Linguistic assimilation of the “foreign”: realities of 16th-century Russia and methods of their recording by English travelers in “The Discovery of Muscovy”

The research aims to identify the linguistic methods used by 16th-century English travelers to assimilate culturally alien realities of Russia. The object of the study is the text of English travelers’ accounts from the collection “The Discovery of Muscovy”. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that, based on the material of this historical source, the process of linguistic adaptation of foreign cultural realities by specific native speakers (travelers, merchants) is described for the first time in the unique conditions of the first direct Anglo-Russian contacts. The paper identifies the dominant methods of reality recording. As a result, the dominance of ethnographic realities and the use of functional analogues are revealed as the most frequent method of reality recording.