principal claims advanced by home and foreign scholars, reveals the most common trends in understanding paradigms in modern humanities, specifically in linguistics. It is demonstrated that the category of paradigm remains popular, but it has undergone some transformations. Considering the review, it can be assumed that the strict understanding of paradigms as incompatible model problems and solutions to them is being replaced by more flexible statements about a greater or lesser importance of a given paradigm over a specific period. Scholars admit the possibility to return to old research problems and tackle them at a higher level, focus on building a universal paradigm that would incorporate various directions of studies and views of language. The author characterizes paradigm arguments in Western research methodology as constructed on the basis of different philosophical approaches to knowledge (admitting or rejecting the possibility to learn the objective truth). It is shown that the methodological compromise has resulted in ‘compatibility principle’, mixed-method research, and a combination of qualitative and quantitative research in humanities, including linguistics

Axiology of Bikers’ Group Identity (based on the Internet Communication)

The paper presents the results of discourse analysis of bikers’ communication. The authors aim to reveal key axiological values in biker subculture, as well as discovering linguistic features in discourse of this social group and characterizing its members’ identity. The study takes a close look at how values are actualized through their linguistic forms in discourse. The research is innovative in that it attempts to employ discourse analysis in order to explore youth subcultures, specifically biker subculture. The paper offers a literature review focusing on biker subculture and covering some aspects of youth discourse in general. The authors provide a theoretical background for using the category of topos to reveal values in biker subculture. The findings include a list of principal topoi that provide a frame for the construction of bikers’ collective social identity. The authors argue that the social category ‘biker’ is constructed through the topoi of ‘bike’, ‘pleasure’, ‘danger’ and ‘brotherhood’. The conclusion is drawn that the biker is discursively constructed as a person who loves life, respects and appreciates peers, treats riding a bike with all responsibility, but who at the same time takes а risk to get excitement. Linguistic resources used in bikers’ communications are various and embrace lexical units of evaluation, references to feelings and emotions, metaphors, a vast number of jargonisms and elements of folklore

State Language, Language Situation and Language Policy in Legislation: Representations in the Russian Federal Law “On the State Language of the Russian Federation

The article addresses the issue of language situation and language policy through the analysis of legislation. Taking a social constructionist approach to law, the authors claim that a legal text can be explored for the purpose of discovering typical representations and linguistic resources that conceptualise languages, language situation and language policy. The paper offers a concise overview of domestic and foreign scholarship in the field as well as offering definitions for the basic categories used in the research. The analysis of the Russian Federal Law “On the State Language of the Russian Federation” shows that the Russian language is constructed as a state language, which has a few aspects. It is represented as an instrument of national unity, an instrument of maintaining culture, and an instrument of international impact. In terms of semantic roles, the Russian language is represented not only as an agent and instrument, but also as a patient, the object of negative and positive impact. The contexts mentioning the Russian language and other languages and idioms construct the relations between the languages as mutually reinforcing (thus, constructing the semantics of unity) or mutually excluding (thus, constructing the semantics of opposition)

Socionym "Yuppie" in Mass Media: Sociocultural and Linguistic Transformations

В статье рассматривается специфика функционирования соционима "yuppie" в медийных текстах.The article presents some results of a research project that studies the semantics of unity and animosity in Russian lexis and phraseology. Taking a semasiological approach, the authors explore the socionym'yuppie', which belongs to social vocabulary and performs a nominative function for a social group of yuppies - young urban professionals. This category is viewed as a linguocultural type which emerged in the USA in the 1980s. The authors aim at revealing how the socionym 'yuppie' and its derivatives function in mass media texts

НЕУСТОЙЧИВОЕ КРИТИЧЕСКОЕ РАВНОВЕСИЕ В ДИНАМИКЕ СЛОЖНО-СТРУКТУРИРОВАННОЙ ПОПУЛЯЦИИ ОСЕТРОВЫХ РЫБ

The article deals with the consequences of the existence of special conditions that determine the character of the rapid further development of population processes. The most probable connection of these critical conditions deals with the optimal number of subpopulation groups. These groups are formed by the evolutionary adaptation of the form of restricted access to resources for reproduction. We have proposed a model of population processes, which formalizes the influence of uneven growth rate for two different groups of reproductive sturgeon mortality of migratory fish in the juvenile period of Acipenser gueldenstaedtii development. In the computing environment was investigated the hybrid system, which simulates the effects of the existence of the situation for the population of migrating juvenile disproportionate reduction in the river. Such cases are established by us according to the rapid decline in sturgeon spawning the Volga. For the exploited population threshold effect after the unstable equilibrium with the minimum necessary for the well being of the form number is the count in the implementation of the «collapse». The phenomenon of collapse detached among all scenarios the most valuable long-term degradation of the reproductive group. In addition to the apparent sharp reduction in reproductive performance, threshold effect is reflected in the adverse events previously dominated evolutionary trend for the survival of certain forms of the life cycle of fish in terms of reorganization of the fishery. Informative, that the Volga stellate sturgeon Acipencer stellatus observed some form of non-linearity in the efficiency of spawning and require a different kind of fish-specific mathematical model.В статье рассматриваются последствия существования особых состояний, определяющих стремительный характер дальнейшего развития популяционных процессов. Вероятна связь подобных критических состояний с оптимальной численностью субпопуляционных объединений, образующихся при эволюционной адаптации вида с ограниченным доступом к ресурсам для размножения. Предложена модель популяционного процесса, формализующая влияние неравномерной скорости роста у двух различных репродуктивных групп на смертность мигрирующих рыб в ювенальный период развития. В вычислительной среде исследована гибридная система, описывающая последствия существования для популяции ситуации непропорционального снижения мигрирующей молоди в реке, установленной нами по данным стремительного сокращения нереста волжского осетра. Для эксплуатируемой популяции пороговый эффект после неустойчивого равновесия с минимально необходимой для благополучного размножения вида численностью служит отсчетом реализации «коллапса». Известен ряд примеров подобного особого сценария длительной деградации наиболее ценной для промысла репродуктивной группы. Помимо явного резкого сокращения эффективности воспроизводства, пороговый эффект при коллапсе отражается в неблагоприятном проявлении доминировавшего ранее эволюционного тренда для выживаемости отдельных форм жизненного цикла рыб в условиях реорганизации промысла. Интересно, что для волжской севрюги наблюдается иная форма нелинейности по сведениям об эффективности нереста

The WD-repeat protein superfamily in Arabidopsis: conservation and divergence in structure and function

BACKGROUND: The WD motif (also known as the Trp-Asp or WD40 motif) is found in a multitude of eukaryotic proteins involved in a variety of cellular processes. Where studied, repeated WD motifs act as a site for protein-protein interaction, and proteins containing WD repeats (WDRs) are known to serve as platforms for the assembly of protein complexes or mediators of transient interplay among other proteins. In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, members of this superfamily are increasingly being recognized as key regulators of plant-specific developmental events. RESULTS: We analyzed the predicted complement of WDR proteins from Arabidopsis, and compared this to those from budding yeast, fruit fly and human to illustrate both conservation and divergence in structure and function. This analysis identified 237 potential Arabidopsis proteins containing four or more recognizable copies of the motif. These were classified into 143 distinct families, 49 of which contained more than one Arabidopsis member. Approximately 113 of these families or individual proteins showed clear homology with WDR proteins from the other eukaryotes analyzed. Where conservation was found, it often extended across all of these organisms, suggesting that many of these proteins are linked to basic cellular mechanisms. The functional characterization of conserved WDR proteins in Arabidopsis reveals that these proteins help adapt basic mechanisms for plant-specific processes. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that most Arabidopsis WDR proteins are strongly conserved across eukaryotes, including those that have been found to play key roles in plant-specific processes, with diversity in function conferred at least in part by divergence in upstream signaling pathways, downstream regulatory targets and /or structure outside of the WDR regions

Management of intra-abdominal infections : recommendations by the WSES 2016 consensus conference

This paper reports on the consensus conference on the management of intra-abdominal infections (IAIs) which was held on July 23, 2016, in Dublin, Ireland, as a part of the annual World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES) meeting. This document covers all aspects of the management of IAIs. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation recommendation is used, and this document represents the executive summary of the consensus conference findings.Peer reviewe