The article analyzes precedent anthroponyms of the Soviet origin in multimodal texts of American and British advertising. The study aims at analyzing precedent anthroponyms of the Soviet origin in English multimodal texts from the linguoaxiological and linguopragmatic points of view and from the standpoint of textual organization. The following research methods have been used: description and synthesis, linguistic methods of structural-semantic, contextual and cognitive-discourse analysis. The paper examines the precedent names of the Soviet origin (for instance, Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Kalashnikov). It also establishes their uses in commercial texts and highlights the linguistic means of satirical effect creation as the main pragmatic goal of English commercial and social advertising. The name of a political leader acquires different connotations and in most cases it is “demoted” due to the transfer of the name from the political context to the everyday one: gastronomic, material, kitsch-cultural, glamorous-erotic, etc. Names of the Soviet politicians are found in advertisements of cigarettes, pizza, alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks, bags and other household items, including absorbent wipes. The article concludes that the image of the Soviet past in multimodal advertising texts in English acquires negative connotations. Besides, the analyzed texts emphasize that the communist ideology belongs to the system of anti-values.

No abstract

The paper analyzes precedent names of Russian origin in polycode texts of pictorial caricature genre, published in American magazines and available in the licensed cartoonstock.com database. The particular focus is made on the names of Russian writers and poets (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn), and the titles of Russian-language literary works featured in American caricature (War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, The Karamazov Brothers, Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters and The GULAG Archipelago). Methodologically, the study is based on cognitive, linguo-semiotic, linguo-axiological, and contextual analysis. It is noted that the cartoons convey stereotypical ideas about the works of Russian writers: the intimidating large volume of Tolstoy’s works, and the conciseness of Chekhov’s are both treated ironically; stylistic features (Chekhov’s attention to detail; Dostoevsky’s psychological tension) are ridiculed. Content references are often superficial and only touch upon the most mundane, utilitarian issues, overlooking more complex social and psychological problems (generation gap, internal conflicts). In a truly caricatured light, the authors are depicted as money-makers, and their characters turn into comic figures of popular computer games. Some works of Russian writers are presented in an axiologically deflated way: Anton Chekhov’s plays were turned into sports competitions and ice shows, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s GULAG Archipelago became a musical. The authors conclude that in English-language polycode texts, Russian precedent literary onyms are predominated with ironic evaluative semantics, and the general irony is accompanied by a tendency towards a simplified, formalized perception of works of Russian literature.