Articles

The article examines the influence of Russian literature, in particular the short stories “Misery” by A.P. Chekhov and “Happiness” by M.P. Artsybashev on the work of Korean writer Hyŏn Jin-gŏn, who made a significant contribution to the formation and development of realism in Korean literature. It explores the intertextual interaction between the short story “A Lucky Day” written by Hyŏn Jin-gŏn in 1924 and the eponymous work written by Yi Mun-yŏl in the postmodern period in 1987. In Korean literary circles, it is generally accepted that Hyŏn Jin-gŏn wrote his story “A Lucky Day” under the impression of A.P. Chekhov’s story “Misery”, borrowing both the theme and the narrative structure from the Russian writer. However, the authors of the article come to the conclusion that the above-mentioned story by Hyŏn Jin-gŏn has much in common with the story “Happiness” by M.P. Artsybashev which Hyŏn Jin-gŏn translated into Korean by himself. The motif of imaginary luck is the leading one both in the story “A Lucky Day” and in the story “Happiness”. And this motif is strongly associated with the phrase “Lucky Day” among modern carriers of Korean culture. The authors of the article also note that Hyŏn Jin-gŏn’s story “A Luchy Day” can be directly compared in terms of tragedy with the story “Rickshaw” published a year later, in 1925, but not with the postmodern story “A Lucky Day” by Yi Mun-yŏl. In their opinion, this story by Yi Mun-yŏl, based on a deliberate reference to the story by Hyŏn Jin-gŏn, remains underestimated in the Republic of Korea, and its main advantage is not the spirit of tragedy, but irony.

Joining research of the phenomenon of enantiosemy (auto-antonymy) in different languages of the world, the article deals with examples from fictional literature (including those found in Japanese language corpus), where one can observe auto-antonymy in the meaning of the verb kureru “give”. This is the first work exploring semantics of a Japanese lexeme from the point of view of enantiosemy. Based on analysis of usage of this verb as auxiliary we suggest there is a semantic shift, which leads to simultaneously existing benefactive and malefactive meaning, and also differently directed vectors of the act described by the verb (either “from within to outside” vs “inside from the outside” or “from the second or third person to the first person” vs “from the first person to the second or third person”). Results of the informant survey (60 people, aged from 18 to 45 and older) confirm existence of antonymous meanings and differently directed vectors of the act, depending on the semantics of the main verb and context, including grammatical context.

The article investigates the biography and academic legacy of the famous Russian representative of classical Oriental studies Boris V. Miller (1877–1956). His life along with his scholarly and pedagogical activities reflected turning points in the history of linguistic, folkloristic, historical and ethnographic studies of the Iranian-speaking peoples of the Caucasus — Talysh, Kurds and Tats at the end of the 19th — first half of the 20th century. Professor B.V. Miller is remembered in the history of Oriental studies in Russia as a talented and highly motivated scholar who made a significant contribution to the development of Iranian studies, and as one of the founders of Iranian studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University.

The Encyclopedia of Japanese Linguistics (Nihongogaku daijiten), published in 2018, is a new type dictionary concerning Japanese linguistics. The Encyclopedia of Japanese Linguistics, which was compiled over a long period of time from 2006 to 2018 by a collective of prominent native and world linguists, highlights the achievements of modern Japanese and world linguistics in compliance with modern approaches. This dictionary is the first Japanese dictionary in which new linguistic terms and description of the linguistic methods and terms are presented. The dictionary includes more than 800 dictionary entries and introduces almost all epochs and theories of linguistics as well as the most significant concepts of world linguistics from ancient times to the present. The Encyclopedia of Japanese Linguistics was preceded by “The Japanese Linguistic Dictionary” (1955) and “The Japanese Great Linguistic Dictionary” (1980). Both dictionaries were reprinted several times and reflected the achievements of linguistics at the time of their publication, but no longer meet the requirements of the contemporary time. It should be noted the appearance of a large number of new dictionary entries and the expansion of the list of personalities in The “Encyclopedia of Japanese Linguistics” on account of the description of new linguistic approaches. The dictionary also includes a number of appendices, which are described in the following review. Being a fundamental source of linguistics knowledge, the dictionary also makes a significant contribution to the development of Japanese lexicography.

This article demonstrates the current situation in the field of literary translation from oriental languages into Russian, providing an overview of the translated works from Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Persian, Arabic, Indian and Kyrgyz literatures of different eras — from antiquity to the present — in terms of their content and volume. In addition, it highlights the specific features of literary and artistic translation from oriental languages. For example, much thought should be put into translation of the realities that characterize the oriental cultures: in particular, specific idioms and exoticisms. The question is raised as to how far the translation should deviate from the original: should the translator make his product interesting for the reader or should it be as close as possible to the original text in terms of content. The above examples of difficulties in literary translation allow to conclude that oriental literature is quite sophisticated in its presentation to the Russian reader, and yet these translations show increasing popularity.

The article examines the change in the nature of bilateral trade between the EU and Turkey during the period of its stay in the Customs Union of European states, that is, from 1996 to the present. In the early years, a sharp aggravation of the deficit nature of trade for Turkey was expected. It is not surprising that the imbalance has softened somewhat in the subsequent period due to Turkey's gradual adaptation to new conditions and the effective use of new import opportunities not only to saturate the consumer market, but also for technological renewal of production. What looks paradoxical in many ways is the bringing of bilateral trade in the last few years to a balanced state and even some surplus in favor of Turkey. The change in the nature of bilateral trade, apparently, was the result of long-term factors. Firstly, there has been an "ennobling" of Turkish exports, understood in this case as a certain increase in the level of its manufacturability, although while maintaining a low share of the actual high-tech goods. Mobility is also important not only for Turkish exporters, but also for Turkey's European partners, who are very willing to take into account the new opportunities of Turkish partners in their import strategy. Secondly, the expansion of the EU due to the entry of economically weaker new members, close to the level of development of Turkey or even lagging behind it, trade with which is mainly surplus for the Turkish side. At the same time, Turkey's trade with the EU-15 countries, as before, remains scarce.

The article considers the films of the popular Chinese film director Zhang Yimou, as a text of culture and in the context of the development of the Chinese film industry in today's global competition in the field of culture. The purpose of this article is to investigate the reasons for the popularity of Zhang Yimou's films both in China and abroad. With the help of a semiotic analysis of the cultural code and the functioning of ideology in the films under consideration, it was concluded that the success of Zhang Yimou's work was achieved due to different directorial strategies depending on the audience — Chinese and foreign. The article examines the use of cinematography as a tool of "soft power, with the help of which the famous Chinese director promotes world interest to the national history and culture, thereby implementing the state policy of revival China's authority on the international stage. Understanding the essence of culturally and socially important information encrypted with the help of cultural code in modern Chinese films is also important for improving effective intercultural communication skills.

The article deals with the analysis of folklore texts of the peoples from the Indonesian provinces of Papua (written down in the 1960s–1970s). ‘Folk Tales from Irian Jaya’ may be considered to be a relatively new material in comparison with the field-work by Wirtz and Nevermann done before WWII. The study focuses on the archaic features of these texts such as etiologism, totemism, the cult of ancestors, belief in spirits, etc. The article attempts to identify the key elements of the most ancient layers of folklore, which are undergoing inevitable changes in oral transmission and written fixation. On having analyzed the texts the author has come to the conclusion, that the innovations are made in order to include the Papuan part to the melting pot of the pan-Indonesian culture, but such later interpolations do not ruin the archaic elements. The study of Papuan folk tales is intended to contribute reconstruction of a more complete picture of the primary forms of Indonesian folklore and its evolution.

This article is aimed at studying the childhood component in the works of Nima Yushij and his younger coeval Golchin Gilani (1910–1972). Both authors stayed at the origins of Iran’s “new poetry” (“še‘r-e now”), which demonstrated a break with the rules of normative poetics. This study addresses two interrelated aspects of the analysis. First, the matter is focused on the strategy of displaying memories of childhood, which form a frame of axes in the author's artistic world. Secondly, the artistic solutions of Nima Yooshij, embodied in his poems for children at the meaning and formal organization aspects, contributed to the formation of “new poetry” tools, since these poems could serve as a kind of creative laboratory for the poet. The article touches upon the little-studied area of scientific consideration of the "new poetry" in Iran, especially: the origins of the childhood theme in traditional Persian-language poetry; the role and functions of the childhood theme in the construction of the author's individual artistic world in the "new poetry"; figurative image fabric of children's feelings by the material of the early “new poetry” works in Persian. The childhood theme in the lyrics of the two authors is tightly connected with the theme of love for a homeland. The idyllic description of the homeland’s beautiful nature serves as a "portal" to the ideal world, and the author's landscape, imbued with the personal vision of the lyrical hero, is one of the methods for individualizing the artistic world in the "new poetry" poems.

The article is focused on the problem of language shift in Malaysian minority communities. The studies conducted by both local and foreign researchers on endangerment and maintenance of minor ethnic languages in Malaysia has been reviewed. Native languages of minority communities were divided into groups based on the ethnicity of their speakers: indigenous, creole and idioms of the immigrants. As a result of the analysis of the language situation in each selected group, three directions of the language shift among their speakers were identified: into Malay, English and Mandarin Chinese. The data obtained from this study contributes to the information about the reasons for language shift, which put minor languages into disadvantageous positions in the modern world.

The paper describes the relationship between historical changes in syntactic coding strategies and the rules of co-referential deletion in the history of Western Indo-Aryan languages. It will be shown that the evolution from nominative-accusative to ergative type, and then a partial return to the nominative-accusative model of syntactic coding manifested itself not only in morphological marking and verbal agreement, but also in the domain of syntactic ergativity — the rules of clausal combination and co-referential deletions. The nominative-accusative strategy of syntactic coding was typical for Old Indo-Aryan period. In the Middle Indo-Aryan it was replaced by a “split” ergative one: sentences with perfective verbal forms were structured according to the ergative model. The Middle Indo-Aryan and the beginning of the New Indo-Aryan period show the most consistent features of morphological ergativity. In the course of historical development, the ergative strategy (S=P≠A) gives way to a neutral one (S=P=A), then a contrastive one (S≠P≠A), which in a significant part of Rajasthani nominal paradigms, as well as in Punjabi pronominal paradigms, was later replaced by accusative system of case marking (S=A≠P). Middle and early New Indo-Aryan languages demonstrated both the peak of morphological ergativity and various deviations from the classical accusative model of clause combinations and coreferential deletions. Later, with the transition to a contrastive and nominative-accusative system of case marking, the rules of clausal combination and coreferential deletions acquired a consistently accusative character. Middle and early New Indo-Aryan languages had one more feature of syntactic ergativity: the Agent in ergative construction was only a secondary figure in the sentence and could be easily omitted. In most modern Western NIA languages Agent omission is impossible.

The article is devoted to the study of one of the specific aspects of the development of the Persian classical ghazal as a structural and thematic unity with pronounced signs of poetic form. Compositional factors played a key role in the transformation of the ghazal. The techniques of decorating the beginning and ending of a poetic work were regulated by the norms of Arabic poetics borrowed by the Iranians. They were respectively designated by the terms ‘beauty of the beginning’ (husn al-matla‘) and ‘beauty of the ending’ (husn al-makta‘). Their use in Persian poetic practice had notable specificity in comparison with Arabic. The use of repetitive figurative and syntactic clichés to implement these techniques in the ghazal gradually turned into a generally accepted norm. Along with the principle of uniform design of the ending, there is also a basic fund of standard figurative-syntactic models and clichés that served as markers of the beginning of the ghazal. At each stage of its evolution, the ghazal interacted with various components of the genre system, gradually expanding the thematic range and the repertoire of standard beginnings. As a result of these changes, which are often not fixed by theoretical poetic treatises, but fixed in practice, the canonical appearance of the Persian ghazal arises. It was fundamentally different from the original prototype. After going through several stages of transformation, the ghazal turns into a genre form with a set of permanent structural features.

The article is focused on the acceptance of Hindi as the official language of the Republic of India and the related problems of the status of other Indian languages, the constitutional design of the language policy at the stage of formation of the legal system of an independent state, the positions of various regional political forces on this issue and possible solutions to the issue of the official language. The article raises the question of the linguistic unity of multi-ethnic states without an absolute ethnic and linguistic majority. In this context the role of language in shaping the identity of social groups and its possible use as a mechanism of state control is important, as well as the reaction of various political groups and activists. The process of debate in the Constituent Assembly of 1949 is considered to be the starting point for the language policy of the new state, which determined the status of Indian languages for years to come. In this regard, the positions of the participants should be seen as an attempt by various regional forces to influence the language policy in the long term. The article estimates the languages that could claim the status of the official Indian language, their position in the country and society by the time of Independence, the arguments for and against their adoption. In this context the positions of Hindi in different states of India, which classified themselves as Hindi-speaking or non-Hindi-speaking, is very important.

This article is devoted to the problem of differential object marking in the modern Amharic language. Differential object marking is a common phenomenon in many languages, when the choice of morphosyntactic design of an object is determined by the meaning of one or more features of the object noun phrase. One of the parameters of differential marking is the contrast between dependent and head marking. “In relation to sentence-level actants, dependent marking is the expression of the syntactic function or semantic role of the actant (object) using the case indicator with a noun phrase, and head marking is the expression of the syntactic function or semantic role of the actant using morphologically non-autonomous indicators of person, gender and number”, in the case of Amharic, there are object pronominal suffixes as part of predicate.

Non-verbal predication is one of the current trends in modern linguistics. The topic of non-verbal predication has recently received widespread development in functional linguistics, as has the typology of copulative constructions. Non-verbal predication means a non-standard method of formatting a predicate expressed by nominal parts of speech. With the clear predominance of finite verbal predicates in the Bantu languages, a special method of non-verbal predication is recorded. The essence of such predication in the Bantu languages is to mark the name with a certain indicator — copula. Sentences with a copula or with some grammatical element similar in function to the copula usually express the same range of meanings. Basically, these are sentences of two types: existential and equative or identifying. The article focuses on the ways of marking non-verbal predicates in the southeastern Bantu languages (Zulu, Shona, Sotho) and eastern Bantu languages (Swahili, Dabida, Kikuyu).