Vol. 5 No. 1-2 (6) (2009)

Essence – phenomenon and content – expression pairs comprise a net of interpenetrations in any language. The picture gets more complicated when the hierarchy of essence, phenomenon, content and expression is viewed on three levels of language generalization – in language in general, in a specific language and in an individual one. The phenomenon of the content of language in general and the essence of the content of an individual language, the phenomenon of expression of language in general and the essence of the expression of an individual language coincide in their order but not always in volume. There exists a relationship of possibility and reality between the essence of language in general and the phenomena of expression on the one hand and the essence of the individual language and the phenomena of expression on the other hand. It can be concluded that language in general and the individual language come closer not only in the phenomenon of the former and the essence of the latter, but, what is more remarkable, in the essence of the former and the phenomenon of the latter.

The list of ready-made and fixed sentences is one of the layers of the linguistic consciousness of a man. The speaker makes the relevant choice from the existing vocabulary depending on the communicative situation. Otherwise stated, one of the components of human consciousness is the stereotypical speech behavior which is conditioned by the stereotypical situation. For instance, when meeting (stereotypical situation “meeting”) people greet (stereotype of behavior) each other with the following expressions – “hello, good afternoon”, etc. (stereotype of speech).
The linguistic consciousness is multi-layered and one of its structural pillars is the stereotypical layer with a reflexive nature. Though stereotypical expressions exist in human vocabulary as ready-made sentences, it is only in certain situations that they appear in the depth of the memory and may not wake up in the consciousness of some people.
The investigation of stereotypical expressions, their structural classification and distribution in accordance with communicative situations and themes is actual both in teaching and in theory.

The study of associations from the perspective of psycholinguistics contributes to the comprehensive description of thinking and the types of its expression. This can be made possible through the classification of the word associations presented by the participants in the course of a psycholinguistic experiment and its analysis. As a result, it becomes clear that the type of word associations is directly linked with the perception of words and the individual nature of their application. The latter is determined by both linguistic and extralinguistic factors. Associations are the important links between ideas or between sensations that ensure the categorization of linguistic consciousness.

The article attempts to discuss the nature of the concept in the context of the inter-relationship between thinking and language. Thinking is a process which takes place in the nerve cells of the brain. Language is a means to convey thoughts. Proceeding from the fact that language cannot exist without culture, we come to the belief that concept holds an intermediate position among language, thought and culture.

One of the contemporary spheres of modern linguistics is the study of political discourse.
For a politician, language is a weapon to win the favours of public at large. The article aims to reveal how American politicians use English to receive the support of the nation. The research is conducted on the debates between the US presidential candidates in 2008 – Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. The reason for the choice is obvious. Both candidates, as members of the same party, seem to have a lot in common. Both belong to the same party, hence, they should have an audience committed to the same democratic principles whereas, the differences are more than obvious. It is the first time in the history of the United States that the post of the US president has two main candidates that are so different – a woman and a coloured man. The article includes research on the tactics and strategies applied by both the candidates.

The article highlights the importance of metaphor in political discourse as a means of expression that makes the language more impressive. Making the political discourse more expressive, target-oriented and powerful, metaphor gives the audience a chance to perceive the delicate and hidden meanings of the political thought. It has not only an emotional and impressive impact, but logical and realistic nuances, as well.

The article examines the recurrent stylistic devices in marriage vows. The investigation of the linguo-stylistic devices in marriage vows reveals that the use of a certain stylistic device pursues a definite communicative purpose, namely – the purpose of making the speech more emotional and evaluative, more expressive and stylistically colored. Many marriage vows contain elements of the creative thinking of the couple, their personal attitude and rich imagination which is expressed in such linguo-stylistic devices as metaphor, epithet, paraphrasis, inversion, parallel constructions and enumeration.

Research on the functional-stylistic belonging of different religions has become quite actual. The article examines issues related to this sphere. An attempt has been made to determine important functional-stylistic characteristics of the language of religion through the research of the interrelation of various religions, common language symbols, similarities in the way of thinking of people having different religions, as well as the expressive language and other linguistic phenomena. This can shed light on certain phenomena in this sphere that have not been investigated yet.

Persuasion is every planned attempt in communication which aims to impact the interlocutor’s thought or behavior and to change his/her viewpoint or conviction. It aims to force to some action. The article attempts to investigate the speech act of persuasion as a psychological phenomenon and as a subject of functional-linguistic examination which aims to reveal the characteristics of the speech act of persuasion and present the necessary and sufficient conditions which will make the speech act more effective.
The article studies the key components of communication, as well as their role in the application of the speech act of persuasion. Special attention is paid to the linguistic and extralinguistic means which make

The article examines refusal strategies in English, especially the ones which follow speech acts expressing a request. The investigation is carried out along the lines of the interaction of refusal and request in Modern English. Through a detailed study of the more frequent types of refusal strategies in the process of communication the author tries to reveal and analyze the complicated and interesting relation between refusal and request.

The article examines the complicated issue of the perception and understanding of a literary text. The research has the poetic word in its core which demonstrates an explicit tendency to expand its semantic and stylistic opportunities in the context of the work taking on new emotive-expressive charge. The polyphonic realization of the word obtains a decisive importance in terms of the non-verbality of the literary text taking it beyond the level of the nominative function of the word and participating in the formation of the system of the aesthetic values of the piece of work.

The article examines metaphor which is one of the key expressive means in belles-lettres and has its unique place in the creation of imagery. The system of images in Gerald Durrel’s works is quite broad and various, made up of micro/macro images where the “aesthetic, cognitive and metaphoric potential of each leads to the creation of another image”. The article aims not only to analyze the metaphoric structures in Gerald Durrell’s works but also to view them as a means of creating imagery.

The article highlights the role of similes in D.H. Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers”.
Simile is an expressive means of poetic speech that helps readers form a more comprehensive picture of the characters and their inner world.
D.H. Lawrence is among the writers of the psychological novel who masterfully use simile in its full power and capacity and bring emotionality to the text.

The article discusses ways of expressing causation in Modern English. Causation finds its grammatical expression in nearly all languages though the ways of its expression may vary. Causation is one of the ways of causing which expresses coercion through force. Modern English abounds in syntactic, morphological and lexical ways of expressing causation.

At the textual level, modal verbs are linked to the preceding, as well as succeeding sentences thereby creating a modaling-evaluative whole which can be viewed as a supraphrasal unity in its type and structure made up of more than one sentence. The components of this whole create different semantic relations with each other including anaphoric (post-positional) and cataphoric (pre-positional) ones. The article attempts to investigate the cohesive properties of modal verbs in monologues and dialogues.

The analysis of supraphrasal indirect speech reveals that the paradigm of the given syntactic unit in the language system is formed in accordance with its structural-semantic characteristics which make it possible to distinguish it in the flow of speech. The lexical, grammatical, tense and stylistic factors prove to be important in the distinction of the supraphrasal indirect speech.

The article discusses problems related to the psycho-grammatical description of the existential locative “there” constructions.
The research indicates that the psycho-grammatical processes not visible to the naked eye in a sentence at first glance, may have their specific expressions in discourse.

The study focuses on the formation of derivative adjectives containing suffixes that express resemblance in Modern English and Armenian on the synchronic level. The peculiarities of the interaction of the constituents of those patterns (roots and affixes) are studied both from semantic and structural points of view, revealing some similarities and differences of word-building systems in both languages, which will go a long way in working out the typology of patterns.

The present article analyses and compares the semantic fields of the phraseological units expressing kindness and malice in Armenian, Russian and English. Phraseological units containing body parts have also undergone extensive research.
The examination of these linguistic units helps discover the similarities and differences of the language thinking of the speakers of this or that language.

The language vocabulary is a system which grows mostly due to word formation. The latter takes place with the help of own or borrowed parts of words (root and suffix), which, certainly, used to be independent words. They penetrated the English vocabulary and made up new words while preserving their previous meanings. Most of the Latin and Greek borrowings do not make up the active vocabulary. They usually refer to scientific terms.

The article attempts to reveal the semantic characteristics of deixis that determine the role of deictic words in the process of communication. Deixis is viewed as a means of linguistic nomination that points out the main elements of the communication act – the place, time, the speaker and the hearer. Deictic words link two different situations – content (what is stated) and speech, extralinguistic (when, where, and by whom the communication is realized).

Currently, hegamonization and democratization introduced through literature results in indifference towards literature among students which, in its turn, gradually leads to decrease of interest towards literature.
The article offers to create such programs which will develop text-oriented approach towards literature, i.e. teachers should be free to select the material which will boost the language skills of the students and will enrich their imagination.
Only by this approach can we be able to understand and appreciate the use of literature in the spheres of education and social activity.

* The stimulus for this paper derives from Professor Carter’s valuable insight discussed in his book “Investigating English Discourse”, published in 1997. This paper was delivered as a sub plenary address at the Second International Conference of the Armenian Association for the Study of English (AASE), held at the Yerevan State University, Yerevan on 16 -19, October 2007.

Foreign Language teaching is a bilateral process of transferring and receiving/understanding knowledge which can be studied from different points of view. The successful realization of a foreign language course is predominantly conditioned by the relevance of highly productive texts.
The article discusses the problems of text designing, analysis, evaluation, as well as those connected with revealing its intrinsic instructive opportunities in the framework of text linguistics (grammar) and text theory.
Several problems connected with text modeling i.e. text building and elaboration of its effective versions are discussed from the perspective of text theory. This theory is supposed to serve as a stable ground for teaching versatile skills and abilities of foreign language communication.

The article highlights the conflict between teachers and students as one of the most serious educational problems the world and particularly Russia currently faces. Despite the universality of the problem, Russia seems to be suffering from it more than any other country since the conflict is not confined to the generation gap only. Rather, it embodies the conflict between ideologies, cultures and ways of thinking since the Russian teacher and the Russian student have grown up in quite different environments with different values.

The article analyses the subjunctive mood from the linguo-cultural point of view. The communicative functions and functional characteristics which are connected with the cultural make-up and language thinking of Italians are brought out. Parallels are drawn between the characteristics of the use of the subjunctive mood in Italian and English.

Recent observations of the interrelation between language and culture guided scholars to the sphere of Paremiology. Making up a specific layer of the word stock, proverbs contain valuable information about national traditions and worldview.
Proverbs can be found in all languages and they have been investigated from different perspectives.
The present article attempts to illustrate the paremiological expressions and classify them in the system of the language and culture.

Edna Millay, a legendary personality, a virtuous and independent woman built her world referring to the complicated issues that have troubled the humanity in the course of the entire history – woman-man relations, sympathy towards the one next to you, devotion towards one’s homeland, etc. These notions underwent transformations and turned into a lyrical world with a universal value consistent with emotions. As Daniel Mark Epstein claims this woman-artist revolts against patterns, hypocrisy, fake eloquence and sentimentalism declaring a violent war against traditional forms of poetry. Through the analysis of several poems selected from the best collections of Edna Millay, the article reveals the hidden world of the woman-artist, her struggle and world vision.

The main protagonist in the novel “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by the contemporary British writer Mark Haddon, the 15-year-old Christopher, suffers from a mental disorder (Asperger’s Syndrome) and is not aware of the fact. Haddon depicts the world perception of a person with a mental disorder so masterfully and so professionally that the reader involuntarily looks for similarities between himself and the boy. Though the novel does not mention the name of the disease and lacks medical considerations, it is expressed in the novel more effectively and markedly than in any medical report.
The article examines the relationship between medicine and literature which represent the two sides of man’s unity and hence must make use of each other’s achievements to shed light on the mystery of the human existence.

The commonly held opinion that Coriolanus is the most rejected among the tragic heroes of Shakespeare stems from the political situation and the conflicting approaches towards the key issues of the class conflict. The negative reaction of the Protagonists also adversely affected the popularity of the work both at the theatre and among the audience. As Rossiter mentions, the reader fails to find a single reason to like Coriolanus throughout the tragedy.
The article questions Rossiter’s approach arguing that it is due to the striking expression of emotionality at the end of the work that gives rise to the seeming intolerance towards the character. The idea dominating at the end of the novel is the re-evaluation of the evidently not political but universal ideas and values that are so distinctly incorporated in the character of Martius.

The inclination of theorizing literary works published in the Diaspora and in the post-colonial period, that has been observed recently tends to turn the investigation of the main components of literary works into a side task. Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela’s work can be considered one of the examples of such pieces of work. The novel is based on existential alternatives which are experienced by Sudanese women living with Muslim values in western society. The ambiguous norms in the Minaret by Aboulela are examined in the light of Andrew Gibson’s critical reception and receptivity.

The history of Armenians has been accompanied with struggles against forced Islamization. The Islamized Hamshen-Armenians are of particular interest in this regard. The present article provides solid evidence about Islamized Armenians in general and those in the village of Khevak in particular, making reference to new sources of information that confirm the ideas stated.

The article illustrates evidence about the mutual influence of the mural paintings in New Julfa and Isfahan mural paintings in the 17^th century. The careful examination of the mural paintings in both spiritual and secular buildings reveal technical similarities between Isfahan and New Julfa trends of the time.

The article examines a question that practically has not been studied so far. The question refers to a number of Armenian publications in the USA and reveals certain challenges (ideological, thematic, financial, etc.) American-Armenian press faces. The reasons for the low quality and small circulation are revealed. Meantime, the article offers an analysis of the reasons of success of the relatively influential Armenian-English publications, namely – Asbarez, Armenian Mirror Spectator, Armenian Reporter.
The Armenian press in the Diaspora is experiencing very hard times. As the heads of the political parties of the Diaspora claim, the majority of the Armenians living in the Diaspora are not politicized and are mostly concerned with the challenges of surviving in the modern world.
The next problem the Armenian publications face is connected with lack of financial means.
Besides, publishers in the Diaspora do not have special reporters in Armenia. This is the reason why the Armenian press in the Diaspora has a vague and sometimes wrong idea of the developments in Armenia.
However publications such as Asbarez, Armenian Mirror Spectator, Armenian Reporter weeklies are exceptions, since they have more or less stable financial sources and regular readers. These newspapers have always been the most viable ones and have best reflected the political views of different classes and parties of the Armenians in America.