Galina V. Denissova

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought dramatic changes to all spheres of life. These changes have triggered an immediate response from the media, including social media, which repeatedly posts not only up-to-date information about this most relevant issue, but also users’ reactions to it, including Internet memes. 

Objective. The research presented in this article focused on comparing the psychological and ethnocultural sensitivities in the perception of COVID-19memes by young people in Russia and China. 

Design. The selected sample contained 108 respondents (n = 108), comprised of 50 Chinese and 58 Russian university students. The study consisted of two procedures: a survey and a student’s t-test on the perception of specific Internet memes. 

Results. The main results were that memes which evoke a positive response from the respondents and cheer them up were scored the highest. Such qualities as relevance, kindness, cheerfulness, creativity, meaningfulness, and thought-provoking ability were rated high. Each group of respondents gave a higher score to “our own” memes and a lower score to the other group’s memes. It is generally typical of the Chinese to have a more positive perception of  reality. We ascertained a tendency towards polarization of opinions and focus on individualization among the Russian respondents, whereas the Chinese respondents strove for orderliness and consensus.

Conclusion. As a whole, COVID-19 memes in such ethnoculturally different audiences as the Russians and Chinese serve a compensatory function for young people, helping them overcome the hardships of the pandemic through the memes’ relevance and creative character.

Background. Studying the concept of secondary language identity is one of the main problems in educational psychology since it involves the ability to use a foreign language effectively in various fields. Since languages don’t exist in a vacuum but are culture-bound, a person’s process of psychological transformation into having a secondary language identity entails profound psycholinguistic and psycho-sociological character changes. However, professional communication differs significantly from everyday cross-cultural communication, which means that it should be studied separately.

Objective. The aim of this paper is to propose a theoretical approach to the development of secondary language identity within professional communication.

Design. Particular interest is paid to how language is taught, and which teaching methods and techniques will ensure the development of secondary language identity in the professional context. In this article we propose that the method of foreign language teaching is one of the factors underlying the development of secondary language identity in a professional context.

Results. As professional communication is always culture-specific and culture-dependent, culture influences language teaching in two ways: linguistically and pedagogically. Linguistically, it affects the semantic, pragmatic, and discourse levels of language. Pedagogically, it influences the choice of language materials.

Conclusion. We apply the methodology of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and the use of the translation method to analyzing the development of secondary language identity in a professional context.