Russian State University for the Humanities

About: Russian State University for the Humanities is a education organization based out in Moscow, Russia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Computer science & Population. The organization has 384 authors who have published 541 publications receiving 4658 citations. The organization is also known as: RSUH & RGGU.

Ecological Properties of Speech in the Communicative Field of Russian As a Foreign Language: New Extension

Abstract: The author presents an endevour to comprehend the culture of Russian as a foreign language on the ecological angle - as an integral part of the surrounding polylingual speech environment. An ecological approach to the culture of the verbal multimodal sphere of communication implies commitment to national linguistic traditions, fostering an effective love for the past, present and future of the Russian language.The article actualizes the topic of linguistic ecology, in which a culture of thinking and communicative speech behavior in a polylingual environment arises, fostering a linguistic taste, protecting, enriching and improving the literary language and speech aesthetics. Studying modern active processes leading to democratization and liberalization of the Russian language, the author highlights the influence of the Internet and media language styles as key trendsetters of modern rhetorical trends, foreign borrowings and the expanding detabooing of abusive language patterns. Concluding that bridging communication gaps is the responsibility of linguistic ecologists, the author gives a brief thesaurus of linguo-ecological terms that show the creative nature of communication. The article also accentuates that the ecology of language and the ecology of culture are becoming the advanced and central national challenges of our time. Keywords: ecological aspect, polylingual speech environment, linguistic ecology, communication gaps, linguistic taste, speech aesthetics, state mission of our time

Multidimensional and abstract probability

Abstract: probabilities are introduced as semiring algebraic structures that retain several properties of classical probabilities taking values in the real number interval [0, 1]. Compact probabilities and random variables with such probabilities are mainly studied. Analogs of the Borel-Cantelli lemma and of the law of large numbers are considered. New notions of superposition of probability spaces and superposition of random variables arise on the basis of the Cartesian product of abstract probabilities.

Ancient Egyptian - Arabic contacts in lexicon: clue to Arabic Urheimat?

Abstract: The present paper aims at demonstrating possibilities of the comparative and historical method in linguistics in reconstructing ethno-cultural prehistory of ancient peoples. Methodologically, it is based upon the analysis of 46 Ancient Egyptian-Arabic lexical parallels most of which are unattested in other Semitic and Afrasian languages, collected by the Hungarian specialist in Egyptian and Aftrasian languages G. Takacs and his predecessors. The author was the first to notice that some of 46 lexical parallels for semantic or phonetic reasons can hardly be considered to be randomly surviving cognates; neither can they be descarded as lookalikes. He suggests that they are direct lexical borrowings. This suggestion implies undiscovered contacts between Egypt and proto-Arabic speakers. According to the author's glottochronological dating, proto-Arabic separated from Central Semitic in early 3 rd mill. BCE. These contacts started as early as the Old Kingdom and lasted through Middle to New Kingdoms. He concludes that the striking feature in this discovery is not only presumed Egyptian loans in Arabic but a small minority of very likely Arabisms in Egyptian language of all these periods. He argues that the most “robust” cases may testify to the Urheimat of proto-Arabic speakers located within reach of Egypt. The author is also inclined to identify the people of Midianites mentioned in both Hebrew and Arabic sources as Proto-Arabic speakers. However, as his competence is limited to comparative Afrasian linguistics and Semitic etymology, he leaves this arguable question to discuss archaeologists and historians.

Heteroglossia in Neurosemantics: The Case of a Word Cluster with Mentalist Content

Abstract: In this study, we used neurosemantic analysis to identify the brain representation of words in Russian-language spoken narratives. 25 participants listened to five stories, first person narratives of the same author describing threatening episodes of recent history. Their brain BOLD (blood-oxygen-level dependent) activation was registered by a 3T MRT (magnetic resonance tomograph). We selected seven subjects, who were the best in terms of their engagement, memory for details of narratives and parameters of brain reactions, for further PCA (Principal Component Analysis) analysis. 12 lexical clusters were found with similar brain activation patterns and coherent semantics, which ranged from time-and-space concepts to those of human actions and mental states. A new cluster “author” emerged from the “mentalist” cluster 8, when we extended the number of clusters from 13 to 16. The words in this new cluster described –quite accurately– the narratives author’s profession and attitudes towards life. While most of the clusters demonstrated a small left-hemispheric lateralization, involvement of the right hemisphere was apparent in case of cluster “author”. Our results support the view of non-modular and widely distributed nature of semantic representations. These results also demonstrated possible relevance of the ideas in the works of Vladimir Propp and Mikhail Bakhtin to modern neuroimaging of narrated stories.

Spatial and Social Behavior of Single and Coupled Individuals of Both Sexes during COVID-19 Lockdown Regime in Russia.

Abstract: Testing individual motivations for social activity in violation of the mandated lockdown regime is a challenging research topic for evolutionary psychology. To this purpose, we analyzed twenty popular weekly routes and the potential impact of sex and relationship status (single versus coupled) on the reported level of spatial-social activity during the quarantine in Russia between March and June 2020 (N = 492). Our study revealed a significant difference between men's and women's mobility: men, in general, tend to exhibit substantially higher spatial activity. The results have shown that individuals living on their own have more social interactions with friends and exhibit more profound spatial mobility via public transport. On the other hand, spatial activity of coupled individuals of both sexes were mostly devoted to solving a list of economic and matrimonial tasks. At the same time, men already cohabiting with a partner leave their homes for dating purposes more frequently than single men and women. We interpret these findings in the sense that both individual and sex-specific differences in observed sociality could be a result of a fine-tuned adaptive populational response to a contemporary virus threat, predominantly rooted in the evolution of behavioral strategies in the reproductive and economic spheres of each sex. Indeed, unlike women, coupled men have been preserving highly risky and intense social behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.