Systemic and functional aspect of etiquette lacunae (with the example of titles)

The etiquette sphere of the contemporary Russian language is under the close linguistic observation, due to the presence of the so called “linguistic voids”or lacunae. The authors focus their attention on the connection between language and thinking, on the peculiarities of cognitive perception by different linguistic cultures in the title system. The most stable forms of references and describes semantic and pragmatic characteristics of these forms are analyzed in the article. an attempt is made to forecast the development of linguistic situation in the sphere of references to unfamiliar persons. The article deals with the problematics of references to unfamiliar people and gives a description of deviating usage depending on the author’s intentions.