This article discusses the reflection of the features of the “friend or foe” dichotomy in the Balkan model of the world in the xenologic pejorative vocabulary of the Balkan sprachbund languages: Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Modern Greek, Macedonian, Romanian and Serbo-Croatian. The author gives a brief review of the historical, cultural and geopolitical specifics of the Balkan-Carpathian region, which influenced the local peoples’ ideas about strangers; some traditional mythological beliefs of the Balkan peoples related to the conceptual field of otherness are also presented. Based on the analysis of the internal history of the word, an attempt is made to define the main models for constructing derogatory names for strangers in order to compare the data for various Balkan languages and, to the extent possible, build an integral image of the concept of alien in the Balkan conceptual worldview. According to the results of the study, the xenopejorative vocabulary of languages of the Balkan sprachbund shows significant similarities both in terms of form and content. Pejoratives with undifferentiated evaluativity predominate, which could account for the richness of the Balkan derivational morphology and a large number of lexical borrowings in each of the languages; pejoratives with an indication of appearance, features of language and peculiarities of behaviour are also widely represented; however, the first are referentially limited, while the second and the third are universal, from which it is concluded that the prototypical Balkan alien is someone who speaks differently and behaves different-y. At the same time, the most common target for pejorative vocabulary in the Balkan languages among all strangers is the Romani people, which is due both to a number of stereotypical ideas about the physical and behavioural features of this ethnic group, and to the historical isolation caused by the nomadic way of life and the closedness of the Romani community from outsiders.

The aim of this paper is to analyse how the concept of hatred is represented in American political discourse. The problem of intensified hate speech requires thorough linguistic investigation as political discourse is becoming more openly conflictual. The empirical material of this study comprises public speeches by American politicians, politically themed analytical articles in the press, and posts and statements of politicians in social networks. The main method used in the analysis is the functionallinguistic analysis of discourse. The author analyses confrontational communicative tactics, e.g. discrediting, scorn, insult, accusation, mockery, etc. The objects (or victims) of such rhetoric are political opponents of the subject of speech, who may have different points of view, religious beliefs, cultural backgrounds and social status. Hate speech, which is an extreme form of how the concept of hatred can be verbalized, may be directed against confessional and ethnical groups. The paper places a special emphasis on the communicative goals and intentions of discourse participants who resort to hate speech. Usually it is the desire of the subject of speech to publicly demonstrate disrespect, mock, belittle the authority of opponents and favourably represent oneself in the eyes of the audience. The rhetoric of hatred comprises such typical means as negative and offensive epithets and metaphors; hyperbolic, comparative, rhetorical and lexical constructions with the pragmatical meaning of irony. In situations when the subjects of speech emphasize the difference between them and their opponents (national, religious, social etc.), the functional fields of the concept of hatred and the “in-group/out-group” concept may overlap. In these cases, the communicative goal of the speaker is to alienate political opponents and emphasize their dissidence in a negative way.

Spinoza regarded life as an active play of affects, and human freedom as the taming of passions by means of the concepts of reason. Following him, Lev Vygotsky treats affect as the alpha and omega of mental development. The key theme of Vygotsky’s last manuscripts is the same as in Spinoza’s The Ethics: man’s path to freedom via the reasonable mastery of his affects. Vygotsky defines freedom as the affect in the concept; in the last years of his life, he investigated the processes of synthesis of emotional and intellectual forms in the child’s psychical development. Following Spinoza, Vygotsky defines affect as a dynamogenic state of the body, increasing or decreasing its capacity for action. Thus, affect acts as the intrinsic driving force behind the behaviour of all living beings. In the Spinozist view, psychology is the science about production of affects in the process of object-oriented activity and about exchange of affects in the process of communication of living beings. Vygotsky did not have time to carry out his project of the new psychology of man, and his successors refused or failed to continue this work. Aleksey Leontiev, Vygotsky’s closest disciple and associate, denounced his turn to Spinoza and returned to the phenomenological treatment of affect as a form of experiencing activity. As a consequence, Vygotsky’s problem of the relation between affect and intellect proved to be unsolvable. The philosopher Evald Ilyenkov, who adhered to the Vygotsky school, linked the beginning of psychical activity to the formation of images of the external world, losing sight of affect and, thus, of the problem of freedom as understood by Spinoza. Resuming Vygotsky’s apex psychological project and studying the evolution of the psyche, based on the concept of freedom as the active mastery of human affects and communication relationships, form two growth points of cultural-historical psychology.

In this paper, neology is considered as a heuristic activity that is carried out with the help of language. The article uses materials from modern Portuguese-language media discourse, specifically from the internet versions of the leading media resources in Portugal and Brazil. The combination of structural, psycholinguistic, functional-stylistic, denotative, cognitive-discursive and lexicographic approaches helps to identify the main active models in the field of Portuguese neology. During the coronavirus pandemic, Portuguese neology developed in the classical way, although some new phenomena are observed at the same time. Processes that traditionally occur include word formation (affixation, abbreviation and word composition), semantic reinterpretations of lexical units, and borrowings. There is a large proportion of initial abbreviations in word formation, both alphabetic (sigla) and phonetic (acronyms). Many initial abbreviations are of an international origin. Compound words function alongside scientific symbols. In affixation, prefix word-formation prevails. To enrich the dictionary, borrowings are mostly taken from English. New neological models are associated with the determinologization of medical vocabulary, which migrates into everyday discourse. Proper names are interpreted in a new way. Some anthroponyms, mythonyms and toponyms acquire associative connotations or become part of complex words. Derivation in the field of phraseology, in which the number of fixed combinations increases, has become more common. Paremiology is renewed with antiproverbs. Linguocreative activity is represented by expressive memes and hashtags. In the pandemic period, along with neologisms, potential words with great expressiveness appear. Portuguese neology actively conceptualizes the events of the coronavirus pandemic. In the field of conceptualization, the subdomains of medicine, media and everyday discourse, in the focus of which lies the concept of “disease,” are distinguished. The latter is understood with the help of conventional lexical means and lexical resources from different styles. During the pandemic, the neological field “coronavirus pandemic” appears as part of the constantly expanding neologosphere of the language.

This article dwells on the phenomenon of Russian Beardsleism, which was formed by the influence of the works and personality of the English graphic artist Aubrey Beardsley on the Russian intelligentsia at the turn of the twentieth century. As the brightest representative of English aestheticism and Art Nouveau, Aubrey Beardsley became a champion of the ideas of new art for Russia. In his homeland, Aubrey Beardsley managed to usher in a real revolution in the field of illustration and book graphics, turning them into independent elements of creativity and raising the art of graphics to a completely new, unprecedently high level. No less revolutionary was the artist’s behaviour – Aubrey Beardsley turned his life into art, postulating innovative aesthetic and philosophical aspirations by his very appearance. The worth of his personality was undoubtedly comparable to the worth of his works, and one became inseparable from the other. Thus, the very image of Aubrey Beardsley became a symbol of the Art Nouveau era, containing numerous complex concepts. No wonder, therefore, that the sphere of his influence in Russia was extremely wide – not limited to the field of graphic art, it extended from new artistic methods to lifestyle and demeanor. The significance of Beardsleism in the Russian artistic life of the turn of the twentieth century is also indicated by its scope – the most prominent figures of the Silver Age, such as Sergei Diaghilev, Léon Bakst, Nikolai Feofilaktov, and the rather obscure Aleksandr Silin, Anatoly Arapov and Modest Durnov – both these and others experienced the significant influence of Aubrey Beardsley on their works and life.

This article presents a study of the history of Russian Old Believers’ emigration to Brazil. As such, it analyses the reasons that allowed them to maintain their linguistic identity, and identifies the features of the dialect of the Russian language of the Old Believers living in Latin America and in Brazil in particular. Old Believers moved to Brazil after centuries of oppression, first leaving Central Russia for the East of the country, Siberia and Primorye, and then, after the 1917 Revolution, many of them moved to Harbin (China). After the 1949 Revolution in China, they turned to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who sent them to the United States, Canada, Australia and Brazil. Brazil was the first country to grant them visas. The main wave of migration of Old Believers to Brazil took place in 1957–1958, that is, after the policy of nationalization of the New State carried out in 1937–1945 by President Getúlio Vargas, whose goal was to turn all immigrants into Brazilian citizens by banning their native language in both official and everyday communication. Thus, the Old Believers managed to fully preserve their religious, cultural and linguistic identity due to the hermetic nature of their communities and the preservation of their traditional way of life. The dialect of the Old Believers of Brazil retains the typical features of the Nizhny Novgorod dialect of the nineteenth century, in which archaic linguistic features and semantic shifts in the meaning of words were preserved. However, it also contains lexical innovations denoting new concepts of modern life, Spanish and Portuguese borrowings and their adaptation. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, several Old Believer families decided to return to Russia under the State Programme to Assist the Voluntary Resettlement to Russia of Compatriots Living Abroad. Specifically, they returned to Primorye, thus completing their round-the-world trip.