Abstract

The article analyzes Siberian villagers’ memories about grandparents as an important element of the speech genre of the autobiographical story. The aim of the article is to describe the themes, types of genres and functions of memories about grandparents in the structure of autobiographical stories of residents of Siberian villages. The material of the research is 200 oral autobiographical stories recorded on the territory of Tomsk Oblast from the 1960s to 2020. It is determined that memories about grandparents perform genreforming, text-building, and didactic functions, as well as participate in the self-presentation and self-identification of the informants. Possible types of intra-genre and inter-genre intersections are analyzed. Memories, being an independent complex speech genre, can at the same time be a part of another genre – an autobiographical story, a story about a case. Participants of the speech genre (sender and receiver) are in certain kinship relationships (grandchildren and grandparents: grandmothers and grandfathers). The author of the text, referring to the history of their family and the experience of previous generations, realize a self-identification process, comprehending their belonging to the genus, family by various identification characteristics: nationality, education, upbringing, and others. The micro-themes of memories are revealed; they allow determining the most significant parameters that the author of the text uses for self-presentation, including oneself into the family history (place of residence, profession, features of character, etc.). Reference to the axiological dominants of the previous generation is one of the strategies of self-presentation and self-identification of the residents of the modern village. The stories of the informants serve as a means of creating an ideal image of their grandparents, who appear in memories as kind, gentle, literate, telling fairy tales, non-drinkers, long-living, having good health, hardworking, economical, clean, and able to feed, to treat, to teach, to educate. The grandparents’ role in preserving and transmitting cultural and moral values to the younger generation, in forming behavioral patterns (commandments, instructions), such as the need to work, not to steal, not to drink, and to believe in God, is great. Thus, memories of grandparents are one of the elements of the speech genre of the autobiographical story, which performs self-presentation, self-identification, didactic, text-building, and genre-forming functions. The informants recall the place of birth and residence, nationality, profession, character traits, appearance, and other characteristics of their grandparents.

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