The article analyses the process of meaning formation of names of warships in the military discourse with the aim of identifying conceptual mechanisms which underlie the naming of seacraft. The research constitutes part of the study in the field of cognitive linguistics and fills in the gap in the studies of metaphoric potential and cultural specificities of secondary names applied to artifacts (as big as warships) in British and American tradition. The results show that of all 1200 seacraft names, 700 units are originally zoomorphic common nouns transformed into proper names of seacraft with which they “share” and sometimes even exchange some of their basic or latent semantic characteristics. It was revealed that underlying mechanisms of meaning formation in seacraft nicknames are cognitive mechanisms of conceptual metaphor, focusing and defocusing. To describe them the methods of frame analysis and cognitive metaphoric modelling are employed. Metaphor in the paper is both the object and the tool of research. To support the analysis, the information about specific features of named objects and creatures is elicited from dictionaries and language corpora.

This paper aims to describe linguistic units expressing the concept team of host country in German, English, and Russian ice hockey language in relation to syntagmatic types and the associative series these units are based on. The research rests on Saussure’s notion of linguistic units, which should be included in a particular syntagmatic and associative class. The study uses corpus linguistic methodology to extract and analyze respective linguistic units from German, English, and Russian comparable sub-corpora comprising utterances from different media reports devoted to the same sporting event. The authors follow a structuralist approach and discover syntagmatic types, including constant and variable elements, and generalizing regularities in the composition of particular syntagmas. Moreover, the authors build associative series serving as bases for different syntagmatic types and indicating semantic opposition of certain linguistic units. The research also establishes various paradigms reflecting relations between the elements within linguistic units and demonstrating the interaction of syntagmatic and associative elements in the production of the means of expression. From the contrastive perspective, the authors compare linguistic units from different languages and focus on similarities they have in relation to the composition of associative series reflecting the speaker’s range of choices of verbalizations. The data was collected from articles published on web pages of German (sportschau.de, spiegel.de), English (bbc.com, ctvnews.ca), and Russian (tass.ru, rg. ru) mass media.

The main purpose of this article is to dwell on the consideration of some genres of natural writing. The very concept of “natural written speech” at the present time has not received a complete and comprehensive interpretation. However, recently we have come across its existence much less often. In part, the disappearance of the genres of natural writing is associated with the onset of the digital era, when people stopped writing letters to each other on paper, notes, making notes for themselves, stopped signing photographs. Many genres of writing are capable of giving an idea of the writer in the same way as varieties of oral speech. In natural written speech, some personality traits and linguistic personality are manifested. The aim of the research, presented in the article, is to analyze inscriptions on photographs from the viewpoint of their lexis, punctuation, graphical layout to define the chronotope and personal characteristics of the author, who produces this genre of written discourse. The focus is on the linguistic means of inscriptions on photos, i.e. graphic, lexical, derivational and some others. In the process of analyzing such a genre of writing as inscriptions on photographs, the main varieties of this genre were identified: inscriptions made as a memento, inscriptions that represent the definition of an event or time and place; inscriptions made to convey information to close relatives, etc. In addition, the inscriptions on photographs can be classified by keywords, if possible, determining the chronotope, by the use of graphic means, by the location of the inscription itself in the photograph. To a certain extent, the inscriptions made on photographs reflect the personality traits of a person. The analysis shows, that the inscriptions on photographs have become somewhat of a harbinger of personal pages on Instagram.

The emergency transition of university education online posits a number of questions which are still to be answered. This paper aims to investigate whether language students’ needs were met when instruction was delivered completely online. To understand this, parallel questionnaires based on the current research on the needs, engagement and motivation in online and distance learning environments were administered to language instructors (N=69) and their students (N=148) at a large university in Russia. The instructors self-evaluated related competences, and the students assessed the experience of distant online language learning. The data collected via the questionnaires was subject to statistical analysis. The results showed a discrepancy in the instructors’ beliefs and students’ perceptions. The instructors were confident about their ability to meet the language learners’ needs, to provide individualisation, motivate and engage students, however, the students did not feel that happening. Open answers, which were analysed qualitatively, shed light on the reasons behind the mismatch in opinions. The students’ need for communication and interaction was inhibited by the limitations of the medium and the transactional distance. These factors contributed to the reduction of engagement, motivation and concentration. The interviews with 20 university language instructors revealed the practices the instructors implemented to meet the students’ needs, and identified the challenges they faced. Some implications for online language instructor training and development are discussed.

The article is aimed at specialists in teaching English for professional communication and is dedicated to development of courses of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The author describes characteristic features of such courses, that need to be considered by methodologists, and describes an algorithm that has been successfully used in course development at Skyes University and Skyeng online school. Besides the step-by-step algorithm, the article describes tools that are needed to successfully develop an ESP course: tools to check the text CEFR level, tools to select learning outcomes, vocabulary and grammar functions for a specific level of language acquisition, goals and professional area. The article also lists tools to ensure the pragmatic value of the course being developed and reasons for using particular approaches and techniques in teaching, such as Task-based learning, Project-based learning, case studies. All the methods and techniques, described by the author, are illustrated with examples from online courses that have been designed and used by Skyeng and Skyes University platform. The algorithm and set of tools will be useful for development not only of online courses but also of textbooks of English for Specific purposes and professional communication.

This paper considers methodology and pedagogical approaches used in higher education in the United Kingdom and Russia in developing transferable employability skills when teaching final-year undergraduates. The paper analyses outcomes of introducing innovative approaches to teaching translation at the University of Bristol and at Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU).

The MSU approach is aimed at the development of self-motivation, continual learning, ability to influence others through effective communication while at the same time developing students’ discipline-related skills in the field of translation studies.

The innovation introduced at the University of Bristol involves a move from traditional classroom-based delivery of a final-year undergraduate translation module to a blended e-learning approach, thus addressing organisational needs (developing an effective mechanism of peer assessment in large translation classes) while achieving a higher quality of work and developing valuable employability skills.

The primary objective is to show the students that they can improve their translation and analytical skills through conducting research online and by interacting with the other members of the group using a virtual learning environment. Recent results confirm that both approaches proved to be extremely beneficial. The students developed a better awareness of what is expected of them in assessed assignments. They enhanced their discipline-related skills in the field of translation studies. Their communication skills, ability to provide constructive feedback and analyse their own and other students’ work have also significantly improved. This contributed to the development of transferable employability skills including working as part of a team, critical thinking, communicating and influencing, problem solving, decision making and time management.

The paper explores the current situation with remote teaching in schools in Brazil from the perspective of ecological systems theory and school ecosystem. The situation is analysed from the viewpoints of the main stakeholders: children, parents, teachers and school managers. The author describes typical questions that the stakeholders raise in Brazil and offers answers. Advice is also offered on what can be done by the stakeholders to keep the ecosystem balanced.