Projection of linguistic consciousness: from Pamvo Berynda to postmodernism

Abstract

Abstract: For the first time, the article projects linguistic consciousness in diachrony: from pre-modern times to modern postmodernism with a common mental basis of ambivalent and hybrid focus. The epicenter of the analysis of diachronic linguistic consciousness is the figure of the outstanding lexicographer and publisher Pamvo Berynda through the lens of his prefaces and motivation of the creation of the “Slavonic-Ruthenian Lexicon” (1627). The article proves the significance of linguistic consciousness in basic sociolinguistic processes. The article reveals the following problems: definition of linguistic consciousness; language as time and ideas; Pamvo Berynda’s linguistic consciousness through the prism of published works and linguonomen language; similarity of linguistic consciousness in pre-modern and postmodern times on the basis of the current legislative environment of the Ukrainian language and attributive modifiers of the linguonomen language. The linguistic and lexicographical activity of Pamvo Berynda has an exceptional historical significance in the context of the involuntary codification of the Old Ukrainian (Ruthenian) language alongside the Church Slavic language. The need to create a translation dictionary in 1627 and to translate sacred works into plain Ruthenian language resulted from the lack of understanding of the Church Slavic language by the general public, not from the elevation of dignity of the Old Ukrainian (Ruthenian) language – that is, a pragmatic rather than ethno-national factor. Such motivation still occupies a significant place in the sociolinguistic processes of Ukraine, which inhibits its cultural and political progress. The pre-modern era, with its first national revival at the turn of the XVII–XVII centuries, crystallized into the iconic personality of Pamvo Berynda, is the turning point of our language history that still revives and inclines to ethno-national, not just pragmatic, priorities in the language issue. Lack of ethno-national self-awareness both then and now perform the half-way models of language beliefs and language behavior, which lead to regressive phenomena of hybridism. Keywords: linguistic consciousness, pre-modern time, postmodernism, plain Ruthenian language, «Slavonic-Ruthenian Lexicon», «Triodion», Hybridism.