LABOR in the Paradigm of the Values of European and Asian Peoples: on the Basis of Russian, French and Kalmyk Proverbs

Abstract

The paremiological fund of language either explicitly or implicitly expresses information about the value system of the people. The study is devoted to the description of labor as a value of European and Asian peoples on the basis of paremiological material. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that, proceeding from the analysis of authentic dictionaries of proverbs, the main semantic dominants of Russian, French and Kalmyk proverbs about labor were identified, as well as linguistic means of representing this value, due to both - universal features and the specifics of the studied linguistic cultures. Through a continuous selection of published and handwritten paremiographic sources, the author’s card file was compiled, numbering about 1000 items. The most representative examples served as illustrative material for the study, in the description of which the descriptive-analytical method was used, as well as the linguo-axiological and linguo-culturological methods which have received theoretical justification in recent years. Comparative analysis showed that in the three linguistic cultures a positive attitude towards labor dominates, which is a value opposed to laziness and idleness, which act as anti-values in proverbs. The following were established as the main axiological dominants: the connection between work and life in abundance, the need for effort and effort in work, the assessment of labor activity based on its results. An important function belongs to the components of proverbs related to labor (names of professions and occupations, attributes of labor that have certain symbols), through images, models of human behavior are transmitted. The mentioning of these components is associated with the development of various types of labor activity that were developed during the creation of proverbs. In French proverbs, the emphasis is made on the fact that labor is a value bringing material wealth, they value individual labor, and not the collective one, which is associated with the orientation of European French culture, belonging to the individualist type, being not at all the characteristic of the Eurasian Russian and Asian Kalmyk cultures. Among the axiological markers, the means of different language levels were singled out: a special rhythmic organization of the text; lexemes with evaluative semantics; the reception of repetition and the use of contrast, which allows, in particular, to express scenarios of behavior through anti-scripts, specific grammatical constructions. In Russian proverbs, proper nouns with the suffix of subjective evaluation -к- can be attributed to the means of expressing evaluation; in French and Kalmyk material, such axiological markers are absent, due to the typological features of the languages under consideration.