The paper aims to give a general idea about the activity of the Speech and Language Laboratory of Aix-Marseille University which is the biggest and the most modern in Europe. Its multidisciplinary research focuses on the mechanisms of oral and written speech production, perception and understanding. The laboratory uses up-to-date devices for analysis and synthesis of speech, it takes an active part in international education programs and projects.

Audio book represents one of the most important and convenient means of a literary text perception. While listening to recorded literary text the auditor perceives not only the content of the book but the acoustic characteristics of the speech signal. This article presents the main acoustic parameters of the sound perception of the text and its rhythmic characteristics. Furthermore the author underlines the interdependence of these parameters and rhythm perception of a literary text. As an example of their realization the author has chosen the audio book of the novel by G. de Maupassant «Bel Ami, or The History of a Scoundrel». The author comes to the conclusion that the realization of the acoustic characteristics is accompanied by the use of the rhythmic means on different levels of language (phonetic, lexical and grammatical), that intensifies the emotional impact on the reader.

Gender linguistic characteristics become apparent essentially at the lexical level. So evaluating frequency of use becomes the main research method: one set of words is more frequent in the texts written by women, others are more frequent in men’s texts. The procedure of gender attribution based on this approach was tested on a large sample of English texts (22 authors) and proved to be quite effective. The placement of authors on the “scale of masculinity” allows us to put forward and solve a number of nontrivial problems. In particular, the hypothesis was advanced that compared to the 19th century authors the level of masculinity of contemporary male authors has decreased while the level of masculinity of female authors increased.

The article describes persuasiveness in business presentations through verbal and non-verbal means of communication. Verbal and non-verbal communication caused the shift of socializing into “meanings and intentions demonstration”. This demonstration or presentation involves special communication mechanisms including verbal and non-verbal means of producing impact on the audience. The results of the research can be of special interest to the people whose profession involves public speaking.

The article is devoted to the gender aspect of the variation of sound units. The author compares the speech and speech behavior of men and women, to what extent the peculiarities of their speech can hamper understanding and intelligibility, how intensive they are and if one can talk about two «languages». The article also describes the research, the results of which allowed to estimate the degree of students’ comprehension of texts, recorded by speakers of different sex. The research also helped to identify most difficult aspects when working with the material.

This scientific research is concerned with studying the problem of understanding the text sense in the process of interpretation. The article analyses thesis which claims, that effective understanding of the text semantic structure depends on the knowledge of its organization laws and unwrapping principles. Particular attention is paid to the differentiation of the linguistic and semantic structures in utterance, the author analyses organization of the text sense, its components and order of their disposition. On the basis of English-language texts the author also reviews unwrapping of the semantic structure from one utterance to another. In conclusion, the question of the semantic structure analysis methodology and recommendations concerning its effective understanding is raised.

The article reviews the methodology of text addressee studies. The author presents a hypertextual approach to get new data about the addressee of a fiction text. Having analysed a number of English authors’ prefaces, the author demonstrates the dynamics of this text category verbal realization. As a result, the communicative portrait structure of the fiction text addressee is completed by new characteristics, such as age, sex, nationality, and profession.

The article presents the results of the comparison and collation of the meanings of the adjectives тёплый (Russian), warm (English), chaud and tiède (French). Special attention is paid to their synaesthetic metaphorical meanings. The article also reveals the models of metaphorical meaning extension of these words, common and specific to the named languages, and the peculiarities of their usage. The analysis of this material made it possible to come to the conclusion on the importance of synaesthetic metaphor to the development of lexical polysemy.

In the article some pragmasemantic peculiarities of the form of the Present Simple tense in the English language are considered. The main distinctive feature of the Present Simple tense is unprocess in doing the acts. Two main types of the Present Simple in the English language are identified: the present irrelevant attributive and the present irrelevant repeating. Each type has certain semantic characteristics which are capable to be shown in different conditions of updating of the present tense, and that helps to enrich its pragmasemantic potential.

The article deals with the concept of “modernized belles-lettres/fiction text”, its characteristics and ways of translation. In this type of texts the plot is referred to the past, but the author focuses as a rule on present-day problems, and that is reflected in lexical items and phraseology. The article presents results of an analysis of phraseology in translations and the methods used to achieve adequate translation of the original texts.

The article deals with the study of process and results of the concept ‘iskusstvo’/‘art’ usage analysis. It cites major corresponding characteristics of the analyzed concept in Russian and English linguistic consciousness. The analysis showed both common and different associations with the given concept in both languages. An additional point is that a number of associations existing only in Russian and only in English linguoculture have been revealed. In addition examples taken from texts of fiction and journalism are given.

The article deals with experimental method of analyzing the author’s individual style; in particular, the text rhythm, which is considered to be one of the idiostyle components. As the play by T. Stoppard “The Real Thing” and its translation were analyzed, an attempt to prove mathematically the possibility of preserving the rhythmical organization of the original text while translating it into another language was undertaken. The program Praat for analysis of speech phonetics was used in order to conduct an experiment; the results are described in the article.

The article contains the analysis of the word “emotion” in its general and terminological meanings, its functioning, study of its origin and the date of the first mentioning the word in four languages - Russian, English, French and Italian. This investigation is based on the analysis of the lexical entries presented in Russian, English, French, Italian encyclopedic literature. The conducted research allows to state that the word “emotion”, originated from Latin, underwent substantial changes in the French language in XVI century. Afterwards it was borrowed by other languages and included in their active vocabulary.

The article deals with the problems of translation of lexical units that verbalize concepts and things unique for a particular society - words which do not have direct equivalents in other languages. The investigation is carried out on the material of culture-loaded lexical units used in American transportation system. Mechanism of translating this kind of vocabulary is investigated. Most widely used models and techniques in the translation of culture-loaded words and phrases of transportation subject area are compared.

This paper analyzes the similarities and differences between expressive means, namely metaphor and simile, specifies their characteristics, structure and implementation in English and Russian (examples are taken from J.K. Rowling’s novel) The research also highlights the types of these tropes and proposes criteria for classification, emphasizes the necessity of comprehensive study of the issue. Primarily it focuses on the process of metaphor formation: metaphoricalness is both the result of author’s interpretation and reader’s perception.

The article touches upon the description of one of the basic mental categories - the category of time. Time as a relevant constituent of human mapping is reflected in proverbs and sayings that are also called paremiological units. The comparative analysis of Russian and English temporal paremiological units denoting delayed actions enables to make a conclusion that these linguistic units are characterized by clearly expressed evaluative sense. The paremiological systems of both languages that describe temporal meanings are characterized by significant similarity.

The article analyses quantitative, qualitative and estimative parameters of the linguistic situation in Wales. It considers main stages of coexistence of the English language and numerous Aboriginal languages, beginning from 1788 and up to the present, from the period of colonization and elimination of aborigines up to the present and admittance of their civil rights. Peculiarities of mutual influence of English and Aboriginal Languages and their idioms - pidgins, Kriole and aboriginal ethnolect of Australian English are systematized.

The article is devoted to the comparative linguistic, stylistic and structural analysis of English, Scottish and Russian folk ballads. The existing classifications of ballads from the point of view of their origin, source of reproduction, genre and theme are reviewed. The author systematizes specific features of ballads such as narrative character, fragmentary narration, absence of comments or reflections of the narrator, psychological depth of the characters portrayal, dramatic tension. The structural similarities and differences between English, Scottish and Russian folk ballads are revealed.

Motivation of etymological vocabulary in Russian, English, French and Spanish is considered in the article. Three well-known words denoting insects - grasshopper, ant and bee - are analysed. Etymological reference and types of motivation of each particular nomination are given. The main similarities and differences of nominations in the respective languages are revealed with the author's conclusions to follow.

The status of impersonal constructions in the French language is one of controversial questions in modern grammar. Constructions of «Il arrive du monde» type and their correlation with the personal constructions are of particular interest. The article describes characteristics of impersonal constructions such as «Il arrive du monde», «Il me reste trois jours». The aim of this article is to show the differences in the use of personal and impersonal constructions in the French language, to define semantic, syntactic and pragmatic features of this type of impersonal constructions.

The object of the analysis is two-component constructions comprising a finite verb, an infinitive and noun with a preposition. Defining the grammatical status of these constructions is significant for solving various problems of French theoretical syntax (especially for classifying the sentence parts) and for studying types of the simple sentence in teaching French grammar. The research deals with syntactic constructions which provoke the most profound disagreement among linguists and to which an unambiguous solution has not been found yet.

Lexemes ASÍ and COMO form various combinations and perform different functions in Spanish. As adverbs ASÍ and COMO form free combination which allows omission of ASÍ. The correlative pair ASÍ ... COMO functions as a comparative copulative conjunction. The fixed groups ASÍ COMO are deprived of the meaning of modifier, they may express exact similarity and approximation; they are used in the function of conjunction.