The article deals with the analysis of the images of various natural landscapes in the poetry by Nikolay Rubtsov, among which the field and the meadow, that are associated with the image of the small homeland of the poet, prevail and have become the main core of his artistic universe. The article uses hermeneutic, biographical and local historical methods of literary analysis. The concept of the article is based on Yesenin’s principles “climate-style”. As the results of the study, the conclusions are made about Rubtsov’s commitment to Yesenin tradition and that images of natural landscapes in his works are not only lyrical space, but also a repository of the national memory.

The article is devoted to the study of the color usage in creating of the image of fear in Ambrose Bierce`s short stories. Through the use of individual writing color symbols, the prevailing atmosphere of Bierce’s short-stories is reflected. Particular attention is paid to establishment and systematization of color images-details, which dominate in the writer’s short stories. We study the role of color use in the Bierce`s short stories. The study of the combination and dominance of color images, the frequency of their use by the author contributes to a complete understanding of the features of Bierce’s work and his worldview. The conclusions are drawn about psychological mastery of Ambrose Bierce.

In this article, a spatial aspect expression of the “invented perception” (from debut collection of H. Müller “Nadirs”) are researched, as well as its philosophical and aesthetic dimensions. Primarily the research is based on the work “Kisten, Krypten, Labyrinthe, Raumfigurationen in der Gegenwartsliteratur” by A. K. Johannsen, particularly, on the chapter devoted to the role of space and spatiality in H. Müller’s latest essay “Wenn wir schweigen, werden wir unangenehm - wenn wir reden, werden wir lächerlich”. The author comes to the conclusion that the spatial aspect of the “invented perception” H. Müller discovers the essential features of heterotopias, and opposes them “other spaces”, constructed by own individual perception.

The article deals with the features of storyline and characterology in one of representative stories of Chekhov in 1880s called “Nightmare”, which raises the theme of the distressful social situation of the parish clergy. The author analyzes characters of the representatives of the provincial intelligentsia - the priest and the official - through the prism of precedent biblical plots of a story about the prodigal son and about sold birthright, by using the comparison of the behavioral canon contained in the canonical cultural text with the images of characters. The specifics of the functioning of forms of biblical narration is analysed in the Chekhov’s short story, that allows to create intertext connections, similarities, and differences. Such an analysis allows the author to draw the conclusion that the writer’s rethinking biblical stories results in the strengthening of the artistic semantic formation.

The article discusses the genre originality of the Chekhov’s story «Ionych» in interaction with the traditions of the genre of the novel. Through the analysis of plot and compositional features of story, image of the personality of the main character and his interaction with society conclusions are drawn that Chekhov builds the history of the development of personality in the novel scheme, however, the concise form of the story allows to identify the most significant psychological and philosophical problems of the work. The image of the family in the story becomes one of the means of such concentration issues. In the interaction with the Turbins as a model of county-level urban society happens the deformation of the image of the character in accordance with the scheme “from Startsev to Ionych”, as well as in the dispute with it.

The author of this paper conducts a stylistic and semantic research of a word lord in the early journalistic works by Leskov and gives a comparison of examples from the early essays with revealing actual semes of the word with their functional role. Also, the author demonstrates various stylistic devices used by Leskov. Much attention is paid to the contextual aspect of the word meaning in consideration of the author’s style.

The article investigates the nature and place of cultural component in the structure of lexical meaning and makes an attempt to summarize and theoretically comprehend the ways of representation of cultural information in the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” of V. Dahl. 214 dictionary entries (on the letter Ж) were analyzed, 21 articles were described. Basing on the componential analysis of lexical meaning the author identifies a cultural component and makes conclusions which elements of culture are reflected in the dictionary and how. The article sets the task to evaluate the possibilities of lexicographic presentation of culture.

The article contains a critical analysis of certain controversial points that exist in the theory of lacunae, along with the comparison of the approaches to the term “lacunae” in linguistics and conceptology. The article also argues for the intracultural approach to conceptual lacunae, suggests definitions of the term lacuna, distinguishes conceptual lacunae from language ones, discusses the ways of their reconstruction, suggests variants of interpreting the term “conceptual lacuna”, displays the scale of their approximation to the linguoconceptosphere.

The article discusses the thematic group of the vocabulary of the nuclear industry, distinguishes and describes certain lexical and semantic groups, which are included in this thematic cluster, and classifies the nuclear industry vocabulary on various grounds: derivative, lexical-semantic, morphological and syntactic principles. In addition, this article analyzes the types of professionalism, resulting in the vocabulary of the nuclear industry, and identifies the sources of their origin.

The article discusses in detail the largest thematic group jargon of drama theatre “Features of the actor and his games” from the structural-semantic point of view. It indicates the specific characteristic of slang word-formation methods, the features of structural models of the slang phraseology of the theatrical environment and draws conclusions about the results of the analysis. The illustrative material that demonstrates the functioning of the units is from media and fiction texts.

The article raises the question of the dependence of the meaning of diminutive forms on the semantics of the noun. The analysis is carried out on the example of nouns with the meaning of time (temporal vocabulary). The material of the National Corpus of the Russian language reveals the general and specific features of such diminutives. From the general features, the neutralization of the dimension of the diminutive and its re-evaluation as an appraisal are noted. As unique feature the authors identify the importance of the minimum time interval, and show the compatibility of such diminutives with particles and modern forms of the verb. In addition, noted is the propensity of temporal diminutives to make a request, creating the effect of meiosis. Particularly emphasized is the ability of such forms to act as an indicator of an unexpected and important reme (for a minute) and independent replicas that express a request to wait or attract attention.