Russian Linguistic Bulletin (Apr 2022)
THE LEXICAL COMPONENT OF THE LANGUAGE MEANS USED FOR THE REFERENCE ZONE “INVESTIGATIVE ACTIONS” (AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE FEDERAL RULES OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE OF THE USA)
Abstract
The article is devoted to identifying the specifics of the lexical component of the language used to describe the referencezone “Investigative Actions” in English as exemplified by the sublanguage of the regulatory legal act “Federal Rules ofCriminal Procedure”. The analysis of the lexical component was carried out in three main areas: 1) nomination mechanismsused in describing the reference zone “Investigative Actions”; 2) word-formation patterns typically actualized in lexemesbelonging to the semantic field under study; 3) patterns of syntactic expansion of complex nominative units.The purpose of the study is to determine the specifics of the lexical component of the conceptual field “InvestigativeActions”, taking into account the discursive conditions for the use of nominative units, as well as the grammar structure of thelanguage.The theoretical significance of the study lies in the development of questions related to nomination in a comparativetypological aspect. The practical value is predetermined by the identification of the nomination aspects that can be used fordidactic purposes in the course of teaching legal topics in Russian and English.The analysis revealed two recurring nomination mechanisms for the majority of nominative units used in describing thereference zone “Investigative Actions”, namely: specification of the significative meaning of the nominative unit by introducingadditional lexemes, and metonymy realized by the transference from the process to the result, which is typically represented in thename of the relevant judicial document. Word-formation methods are represented by suffixation and conversion.Syntactic models used in the complex nominative units of the semantic field “Investigative Actions” include the followingbasic structures: adjective + noun, noun + noun, verb + noun, the variability of which is extremely limited.
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