The U.S. military idiom semantic cryptolality (as exemplified in English)

Angaleva Mariya Anatolievna

The point that success of cross-cultural interaction is preconditioned both by a communicator’s linguistic competence and his background knowledge is hardly to be questioned. This study dwells on the U.S. military subcultural environment and its unique linguo-cultural manifestations. Illustrative materials show that the army idiom, ascending to the cultural-historical heritage of the military society, is typical of cryptolality. This article delivers an analysis of such distinctive phenomena of an American soldier’s "verbal passport” as lexico-phraseological units, military socio-cultural dialect units, precedent nominations, army clichés and mottos of arms and branches of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Keywords:ethnos; the US army subculture; service member; army sublanguage; army idiom; cryptolality; cryptolality.