Teaching With Covid: Within and Without

The COVID-19 pandemic that was initially believed to be a health crisis not only encouraged most organizations to revisit and re-adjust their working mode and style but also brought drastic changes into the work of educational institutions. The onset of pandemic paved ways for modern technologies and classroom routines to make language teaching compliant with certain preventive measures. Preliminary research into the successes and failures earned throughout online teaching in Armenia may provide a solid background for identifying which language teaching practices that started during COVID-19 would be retained or dismissed. The paper looks into some instructional changes that might impact the planning and delivery of in-person lessons after the retreat of the pandemic

From Euphemism to Verbal Aggression in British and Armenian Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Perspective

The topic of the present article concerns verbal aggression and focusses on the verbal expression of the emotional mind; specifically, the expression of negative feelings, emotions and attitudes. Since computer-mediated communication is widely used to shape and reshape public opinion, the analysis of hate speech on the material of internet discourse may shed light on the manipulative communicative tactics that are used in online media and social networking sites to spread hostility and negativity globally. Hence, the examination of the language strategies and tactics that are used to formulate hate speech becomes essential in communicatively oriented linguistic studies. The present article provides a comparative analysis of manifestations of hate speech and euphemisms in Armenian and British online media outlets and social sites targeted towards people\u27s sexual orientation. The aim of the paper is to show the close connection between hate speech and culture. The research, which embarks on two basically different cultures – British and Armenian – is carried out within the framework of cross-cultural pragmatics and discourse analysis. A qualitative research method is applied to analyse samples of hate speech. Social sites and online media outlets were searched through search engines, using certain keywords (LGBT, sexual minorities, etc.). For the purpose of the study, language resources from English and Armenian – words, expressions, constructions, speech acts expressing hostile attitudes towards sexual orientation – have been picked out and analysed

Low temperature sintering of binder-containing TiO2/metal peroxide pastes for dye-sensitized solar cells

Nano-structured metal oxide films are key components of dye-sensitized (DSC) solar cells. Scaling such devices requires lower temperature processing to enable cheaper substrates to be used. In this context, we report a new and scalable method to sinter binder-containing metal oxide pastes to make DSC photo-electrodes at lower temperatures. Metal peroxide powders (CaO2, MgO2, or ZnO2) were added to terpineol-based P25 pastes containing ethyl cellulose binder or to commercial TiO2 paste (DSL18NR-T). Thermal analysis shows that binder decomposition occurs at 300 °C instead of the standard 450 °C for a TiO2-only paste and suggests that the metal peroxides act as combustion promoters releasing heat and oxygen within the film while heating. The data show that this heat and oxygen release coincide best with binder combustion for ZnO2 and DSC device tests show that adding ZnO2 to TiO2 pastes produces the best performances affording η = 7.5% for small devices (0.26 cm2) and η = 5.7% at 300 °C or 450 °C for DSL18NR-T/ZnO2 for larger (1 cm2) devices. To the best of our knowledge, the performance of the (0.26 cm2) cells is comparable to the highest efficiency devices reported for DSCs fabricated using low temperature methods. The device efficiency is most strongly linked with Jsc; BET and dye sorption measurements suggest that Jsc is linked with the metal oxide surface area and dye loading. The latter is linked to the availability of surface sorption sites for dye molecules which is strongly negatively affected by any residual organic binder which resulted from incomplete combustion

Евразийский экономический союз: отношение к проекту южно-кавказских государств

The Eurasian Economic Union is a project of confederative union of the former Soviet Union countries with a common political, economic, military, customs, humanitarian and cultural space. The project has been widely discussed in the post-Soviet countries, including Armenia. Today it is important how will be future relations of the South Caucasus countries over Eurasian integration look like.Евразийский экономический союз - это проект конфедеративного объединения стран бывшего Советского Союза с единым политическим, экономическим, военным, таможенным, гуманитарным и культурным пространством. Данный проект получает широкое обсуждение в странах постсоветского пространства, включая и Армению. Для закладывающихся в настоящее время тенденций важное значение имеет то, как будут выстраиваться отношения южно-кавказских государств вокруг евразийской интеграции

Pragmatic Equivalence in Literary Translation

The present paper addresses the issue of pragmatic equivalence in literary translation, which is considered to be one of the most important aspects of linguistic uniformity between the source and target texts. Pragmatic equivalence of translation is defined as the conformity of the translator’s ‘duplication’ of the content with the author’s communicative intent or the literary objective. The cross-cultural pragmatic analysis of translation equivalence carried out in the paper focuses on the interpretations of the verbal behavior of the heroes while performing speech acts. For the purpose of analysis the novel by R. Bradbury “Dandelion Wine” and its Armenian and Russian translations are chosen. The research shows that the interpretative words nominating the heroes’ verbal behavior, namely, the verbs of speaking, are culture sensitive. Therefore, in some cases the translator may diverge from the source text in order to sound authentic in the target language. The comparative analysis of the samples served as a mediated translation approach, revealing certain linguistic and culture-specific points at issue in the translation process.  

VERBALIZATION OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT IN FICTION

The article is devoted to the analysis of the linguistic peculiarities of conflict talk in Modern English fiction. Conflict discourse is seen as a type of verbal behaviour which has its specific model of development in speech. The paper one of the situational types of interpersonal conflict discourse – family conflict and looks into the pragmalinguistic mechanism of its unfolding in fiction. The authors of the article believe that the writer is a speaker who uses his / her own communicative competence when verbalizing contradiction of the fictional heroes. Similarly, the reader is an interpreter who uses these skills when interpreting the contradictory interaction of the fictional characters. The results of the research work can be used for the elaboration of language strategies and tactics which will enable speakers to carry out a productive exchange of opposing opinions in real-life speech events and avoid disruptive and hostile social relationships