This paper aims to study linguistic techniques of the communicative strategy of self-defense as one of the confrontational communicative strategies of American political discourse. The relevance of the study is revealed in the transformation of modern American political rhetoric, the consequence of which is the intensification of conventionally destructive elements in American political rhetoric and the predominance of subjective-negative modality units in political speech. The communicative strategy of self-defense allows the communicant to divert negative information from themselves and move from a defensive position to an attack. The author analyzes various tactical ways of implementing a communicative strategy of self-defense, which include justification, challenging, retaliatory criticism (counter-accusation), indignation, and opposition. They include several linguistic means (lexical units with a negative evaluation, deictic constructions, spoken words, lexical repetitions, personal pronouns, gradation, etc.). This article examines the roles of participants in the speech act of confrontation. The following models of speech behavior can be distinguished: offensive (attack, provocation), defense (self-defense, reaction to provocation), and evaluation (based on observation of the conflict). Thanks to the implementation of the communicative strategy of self-defense, the transition of the communicant from defense to offensive is possible.

   The present article aims to identify stylistic figures, providing intertextual connections of American presidents’ inaugural addresses with other texts which are of great importance to the USA and the American nation. Stylistic figures are figurative and expressive means of connecting texts of the past with texts of the present. The stylistic figures “allusion”, “application”, “paraphrase”, and “citation” have been analysed in the inaugural addresses delivered by four American presidents (2001–2021) – George Bush Jr., Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joseph Biden. These stylistic figures determine intertextual contacts of the inaugural addresses with the texts which characterize the country’s historical and modern development – the United States Declaration of Independence, John Page’s letter to Thomas Jefferson, the Constitution of the United States, the past Presidents’ speeches, patriotic songs. Inaugural addresses form a well-established genre in political discourse, and this genre is aimed at integrating and inspiring the people as well as at performing and establishing President’s and his administration’s general policies. The analysis of the genre of the “inaugural address” is an integral part of political discourse research. Political discourse is perceived as a system of communication that has real and virtual measures. The analysis of stylistic figures which provide intertextual connections belongs to the study of the virtual measure of political discourse – its semiotic area. The analysis conducted in the article is based on political discourse research, intertextuality theory, critical discourse analysis theory as well as on practical papers on presidential communication. This article’s methodology includes methods of observation, deduction, induction, controlled sampling, and the method of discourse analysis. Having analyzed the inaugural addresses and having identified the stylistic figures which incorporate other texts into the inaugural addresses, the author concludes that, firstly, the ideas and principles formulated in the past and implemented in the country’s development concept are sacred and unshakeable, and secondly, these ideas and principles have a great impact on the American nation’s consolidation and integration.

   The article examines features of syntactic arrangement and structural components of agreements composed in English. Agreements belong to genres of legal texts, which implies that the structure of the texts should be formal. The structure of agreements itself performs certain functions. This fact conditions the necessity of expertise in the structural composition of agreements as well as syntactic means, command of which is essential for the comprehension of the content of an agreement and for the ability to compose this type of legal texts. The objective of the study is to determine features of syntactic structures used in English-language agreements considering their functions and importance for providing the structural integrity of the legal text. The compliance of English legal texts with the linguocultural norm has been the main criterion in selecting the material for the study. The research analyses structural components of agreements, examines their syntactic structures and outlines their functions. The study reveals that the sphere of usage defines the structure of agreements, which directly affects their syntactic arrangement. The research demonstrates a connection between the structure and the context of the text, on the levels of both paragraphs and sentences. The investigation outlines syntactic models that are typical of agreements composed in English, such as complex sentences, participial phrases, absolute participial constructions, polysyndeton, stylistic inversion, and parallelism; and defines their functional status.

   This paper is devoted to the study of French coloronyms and their terminologization in different subtypes of scientific discourse. The research is based on coloronyms of mineral origin “(jaune / vert / brun / rouge d’)andalousite” and “quartz (blanc / rose)”, as well as those of metallic origin – “jaune d’or’ and ‘jaune / vert de chrome”. The authors carry out an etymological analysis of all the above-mentioned lexical units and consider the main tendencies of the terminologization of words with the semantics of colour in French scientific discourse. Peculiarities of terminologization of coloronyms of mineral origin are analyzed in scientific chemical and scientific geological types of discourse, whereas trends in the use of coloronyms of mineral origin are presented in scientific chemical and scientific physical types of discourse.

   The aim of the paper is to analyze the evolutionary tendencies of terminologization of French coloronyms in the subtypes of scientific discourse to describe their common and diverging properties at different levels, i.e. structural-semantic, morphological, and syntactic.

   The empirical material for the research comprises written scientific texts on chemistry (the electronic archive of scientific journals “Annales de chimie et de physique”), geology (the electronic archive of scientific publications “Planet-Terre”), physics (the electronic archive of scientific journals “Futura Sciences”).

   Methods of the research include etymological, component, structural-semantic, morphological, and syntactic analyses. Terminologization of coloronyms is a long-term continuous evolutionary discursive process that can be observed in French scientific discourse from the XIXth century till the present day. The authors investigate such evolutionary tendencies of coloronyms as emerging semantics of colour in lexemes that have not had it before, development of new structural-semantic models, rising numbers of morphological categories of colour terms, and acquisition of new syntactic roles, gradual process of semantic transformation of coloronyms. The transition of coloronyms from one subtype of scientific discourse into another with structural-syntactic forms, morphological and semantic categories preserved indicates the correlation between the discursive subtypes and the convergence of their functional properties at different levels of the language system. Despite this interdiscursive connectedness, each of the subtypes manifests distinct boundaries, which can be revealed through the study of the semantic specificity of coloronyms and their terminologization in scientific discourse. 

   The article deals with the psychological problems of the educators of the second language (L2) facing a sudden break with the traditional mode of teaching. The situation was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic which entailed the abrupt transition to distance education. Not all educators and learners were ready to respond to the new challenge instantaneously. The purpose of
the research is to discover how to facilitate the psychological readiness of L2 educators in the sphere of public relations teaching to overcome the hindering forces preventing them from easily accepting the challenges of time. A study was conducted among L2 university educators who were offered a set of five questions to determine the major obstacles to their immediate acceptance of change. As a result, the article offers several recommendations on how to prepare L2 educators for the state of
psychological readiness for changes. The procedure presupposes the detection of the reasons and ways of overcoming the psychological problems.

   Modern foreign language education in Russia is riddled with various challenges, ranging from the forced introduction of interactive technologies to complications imposed by the political agenda. The article analyses Olympiad tasks and their peculiarities at different Olympiad stages, considering various competitive projects, both university Olympiad projects and the All-Russian Olympiad of schoolchildren. The author offers some recommendations on better preparation for the regional and final rounds of the All-Russian School Olympiad, which the author trialled while working with groups and individual students from Moscow and which have proven to be successful. The article specifies manuals which can be used for this purpose as well. Empirical material for the study comprises a survey, aimed at students who attended the courses to prepare for the Olympiad to determine their attitudes toward online courses. The suggested system can function in any region of Russia, which will help the development of young talent throughout the country.

   The paper aims to share the experience in the field of the professional training of English language teachers. The authors describe the ways the English language teaching methodology classes are held as a part of distance learning. Students work out the materials for teaching pupils in google docs and discuss them using a cloud-based video communications app ‘Zoom’, then share their google docs links with students from other groups and comment on the tasks for potential pupils. Particular attention is paid to the detailed plan of the class, its coherence and cohesion, applied approaches and methods, given tasks. The paper contains a number of teaching materials developed by the senior students of the Institute of Foreign Languages of Moscow Pedagogical State University. These materials can be used as practical recommendations for EFL teachers or students of pedagogical universities studying foreign languages and doing teaching practice at schools.