Starting from January 2020, the whole world and all the people’s professional activities are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the phenomenon of COVID has been analyzed from different perspectives. The present study aims to study the evolution of the COVID-19 image in the online mass media discourse on the example of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news portal. The research employs semantic network analysis to trace the changes in the description of the coronavirus-related articles presented online. Three samples of articles from the period from 2020 to 2022 are randomly collected and subjected to further analysis. As a result, the author concludes, that the image of the COVID pandemic has undergone a significant change from the distant public health-related phenomenon to one of the legal actors and social activities. The present study contributes to the analysis of the coronavirus pandemic domain in the online mass media discourse and diversifies the studies, employing the semantic network analysis approach.

This article aims to disclose the communicative essence of the English media discourse and the specificity of transmitted information which is determined by both interrelated parties (i.e. the media sources and the readers) involved in this socially valid communicative process. The English media discourse is examined in the British and American variants.

The three parts of media communication comprising the author, the addressee, and the information itself are actualized in media discourse articles in a very peculiar form of their interconnection. The media orientation towards the addressee, i.e. the British and American public, leads to the articles being not only linguistically adapted, but also thematically focused on the information which is habitual and even desirable for each of the said communities. The author often acts as a moderator who stays, figuratively speaking, behind the scene, and just regulates or verbalizes the information communicated by various representatives of the nations regarded as his/her full-fledged co-authors.

The article also considers the gender aspect of media communication where male and female issues bear their respective linguistic and thematic features.

The emotional colouring of the transmitted information turns out to be another specific point of the English media discourse that appeals to the British and American public through the use of certain linguistic means.

The authors conclude that from the national identity-related perspective English media communication may be characterized as an information field that incorporates issues of importance for both nations, renders them with the help of nationally adapted wording, and thus even forms a sort of “energy space”.

Social media is not only used for entertainment and personal communication. It is also utilized in transactions of businesses and interactions with customers. This research explores the perceptions and experiences of online business owners concerning the role of social media in their businesses. Narrative inquiry was used as a research design. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews online. The study used purposive sampling to identify people who are willing to share their perspectives and experiences. The results show that business owners attribute the increase of their consumers’ reach and consequently growth in sales to social media. While business owners believe in the essential engagement of social media in businesses, they offer a caveat to be observant of the comments inputted by the people who interact with their online business presence because they can make or break the business reputation.

Modern linguistics is quite anthropocentric, that is why the author and the protagonist of an autobiographical work become the objects of many studies, but documentary prose about provincial life written by contemporary spiritual leaders is undeservedly deprived of such attention. The main purpose of this paper is to identify the peculiarities of the thesaurus level of a clergyman’s linguistic personality in the texts of autobiographical memoirs dated to the end of the 20th century. The source of empirical material for the research is the only text written by the direct participant of the events that took place in Vologda in the 30-40s of the XXth century and is referred to by researchers who study the life of the Russian Church. The thesaurus of a linguistic personality helps a researcher, even without having an idea about a particular person, to build a number of linguistic hypotheses and draw conclusions about the person’s cultural, religious, and professional identity. Certain lexical units distinguish the speech of representatives of particular professions from others. The author classifies lexical, syntactic, and idiomatic structures in order to describe the features of the vocabulary. The paper attracts attention to the use of special speech constructions, lexical units, in particular, sublime/outdated vocabulary in the speech of people who have received religious education. Thus, speech expressiveness, combined with church terminology, forms a speech portrait of a clergyman’s linguistic personality.

Over the recent decades, we have witnessed a considerable shift in an EFL (English as a foreign language) lesson from a teacher-centered to a student-centered one. This change can be attributed to the concept of personalised learning and teaching, which led to the relevancy of the study. The paper aims to describe the main principles of the course development and analyse how a personalised approach is realised in the new General English course from Skyeng online school. The author describes some general principles applied to the course modelling: the type of the syllabus, main andragogical principles, and principles of effective language learning. The paper analyses what personalised learning is from the point of view of both: a teacher and a learner. In the results and discussion section, a description is provided of how the personalised approach works on the level of the whole course (the system of obligatory and optional lessons, 3 different studying tracks, the choice of the homework volume, the choice of the tests and exams for the student) and on the level of the lesson modelling (various lesson patterns, extra slides for additional practice). The author also analyses her research, which shows that teachers do not tend to be flexible when choosing the lesson materials and prefer the linear lesson track without changing the combination of lesson slides. This proved the need for such lesson models in Skyeng online school which would be designed to be quite flexible in their structure. The represented approach to modelling a language course can be viewed as quite innovative and up-to-date and has proved to be effective.

The issues of liberal education do not cease to excite teachers, so the appeal to the meta-subject approach seems to be very significant and relevant. The history of interaction between different fields of knowledge is not new in pedagogy and the study of humanitarian subjects. It is worth recalling in this regard the traditions of literature, philology, and rhetoric. In the framework of this study, the authors use the meta-subject approach as the foundation for lessons based on the consideration of fragments from the text of the epic novel by L. N. Tolstoy “War and Peace”. The very appeal to the reflections of the great master of the word is always relevant. The meta-subject approach may well be used if several lessons of the humanitarian cycle are based on the fragments related to the description of the Battle of Borodino. Nowadays it is very important to support the patriotic spirit of young Russians, to help them develop a holistic and deep understanding of many political issues. Using the example of referring to the fragments describing the Battle of Borodino, one can consider a number of points related to national history (the course of the battle itself, its heroes, significance for history), culture (reflection of the events of the Battle of Borodino in painting, music), literature (the Battle of Borodino on the pages of fiction, the place of “military” pages in the epic novel), linguistics (military vocabulary as a thematic group, systemic relations in the lexical units under consideration, types of lexical units, features of the semantics of words encountered in the description of the Battle of Borodino). However, the authors note, that obtaining new knowledge, new information is an important, but not the main goal of the meta-subject approach, more important is the formation of skills for independent thinking, productive search activity, and comparative analysis.

The problem of linguistic and cultural knowledge correlation in terms of English as an International Language learning deserves special attention as one of the topical issues in reference to the new methods of knowledge and skills acquisition, required in the present-day global society. Language learning determined by particular cultural and conceptual bases faces new challenges in the case of EIL, as culture should be discussed within different terms in this connection and serve to achieve different educational goals. Within this context, culture is referred to as both the subject of studies and the means of learning. It is used as the source of information for EIL learners and helps to create a multicultural environment to facilitate the process of intercultural professional communication. Culture can be learned both from the point of view of similarity and its difference, which correlates with the basic tendencies in semiosic systems development. The use of modern information technologies as well as the lifetime learning mode in which modern citizens live and work seeks new approaches and methods of knowledge acquisition. The multimodal approach to language and culture deserves special attention from the viewpoint of EIL learning as it implicates elaboration of certain methodology that covers the whole complex of modes based on the use of the human senses abilities as well as different semiotic systems including language. The approach in question seems to be used for the purpose of educational process optimization, especially with reference to the purposes of EIL studies and the role of culture in this concern. To analyze the problem in detail and to demonstrate the validity of cultural knowledge application within EIL learning and teaching, the survey that included 3 questionnaires has been carried out on the basis of the materials presented by 62 linguistic (English philology) and 60 non-linguistic (Social sciences) students. The answers contained in the questionnaire enabled the authors to come to the conclusions as referred to the validity of multimodal approach application with respect to cultural and linguistic skills and knowledge acquisition within the scope of EIL learning and teaching.