Vol. 10 No. 1-2 (12) (2014)

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the new stylistic approach embodied in the genre of the scientific dialogue as used in 17^th-century England, focusing, in particular, on the strategies adopted by Robert Boyle in The Sceptical Chymist (1661). The purpose of our analysis is, on the one hand, to point out those characteristics which make this dialogue resemble the features of normal conversation and, on the other, those that instead have a more argumentative purpose and that therefore make it more similar to the other genre typical of scientific theorisation, i.e. the treatise.

It is beyond suspicion that legal English stands as a sublanguage of paramount international importance. The extralinguistic basis of legal English has nowadays been extended embracing conflict of overall international-social, political (both foreign and home) interests. As seen from the title of the work, the primary goal of the present article is to investigate the nature of law English. The article covers a detailed analysis of some pivotal, challenging and highly significant linguistic issues that deal with the multifaceted nature of legal English based on the comprehensive historic review of legal English. Thus, the vital importance of the subject is accounted for by the substantial and decisive role legal English plays in our social life.

The objective of this article is to elaborate on the significance of linguistic aspects of causation in legal reasoning in Modern English. More specifically, this article elaborates on semantic aspects of causation in legal reasoning. Linguistic aspects of causation in Modern English are instrumental in legal reasoning, particularly elaborating on the expression of the main features of lexical causatives due to their direct causation. A series of events form the causal nexus, in which the relationship is connected via spatiotemporally continuous sequences of causal intermediates. In spatiotemporal relationship of cause and effect, proximity is the criterion, which differentiates the causal connection.

Oscar Wilde’s poem “The Ballad of the Reading Gaol” contains various narrative perspectives which convey the author’s and the protagonist’s points of view. In this work the roles of the author and the narrator are not differentiated, they are integrated in the subject of consciousness who manifests his “ego” in different modes: as the participant of the events, as their observer, as the transmitter of the main and secondary characters’ experiences and feelings, etc.
The actualization of the existing standpoints becomes possible by means of pragmatic analysis of the text, and at the same time is, naturally, closely connected with the reader’s knowledge of the author’s background. By revealing the narrator’s meanings, the contextual implications, and by finding out the spacial characteristics of the text, an attempt is made at discovering the author’s subjectivity to a hopefully full extent.

William Langland’s 8000-line fourteenth-century poem Piers Plowman uses an alliterative rhyme scheme inherited from Old English in which, instead of a rhyme at the end of a line, at least three out of the four stressed syllables in each line begin with the same sound, and this is combined with a caesura at the mid-point of the line. Examples show that Langland does not obey the rules exactly, but he is nevertheless thought to be at the forefront of a revival of alliterative verse. Further examples demonstrate that alliteration was never entirely replaced by end-rhyme and remains a feature of presentday vernacular English and poetry, even though the rhyme scheme is obsolete. It is deeply embedded in the structure and psyche of the English language.

Reflexive and reciprocal verbs constitute a special class both in the English and Armenian verbal system. As for their semantics, they manifest similarity, but morphologically and syntactically they show some differences. In English the meanings of reflexivity and reciprocity are expressed both by single verbs and their combination with the respective pronouns. In Armenian these categories are designated by means of the suffix վ. The English reflexives may be used with the pronouns without apparent semantic change, whereas the Armenian counterparts normally do not take them. Used with other words than the respective pronouns these verbs lose the meanings of reflexivity and reciprocity and function as common transitive verbs.

The article focuses on the theoretical and practical issues of the homophonic pun in “Alice in Wonderland” and its Armenian translation. A pun is a rhetorical device in which people use the polysemous or homonymous relation of a language to cause a word, a sentence of a discourse to involve two meanings. The research reveals that L. Carroll uses a great array of homophonic pun which reveals the quintessential feature of the work, i.e. humor.

The present paper argues that the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the text pragmatics can be enhanced at the expense of stylistic devices. Particularly, the case of simile is considered with a view to exposing the pragmatic potential of the key images embedded therein. In line with our research goals, with the account of internal and external factors underlying the choice and application of language units, the pragmatic and pragmastylistic potential of the chosen units in the creation and enhancement of text pragmatics is revealed.

The portrayal of men and women in advertising has received conside rable atten - tion over the last several decades, both by practitioners and academics. Research has primarily focused on the visual portrayal of men and women in advertising, within the realm of which, there appears to be a fundamental difference in the way men and women are portrayed. Men are generally stereotyped as competent, assertive, independent, and achievement oriented, whereas women are generally stereotyped as warm, sociable, interdependent, and relationship-oriented. Women are more often portrayed as young and concerned with physical attractiveness than their male counterparts. Masculine and feminine stereotypes are complementary in the sense that each gender group is seen as possessing a set of strengths that balance out their own weaknesses and that supplement the assumed strengths of the other group.

The article is devoted to the description of gender peculiarities in political discourse. The differences of male and female speeches aim to determine the degree of effectiveness of the impact of gendered approaches in political communication on male and female audiences. We may observe obvious differences between male and female speeches. It is conditioned by biological differences and social roles and stereotypes fixed in the society. Sometimes female politicians tend to imitate male speech behavior in order to defend their positions and the right to participate in the political life of their country.

In pre-historic times people used to communicate with each other through grunts, barks and roars. They gradually developed an elaborate set of sounds to express their emotions and convey their messages. Now it is the systematic use of language that differentiates human beings from animals. The interpersonal communication of emotional states is fundamental to everyday verbal interactions, and the way these emotions are expressed and understood is important in cross-cultural and interpersonal relationships. The verbal descriptions of emotional states can provide quite precise information about different forms of emotions.

Medical terminology is the professional language of those who are directly or indirectly engaged in the art of healing. Medical texts contain a lot of Greek and Latin borrowings, metaphoric usages of some terms and also term-eponyms. Health and care professionals need good communication skills to develop positive relationships and share information with people using linguistic varieties. Medical eponyms are often attached to the people who made the discovery. Term-eponyms can have both negative and positive overtones. They are a source of social communication and cognitively and culturally oriented. It can be stated that term-eponyms realize a cognitive function derived from the sphere they belong to.

Teaching modern languages for specific purposes requires the investigation of the interaction of language and socio-cultural aspects, the knowledge of which predetermines successful acquisition of intercultural competence by the students.
Students studying business language should be recommended to do the research in the theory of language planning namely Political Correctness (PC).
Observing politeness strategy, i.e. avoiding direct imposition either in conditional requests or imperatives might be useful for students studying English to be learned as value one. To reduce the level of imposition most English officials prefer to stick to the strategy of disguised imperatives, i.e. rephrase their public messages by employing specific periphrastic expressions in a statement/request/notice/announcement.
In the teaching process priorities should be given to introducing the situational language, the speech etiquette in the English and Russian communities; teaching students to assess social responses.

The following article is devoted to the semiotic interpretation of some paintings by an outstanding Catalonian artist, Joan Miro. Here an attempt is made to concentrate on the symbolic objects, the colours and the whole mood of Miro’s paintings, as well as to the emotional state of the artist himself, his descriptions of his art to bring out the link between linguistic and artistic signs.

After the so called Ethical Turn in literary theory ethics is still a major issue in literary studies. European Continental philosophy has traditionally been in close touch with ethical issues. Not surprisingly then, it was the influence of French philosophy that, from the Eighties onward, began to put back the ethical in British academic discourse. One of the interesting paradoxes of post-modernity is the fact that, while it promotes an attitude of scepticism, oriented towards a strong suspicion of strong ideologies, it is also an attempt to promote emancipative activities (demonstrated in the Canon Debate, Post-Colonial Studies, Trauma Studies, and a broad Ethical Turn in different sectors of the humanities). This contribution wishes to investigate the issue of ethics and literature in the postmodern context, with reference to contemporary philosophy and literary theory and aims to propose that Postmodern culture still needs complex literature, and (the promotion of) appropriate hermeneutic skills to deal with it.

Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus is a problematic work in regards to the issues of its date and authorship, but one thing can be stated with certainty: it was inspired by The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus which is commonly known as the English Faust Book. The present article observes inter-textual dimensions between Marlowe’s tragedy Doctor Faustus and its prose source-book – the English Faust Book. The article discusses intertextual relations both at paradigmatic and syntagmatic levels. According to the analysis, it becomes obvious that despite several similarities between the two texts, certain differences also exist which are conditioned by political and religious factors of time and social-historical factors of space.

The following article is an attempt to study metamorphosis as a narrative device in Scottish fairy tale writer George MacDonald’s fairy tales. Due to a closer study of the theoretical background of metamorphosis and the analyses of the examples it becomes possible to describe metamorphosis not only as a stylistic but also as a narrative device. In the mentioned fairy tales metamorphosis, granting specific meaning to the events, reveals the unique poetics of the fairy tales and promotes a deeper understanding of the fairy tale text thus fulfilling the author’s intention.

In this research we study some syntactic and semantic properties of the Modern Eastern Armenian aorist by comparing it to similar verbal forms in English and Italian. We argue that the temporal interpretation of the aorist is not a primitive property, but derives from its main aspectual characteristic, i.e. perfectivity. This hypothesis is further supported by the analysis of the futural value expressed in certain contexts by means of the first person aorist form.

T.E. Lawrence’s specific perception of the Turks and of the Armenians is analyzed within the frames of this particular research article. T.E. Lawrence’s biographical-documentary novel The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and his famous interview given to the American journalist and editor Lincoln Steffens have been the material of our cultural and linguostylistic study. An attempt is made to establish the true image of the Young Turks and the Armenians who were killed by the Turks because of their national identity. Lawrence depicts Turkish atrocities with some highlighted negative emotion.