Russian Feast: The Verbal Realisation of the Celebration Script

Abstract

This article describes the cultural script of the Russian feast. The author refers to texts of conversations recorded using the participant observation method and reflecting the communicative-speech interaction of the speakers of the Ural urban vernacular. The method of script analysis makes it possible to consider a feast as a communicative event, structure it, present it as a sequence of episodes, and open up the possibility for its holistic description. Hospitality is considered a distinctive feature of the Russian national character, the basic value of Russian culture. A feast as a meeting of people on a festive occasion, accompanied by a meal and alcohol, reflects not only typical actions but also typical value ideas, norms, and attitudes of the carriers of the national-cultural community revealed in the process of feast communication. The article consistently examines the supporting links of the cultural script: preliminary preparation for a feast, receiving and honouring guests, refreshments, and conversations at the table. The author describes the role rights and obligations of the hosts and guests, identifying some situational and behavioral attitudes confirming the values of cordiality, hospitality, communicative hedonism, and socio-centricity. Of particular interest is the linguoculturological analysis of table conversations and toasts of the speakers of the Ural vernacular. It reveals the significance of such cultural constants as family, home, work, and “one’s own”. The cultural peculiarities of colloquial communication are manifested in the detabooing of topics related to the physiological needs of a person, in the openness of one’s own and others’ personal space, the inalienable right to an emotional and evaluative interpretation of speech-behavioural reactions of members of “one’s circle”. The organic nature of the cultural script rests on jokes, general laughter reactions, and carnivalisation of speech behavior. The integrative function of the identified attitudes ensures the harmonisation of the participants’ speech behaviour in the feast.