Res Humanitariae

The aim of this paper is, by using Computational linguistics method to analyse collocations of ethnonyms leiši and lietuvieši ‘Lithuanians’ in “Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian” (Līdzsvarots mūsdienu latviešu valodas tekstu korpuss), compare contextual semantics of both ethnonyms. Comparing the frequency of use of the lexemes lietuvieši and leiši ‘Lithuanians’ in the modern Latvian language text corpus, the prevalence of the ethnonym lietuvieši is evident, therefore, the ethnonym leiši, regardless of its use as synonymic designation (sometimes in one and the same text), can be considered as an obsolete word. The desemantisation cases of the ethnonym leiši, detected in the corpus, show its oldness and varied functionality in Latvian language. The evidences to prove the statement of the “Modern Latvian Language Dictionary” (Mūsdienu latviešu valodas vārdnīca) that the lexeme leiši nowadays “carries slightly pejorative stylistically expressive colouring” were not found in the text corpus. In general, the image of a Lithuanian reflected in the modern Latvian language text corpus is rather positive – mostly in historical, language, culture and sports contexts, yet in the context of economics and emigration rather negative impression of Lithuanians is expressed.

The author demonstrates how the current refugee situation reflects the crisis of values within the European Union. Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in the United States have revealed that some western citizens are eager to restore traditional values and extreme order as an opposition to the current idea of democracy within the EU member states which leads to libertarian tendencies, and potentially to chaos. The conflict of traditionalist and libertarian tendencies among the European Union citizens most likely will increase, and this can lead to the further European Union disintegration. The case of Latvia and related analyses have shown that some Central and Eastern Europe countries will are not willing to accept refugees. Therefore, this study uses the grounded theory approach, based on historical facts and opinions of classical authors, while explaining that healthy and wealthy society should be based on an extended or at least on a nuclear family. In this paper, a case study of Latvian citizens’ attitudes towards refugees is used to support psychological hypotheses which are mainly of the theoretical nature. In the author’s opinion, it is important to understand that real traditionalism means democracy which is based on order and hierarchy. In contrast, libertarianism leads to the democracy where the family model is not supported and the whole system of values is corrupted. The author demonstrates on historical events that such attitude can lead to destruction of the whole society, and explains why virtues and family oriented systems have been established and promoted by classical philosophers and by religions.

The article is concerned with semantic functions of the postverb up – the second component of English verbs of the type move up, fix up, round up (Vup-s) from the point of view of changing the lexical meaning of the verb and its aspectual characteristics in terms of terminativeness / durativeness, and modes of action. Analysis and classification of Vup-s according to their lexical meaning and modes of action reveal the systemic character of the language. Vup-s are viewed as derivational units – analytic words – in the plane of word formation theory.

By means of analysing the peculiarities of cognitive authorities utilized in election programs of the candidates of Lithuanian presidential election campaign 2014, the article aims at the identification of the manifestations of evidence based policy employed to support the candidates’ proposals on the state government related issues. Analysis of the texts produced by the participants of the political campaign is based on the concept of evidence based policy. Authors of this article interpret the term of evidence based policy from the perspective of library and information science where the focus is on the use of information sources. Analysis of the manifestations of evidence based policy in the case of presidential election campaign in the Republic of Lithuania is based on the methodology framed by Kimmo Tuominen and Timo Turja. In the article the concept of cognitive authorities is interpreted on the basis of Patrick Wilson’s insights. This is the first research of the type in Lithuania which helped disclose that participants of the election campaign subjected to analysis cannot be attributed to the representatives of evidence based policy.

The emotions impact every single process in an individual’s life. An analysis of the scientific works selected by a Google search based on the terms ‘emotions, Vygostky, Leontiev’ shows that the complexity of the topic is multiplied by the complexity, mixture and fragmentary nature of the approaches applied to the investigation of the emotions. The aim of this work is to revisit the works of Vygotsky and Leontiev relating to the emotions underpinning the identification of notions, features and functions of the emotions. A novel research methodology, the development of the system of external and internal perspectives, was implemented. The investigation into the emotions was based on the theories of Vygotsky and Leontiev: activity theory, law of development, psychological system, word meaning, concept formation, and the unity of language. The theoretical analysis resulted in the definition of notions, features and functions of the emotions. The limitations of the research were identified. Further research directions are proposed.