Holiness and saints are the most important heritage of Russian spiritual culture. This practice-oriented research reveals the methodological potential of two new directions in the methodological linguoconceptology development, namely linguocultural character type portraying and venturing into the field of theolinguistics. The article aims to address issues related to the cognitive and speech development of secondary school students (undergraduates) as well as their enculturation. The study examines the conceptual, figurative, and axiological dimensions of the concept of the typified personality of a saint using the example of Saint Seraphim of Sarov and research methods of linguoconceptology. The article proposes a linguocultural interpretation of the Holiness and Joy concepts in conjunction with a religious and worldview perspective. The scenario for a linguoconceptocentric lesson in the educational ‘thought route’ genre presented in this paper is based on philosophical and poetic texts of the Silver Age. Such distinctive features as ardour, white light, and spiritual joy (Easter joy) typical of Seraphim were identified. The article concludes that portraying the great saints of the Russian land (including exploring the sacred meanings of their Church Slavonic sayings) is impor­ tant. This approach enables the younger generation to understand the spiritual feats of the nation’s religious leaders on the civilisational identity basis.

The article examines the possibilities of using various types of neural networks to enhance the information and subject-specific competencies of primary and secondary school students while learning Russian. This research is relevant due to the need to develop students’ information literacy in the context of widespread access to tools based on generative artificial intelligence (AI). Also, it is necessary to expand the range of methodological resources for teaching Russian. This study aims to characterise the educational potential of neural networks in Russian language learning, as well as to design a model of assignments enabling this potential to be realised in practice. The primary research me­ thods are analysis and modelling. The materials used include publications on the information literacy phenomenon, fe­ deral Russian language syllabuses, and the results of research into schoolchildren’s practices of using neural networks. The analysis of the materials showed that the modern understanding of information literacy should include, among other things, the abilities to formulate queries to AI and to critically evaluate the reliability and relevance of generated responses. It is also essentially important to filter and integrate information obtained from neural networks, and consider the ethical and legal aspects of their use. The educational potential of AI in Russian language teaching lies in the fact that its efficient use can promote the development of both subject-specific and cross-curricular competencies, as well as personal qualities in students, including critical thinking, creativity, and agency. This potential can be realised through the proposed assignment model based on the interaction among the student, artificial intelligence, the teacher as a facilitator, and the class as an interactive learning environment. Owing to such integration of neural networks into the Russian language learning process, school students become co-authors of instructional materials. Moreover, their motivation and involvement increase, and the subject itself becomes a major tool for promoting information literacy in the context of the digital transformation of education.

Large language models (LLMs) are being actively implemented in the educational process. However, their ability to generate high-quality educational texts that meet strict methodological and linguistic requirements remains understudied. This paper aims to evaluate the capabilities of LLMs in creating and editing dictation texts for philology students as well as to determine the role of teachers in this process. The article describes a linguistic experiment conduc­ ted in three stages using four models (DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Alice AI, and GigaChat. In stage one, the models generated texts based on a detailed prompt. In stage two, they corrected the texts using specific criteria. In stage three, the edits were evaluated by a philologist according to formal, structural, and error-focused criteria. The maximum possible score was 140 points. ChatGPT (up to 99 points) and Alice AI (up to 94 points) were the most successful LLMs in text generation. These models fulfil the formal requirements (length, vocabulary, syntax) well, but make factual, speech, and grammatical errors. No model performed all tasks flawlessly during text correction. ChatGPT achieved the best result, i.e., +4 points out of 10. Expert editing revealed the need for manual revision to ensure semantic coherence, stylistic clarity, and error elimination. LLMs are an effective tool for creating drafts of educational texts; nevertheless, they cannot guarantee text quality without human intervention. A hybrid model is recommended, namely text generation by the model followed by expert verification and editing by a philologist. This approach enables AI performance and professional linguistic expertise to be combined.

The electronic collection of authentic texts of the Russian National Corpus (RNC) is among the largest in the world. This free resource is representative, annotated, and accessible without registration. Moreover, the RNC is considered an essential tool for school and university teachers of Russian. However, contrary to this popular opinion often found in scientific papers, it is difficult to evaluate the extent to which educators have mastered the corpus. This review article aims to determine the relevance level of the RNC in teaching Russian and subjects related to it at all levels of the Russian educational system. The goal is achieved by analysing pertinent research literature published over the past six years. Additionally, the paper attempts to estimate the efficiency of corpus-based methods and techniques for the learning process. The search for Russian-language scientific publications was conducted with the Google Scholar web search engine and in the Russian Scientific Electronic Library (eLibrary.RU) using a set of keywords and phrases. The results demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of studies are outside the scope of this review article since they focus on teaching Russian as a foreign language or linguistic research. The final sample includes 62 papers dating between 2019 and 2024. The detailed analysis performed during the research detected a negative trend, i. e., a decline in the number of publications on this topic over the years. Moreover, only one study from the collected data described a pedago­ gical experiment, which makes it impossible to determine the effectiveness of corpus-based methods and techniques in teaching Russian. Thus, even 20 years after the launch of the RNC project, corpus-based teaching of Russian remains an extremely promising direction for both Russian language teaching methodology and modern linguistics.

The paper analyses the final stage assignments of the 30th national Olympiad in the Russian language for school students in the 2024–2025 academic year. We describe the structure of the competition stages as well as the types of tasks. The content of some assignments is examined in detail. The study shows that the Olympiad tasks assess the level of linguistic, communicative, and cultural competences formed in schoolchildren. In addition, the assignments assess students’ ability to analyse linguistic material, critically evaluate it, and come to their own conclusions on this basis. The paper concludes that the Olympiad tasks were fulfilled with a high level of success. Moreover, many participants showed readiness for conducting research at higher educational institutions.

The article aims to analyse the stylisation of business language in M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s works. It is noted that images of officials figured prominently in the satirist’s poetic stylistic system. What is more, they were sati­ rically reinterpreted by the writer and acquired grotesque qualities, which found expression in his unusual metaphorical language. The study indicates that M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was a master at creating "command aphorisms". Moreover, he was highly skilled in Aesopian language, the writing technique which enabled him to protect poignant images of tsarist Russia social life from censors. The article discusses the satirist’s unique use of pseudonyms, speech formulas and paraphrases that symbolise and parody the administrative and bureaucratic apparatus (Departament gosudarstvennykh umopomrachenii / English the Department of State Temporary Insanities, Departament otkazov i udovletvorenii / English the Department of Rejections and Approvals, and others). Examples of allegories used in the literary text to protect it against censorship (for instance, sobor / English cathedral as a ‘constitution’, kolokolnya / English bell tower as a ‘pillar, the basis of the sceptre’) are cited and commented on. The research emphasises that the writer employs the technique of ‘decoding’ to satirically interpret characters and events. The stylisation of business language in "Provincial Sketches" is analysed in more detail. The satirist Shchedrin parodies contemporary society by copying words and expressions from bureaucratic culture. The article examines various distinctive features of business language, such as names of institutions and positions, commonly used legal vocabulary, common expressions of everyday business culture and syntax. The command style expressiveness is highlighted. The research employs the descriptive method, contextual analysis, cultural-historical method and linguistic commentary, as well as semantic-stylistic analysis. It is concluded that the business language in M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s writings is artistically stylised text that combines techniques of realism with interpreting words as occasionalisms. In his works, the writer acts as a belletrist, a publicist and a linguistic innovator who created his own stylistic range through which one can decipher the meaning of a word and understand its true significance in the flow of official business rhetoric.

This article examines the set of units used to name the central character in M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tale "The Ram Who Could not Remember". The relevance of the research is due to the fact that the work published over 140 years ago has not become the subject of a serious and comprehensive analysis yet. Moreover, the system of character naming units has not been considered as a primary means of expressing the author’s worldview and creating a multifunctional artistic environment. The paper aims to identify the system of naming units associated with the central cha­ racter image in M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tale "The Ram Who Could not Remember". The objectives include classifying the character’s names in terms of their place and role in the text, establishing multilevel connections (structural, semantic, stylistic) between them, and determining the functionality of the naming unit system in the work. The study employs functional-semantic description of linguistic units, as well as structural-semantic and stylistic analysis. As a result, a system of interrelations between the principal character’s names was established. The article concludes that the naming unit system symbolically expanded and additionally examines the functioning of this system in the literary text under consideration.

The article examines the structural types of titles characteristic of modern Russian prose. The aim of the work is to identify new trends in this area. In the process of analysis, structural-semantic and comparative methods are used, as well as techniques of word-formation and syntactic analysis of linguistic units. It is shown that modern prose texts are distinguished by a structural diversity of titles. Traditional types of titles are preserved in modern prose, but at the same time a number of new phenomena are noted. It is concluded that in recent decades the number of titles-sentences of different structural types has increased, there has been a spread of abbreviated titles and titles-graphoderivatives (titles that include multifunctional elements of one or different languages, as well as a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters). The functions of such titles are noted. Modern titles use special symbols typical for Internet communication and electronic speech. A new type of titles of literary works is being formed – titles represented by lexica­ lizedaffixes. The noted trends are related to active processes in the modern Russian language.

The article presents a comprehensive (namely, word-formation, structural-semantic, functional, and linguistic pragmatic) analysis of occasionalisms in online poetry and describes their textual functions. Moreover, it demonstrates the relationship between these functions and the structural and word-formation characteristics of the new nonce words. The main methods of creating occasionalisms in the examined poetic texts are identified. The study indicates that the structural-semantic relations between the nonce word series in the text serve as a constitutive feature that determines the poetic text composition. The study analyses the correlation between the compressive and meaning-generating functions of occasionalisms which consists in the formation of a bundle of semantic features in them interacting with other components of the text. We also highlight the connection between the meaning-generating, compositional, compressive functions and the focus on language game which underlies linguistic creativity.

The article explores the semantic evolution of the adverb stoicheski (English stoically) and its synonyms. It examines the potential of these lexemes to express both abstract (philosophical) and concrete ideas related to Russia’s cultural-historical and spiritual-intellectual traditions. The article aims to determine the nature of the semantic relations between the adverb stoicheski and the lexemes stoiko (English steadfastly), ustoichivo (English firmly, steadily), and ustoino (English firmly, steadily). The inner form of the key lexeme in this work is associated with the name of Stoics, which makes the analysis of this lexical unit important for understanding the influence of Stoicism on the Russian language as well as Russian thought and culture. The relevance of this research is determined by the necessity to trace the historical dynamics of lexical semantic processes in adverbial vocabulary (such as metaphorisation, broadening and narrowing of meanings, lexicalisation) that have occurred over several centuries. The study employed comparative-contrastive, etymological, descriptive (in conjunction with generalisation and classification techniques) methods as well as componential and contextual analysis. Thorough examination of the above-mentioned adverbs suggests that the adverb stoicheski entered the Russian language in the 18th century under the influence of the growing interest in Stoicism and the Stoics in Russia. Their ideas permeated various spheres of Russian people’s cultural and intellectual life thanks to translated philosophical works. The conducted research shows that the similarity between the meanings of the adverbs stoicheski (English stoically) and stoiko (English steadfastly) is not accidental. It is determined by a combination of circumstances. On the one hand, the similarity may be associated with the evolution of the internal semantic motivation in these lexemes. Such motivation is based both on the phonetic similarity of their roots and on the pre­sence of a deep etymological connection due to the ancient stem commonality which the speakers perceived intuitively. On the other hand, one can assume a phonetic convergence (sound similarity) of the lexemes and a possible semantic calque from the French language.

In the context of cultural diversity, the key objective of higher education is to develop intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in students which includes not only knowledge and skills, but also a value component. However, the existing methods used at Russian universities are insufficient to work with the value-based meanings of foreign culture literary texts. The article aims to devise and test a technique for interpreting the value-based meanings of foreign culture texts by Russian-speaking students (using A. Nerkagi’s novella "White Reindeer Moss") to address the challenges of developing ICC in a multicultural community. The originality of the study is determined by the uniqueness of the empirical basis. Firstly, it includes a foreign culture text written by a representative of the indigenous people of the North. Secondly, we created a corpus of student interpretations of this text, namely written responses or reflective notes by firstand second-year students of Tyumen State University. The article proposes a model to form the value component of students’ ICC. The model consists of four stages: (1) identification and analysis of key words of a culture; familiarisation with the values ​ of another culture; (2) interpretation of value-based meanings. The other two stages include (3) acceptance, i. e., recognition of the equality of the values ​ of native and foreign cultures in communication; (4) integration of the values ​ of another culture into communicative practice. The article details the first three stages of modelling the ICC value component. Recognising and interpreting Nenets values ​ in literary texts broaden students’ cultural thesaurus. Moreover, students rethink their own value systems, become aware of ethnocentrism and overcome it. Most Russianspeaking students accept the existence of foreign cultural values, demonstrate empathy for the novella characters, acknowledge the importance of Nenets values ​ for the Nenets themselves; however, they emphasise the difficulty of holding onto them. ICC is formed gradually starting with the first acquaintance, comprehension, and followed by attempts to accept the value orientations of another culture in order to successfully communicate with its representatives. This article describes our methodology for working with the value plane of foreign culture texts. It combines linguocultural analysis of cultural keywords with reflective practices. A rubric for expert progress assessment (recognition – interpretation – acceptance) is proposed. It enables one to diagnose the gap between empathy and the willingness to have regard for foreign cultural values in communication. This methodology is replicable and can be useful to practicing ICC teachers.