This article investigates the genre of the student thesis abstract as conceptualized within the methodological guidelines of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Although in the materials of all three Baltic countries the abstract is defined as a concise overview of the thesis, the analysis reveals major inconsistencies in the conceptualization of this genre. Borrowed terms such as anotācija (LV) / anotacija (LT) / annotatsioon (EE) coexist with the local labels of summary, often used interchangeably without a clear distinction. These terminological divergences might hinder students’ understanding of the abstract as a defined academic genre.A detailed review of the guidelines from twenty-nine HEIs shows that structural, linguistic, and functional aspects of abstracts are only sporadically defined. In some institutions, the purpose and composition of the abstract are taken for granted rather than explicitly described, leading to uneven practices and uncertainty among students. Drawing on this comparative analysis, the study proposes a set of ten core elements essential for a well-organized abstract and highlights the distinction between the core and supplementary (such as keywords) elements of the abstract.Our findings demonstrate a need for greater standardization and pedagogical clarity. We argue for the integration of explicit guidelines and genre-based instruction into academic writing curricula. Aligning local practices more closely with internationally established models would help students produce more consistent, effective abstracts. Moreover, fostering cross-regional dialogue around abstract conventions, extending beyond the Baltic context, could enrich academic writing standards and enhance scholarlycommunication.
The article presents a comprehensive study of syntactic strategies for verbalising communicative intentions in wartime political media discourse. The research material consists of Ukrainian, Russian and English-language media texts from the period 2022–2025. Syntactic strategy is conceptualised as an intentionally determined model of sentence organisation that integrates linguistic competence, cognitive attitude, and socio-political context to achieve strategic influence on the audience. The study systematises types of communicative intentions and examines their realisation across different language systems, taking into account typological differences between Slavic (Ukrainian and Russian) and Romance–Germanic (English) linguistic models. Particular attention is paid to a comparative analysis of syntactic mechanisms used to encode communicative intentions in these languages.The analysis reveals that in Slavic languages, communicative intentions are primarily realised through flexible sentence word order and topical segmentation (theme–rheme organisation), which enables dynamic reconfiguration of informational focus via inversion and parcelisation. In contrast, in English, due to a relatively fixed SVO sentence structure, the expression of communicative intentions is predominantly achieved through lexical and grammatical means, including modal verbs, performative constructions, and syntactic parallelism. The results demonstrate that syntax in wartime political media discourse functions not merely as a structural level of language, but as a strategic resource for persuasion, mobilisation, and legitimisation of political action. The proposed framework outlines a four-stage model of syntactic strategy formation, ranging from motivational emergence in a wartime context to final verbal realisation with a predictable illocutionary effect. The findings may be applied in the fields of discourse analysis, media linguistics, translation studies, and strategic communication research.
The article analyses data from the high-impact pilot project “Acquisition of Latvian as a Foreign Language – an Issue of Language Sustainability and State Security,” implemented in 2025 by the Department of Latvian and Baltic Studies of the Faculty of Humanities,University of Latvia (hereinafter, the UL) within the UL Development Programme. One of the main goals of this project was to examine, from an interdisciplinary aspect, the opportunities for acquiring the Latvian language as a foreign language at Level C. The conclusions of not only linguists, but also sociologists, political scientists and statisticians were contrasted in relation to the preservation of the Latvian language and Latvian identity, as well as in the strengthening of civic education. The project was implemented in collaboration with several UL structural units and the Latvian Language Agency. The article provides a closer examination of the findings of the UL pilot project’s linguist group, which were obtained in spring 2025 through surveys of various focus groups. Initially, high school students from several Latvian regions were surveyed. Since 2025 teaching at these schools has been undertaken purely in the Latvian language, which is why the high school students’ experience in acquiring the Latvian language was especially significant. Latvian language teachers at the mentioned schools were also surveyed, as were participants in the Latvian diaspora’s distance education programme “The Latvian language teacher”. Previously, translators of Latvian literature, whose native language is not Latvian and who live outside of Latvia were an uncharted audience with respect to acquiring the Latvian language at the highest-level, which is why this target group was included in the surveys. Valuable insights were also obtained from surveying language teaching centres which cater for the acquisition of the Latvian language at Level C. The goal of the research analysed in the article is to examine the current opportunities for acquiring the Latvian language as a foreign language at Level C in Latvia, as well as to evaluate language acquisition programmes and the available teaching materials based on the current needs of those learning the language. The study reviews three main challenges in acquiring Latvian at the highest proficiency level: the currently available Level C teaching programme and the quality of the materials; the development criteria for new and contemporary teaching (including digital) materials; as well as factors that influence the acquisition of Latvian at Level C.
The article deals with the study of antonymic nouns in the German language from the viewpoint of structural-semantic and functional-pragmatic approaches. This is conducive to a detailed and comprehensive description of the systemic meaning of antonymic oppositions and an analysis of their pragmatic potential, demonstrating the mechanisms of its realization in speech. The meaning of an utterance that arises during the actualization of the systemic meaning of antonyms in speech is treated as the pragmatic meaning of antonyms. The following types of pragmatic meanings were distinguished: 1) contrastive opposition; 2) the meaning of exhaustive multiplicity; 3) indefiniteness; 4) alternativity; 5) negation of the opposite; 6) contradiction. It has been determined that the formation of the aforementioned types of pragmatic meanings, which can be interpreted through the reference of the actual meaning of antonymic units to a certain type of semantic realization, is a prerequisite for the fulfillment of the pragmatic functions by antonyms. The results of the study demonstrate that antonymy comes across not only as a linguistic reality but also as a tool for self-expression and communication. Antonyms perform the function of operational units that serve the purpose of the realization of the author's pragmatic intent. Due to certain features of their semantic structure and possible ways of combination with other linguistic units in the flow of speech, antonyms help the speaker to influence the addressee in the most effective manner, stimulating a certain reaction in their thoughts or behavior.
The subject of the present article has been triggered by the recent rush to apply corpora to a varietyof researches. Huge electronic texts are employed to obtain not only data for linguistic investigations, but theirapplication has been extended to other branches of science as well. The present analysis of the proper nounAmerica is an attempt to use abundant linguistic data to determine social and cultural factors related to thisparticular geographical name. It also aims at distinguishing the attitudinal meaning of America. The research isbased on the collocations of the word under analysis derived from the Lithuanian press that is a constituent partof the Lithuanian corpus.
