Семантическая эволюция слова и формирование медиастилемы (существительное палач в отечественной лексикографии и публицистическом тексте)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the semantic and pragmatic evolution of the word palach (tormentor) in the Russian language of the 20th–21st centuries and the reflection of this phenomenon in the Russian lexicography. Explanatory dictionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries, the data of the national corpus of the Russian language, as well as the texts from the magazine “Ogonek” published between 1916 and 2018 were used as research material. The author notes that before the revolution of 1917 Russian dictionaries recorded only the direct meaning of the noun. This lexicographic practice was in conflict with the simultaneous usage of word palach as ‘villain’ by Russian writers and journalists. The figurative meaning of the word was first recorded in the first Soviet dictionary published in 1935–1940. The ideological interpretation of the word was later included in the academic dictionaries of the Russian language in the 1950-s and 1960-s. Particular attention is paid to the functioning of the lexeme in the journalistic text. The publications from the magazine “Ogonek” demonstrate the use of the noun palach as an ideologeme which represented class alienation and historic doom for the enemies of the working people. In the post-Soviet period, political connotations faded into the background and the word palach was transformed into a philosopheme — a conceptually saturated term that serves to conceptualise the most important laws of existence. Materials of 2018 demonstrate the ability of the word palach to denote in the modern media text the foe which is not so much political but rather historical, one who desolates culture and opposes progress. Palach is an absolute evil, fulfilling itself in the historical arena. Palach is not an opponent in today’s struggle, but rather a negative historical example for future generations. The author concludes that it is necessary to reflect the pragmatic characteristics of the word more accurately in dictionaries. To define lexical units which are widely used in media texts and have the ability to communicate the worldviews of the author the term “mediastyleme” is proposed.