Vol. 18 No. 1 (16) (2014)

The present article is devoted to the study of adjacency pairs as units of conversation organization in modern English. The choice of the topic is conditioned by the rising interest to the linguistic studies of conversation organization. Thus, the purpose of the research has been the examination of the function of adjacency pairs as conversational units. The aim of the study was to discover how adjacency pairs function in and assist to the organization of conversation. In addition the analysis of semantics and pragmatics of adjacency pairs with preferred and dispreferred second parts was carried out.

The paper is a theoretical overview of the opposition between the “own” and the “other” at the metalinguistic level of cross-cultural communicative acts. The topic is discussed within the theoretical frameworks of Translation Studies, Cultural Semiotics and Pragmalinguistics. Special attention is paid to the concept of intentionality in the process of delineating the “own” from the “other”, which in its turn is viewed as a culture-bound phenomenon emerging on the cross-cultural discourse level through culture-bound elements.

The present paper is devoted to the study of indirect speech acts in modern English discourse and across different cultures. An attempt has also been made to understand how these constructions are translated into Russian and Armenian. The basis of a speech act is the speaker’s intention to influence the hearer in a desired way and this intention can be manifested or latent. Indirect speech acts are acts that contain the illocutionary force indicators for one kind of illocutionary act but perform another type of illocutionary act.

The paper is devoted to the vocabulary of technical texts and lexical-grammatical transformations occurring in the result of translation through analyzing the constituents of technical vocabulary and grammatical peculiarities common to Source Language (SL) and Target Language (TL). This study shows how to work with the vocabulary of technical texts and the possible grammatical structures in order to make the sentences more comprehensible.

Sports metaphor-terms are used in law journal article titles and published state and federal court cases (in judicial opinions) to describe the process of litigation, the actions of attorneys, trial strategies and goals, or the courtroom environment. Mostly only few sports metaphor-terms, bouncing around legal arenas in legal instruments, can be easily understood without prior background knowledge of sports, and consequently the unexpected clash between the source and the target domains sets new hurdles in the comprehension process of the complex nature of legal English.

Hyperboles being an integral part of artistic figurative system of tales, occupy a significant place in the Spanish fairy tales, considerably affecting the plot and structure. Stylistic functions of hyperbole in fairy tales are diverse, among which stands out aesthetic-cognitive function, which is used to specify unusual behaviour of characters, objects, natural phenomena and events. In the figurative system of fairy tale hyperbole is seen as a deliberate stylistic device, which is perceived in the context of the mutual consent of the storyteller and the reader.

In the following paper an attempt is made to highlight the structural-syntactical characteristics of the ergative verbs of the German language. The author suggests that in this language ergativity is mainly manifested as a syntactical feature, and in the structure of the sentence it is realized by different means of transitive and intransitive verbs. The analysis also shows that the phenomenon of ergativity initially depends on the unique verbal thinking of the native German speakers.

The paper is an attempt to investigate the aspectual features of Historical Present Tense in the German language. Historical Present mainly refers to the employment of the present tense when narrating past events. As a result of the research, the author comes to the conclusion that the Historical Present can perform both perfective and imperfective aspectual functions. It should be noted that the category of aspect plays a major role in the expression of the nature of the action.

In this paper we discuss problems concerning the triplex: colour-colour perception and the name of colour. Objectively colours do not exist in nature, but in all the cultures the man is biologically capable to perceive the infinite shades of all colours. Unlike our unlimited colour perception, the names of colours are limited. According to some researchers there are six basic colours: white, black, red, green, blue and yellow. The origin of the names of colours are agreed with a seris of objects, that sustaining the corresponding colours, have a great importance in people’s life. The main names of colours can be viewed as hypernyms and, the units mentioning the shades of the same colour - as hyponyms. It is very difficult to make the definition of the colours. For this reason the authors of monolingual dictionaries describing the colours, turn to the help of referents.

The present paper deals with the semantic analysis of the verb interpret taking it as a polysemantic verb of understanding. It presents the results of componential analysis on the basis of dictionary definitions, as well as context analysis. The article suggests a new definition for the verb interpret which reflects the components revealed as a result of the research and describes the semantic spectrum of the verb.

In the poetry of Lord Byron in general and in “Don Juan” in particular, there are numerous Greco-Roman mythologemes and biblical archetypes, which in time have undergone semantic changes and have become various linguostylistic devices. In this connection, the notion of “allusion-citation” is introduced (as well as its so-called “deformations”) as a most important linguostylistic device and so typical of “Don Juan”. Thus, the present article touches upon analysis of such cases, thereby adducing ample examples. Due attention is paid to the Armenian translation. Accordingly, deviations from the original are analyzed separately and sometimes the author’s own version is suggested.

The paper deals with the so-called “mixed” language layers in the works of the great English poet Lord Byron, namely, in the poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” and the drama “Manfred”. It is common knowledge, that Byron's poetic vocabulary contains a considerable amount of linguistic units having either Greco-Roman or biblical origin. Special attention is paid to the contrastive analysis of these units with Armenian. In most cases, equivalent translation is maintained. However, if there are deviations from the original, they are studied separately. Sometimes the author's individual version is suggested.

The aim of the present paper is the study of lexical means which express the emotional concept of “anger” (“rabbia”) in Italian linguoculture. A componential analysis has been applied to the definitions of the members of the synonymic group of the word “rabbia”. As a result of analysis some distinctive semantic features have been revealed which allow us to distinguish the semantic fields of the lexemes that express the emotional concept of “anger” in the Italian language.

In higher educational institutions the teaching of a foreign language is mostly built upon the principles of communication. Thus the main objectives of the teaching process is to shape and improve the communication skills and abilities, which also supposes amplification of the thinking process. As it is generally known, the French language does not have the category of case, instead the case meanings are expressed with the help of prepositions. Here the effect of negative permeation is evident, therefore, the mistakes are quite frequent. The scope of possible application of prepositions must be expanded. This will lead to the creation of an improved program of exercises, which will make the acquisition of the material easy and more pertinent for use.

The paper deals with the problem of selecting principles of teaching religious vocabulary with spedial reference to their methodological foundations, the peculiarities of ESP course, the students' language level, their cognitive motives and needs. It emphasizes the importance of teaching the vocabulary stage by stage through preparation, pre-speech and speech exercises. The article determines the correlation of Word and Concept in teaching English as the first is studied at language level, and the latter is studied at mental level.

The paper is devoted to vocabulary teaching of business correspondence as a substyle of official-business documents. Business letter writing is an important part of Business English Course in Faculty of Economics. As part of learning process a number of exercises are used to enrich business vocabulary, to develop skills of commercial letter writing and to raise teaching efficiency. Business letter writing requires profound knowledge of business terms, clichés, grammatical and semantic structures. The proposed exercises are based on semantic, word-formation and syntagmatic peculiarities of business vocabulary and promote acquisition of both theoretical and practical skills of business correspondence.

The paper touches upon the issue of written testing and assessment of current knowledge and progress of students doing the course in Political English at the faculty of International Relations, YSU. In particular, composition tests are discussed in terms of their validity and assessment systems. The paper presents the typical features, functions and goals of this form of testing, as well as attempts to suggest ways of reducing subjectivity in assessment and devise a detailed scheme of assessment criteria.

Washington Irving was a contemporary of the American Revolution. In his works he touches upon Old and New (post-revolutionary) America, comparing the positive and negative sides of these periods. In the paper three short stories are presented: “Rip Van Winkle”, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Dolph Heyliger”. Here the author depicts America’s Past warmly, and sometimes with slight irony. But he uses sharp satire writing about the contemporary America. Thus, the New World, according to Irving, is too active and restless. And the patriarchal Post-Capitalist America is more poetic and attractive.