Terminology of Theatre: Objectives and Methods of Research

Abstract

The paper summarizes the practical experience and observations ofthe author that were accumulated in the process of decades-long research of theterminology of theatre and assembling the theatre terminology dictionaries.From the theoretical viewpoint, it is an attempt to implement the ideas of«uncovering the language» and its inherent social phenomena. This ideasimultaneously emerged in the minds of the two most influential authors of thetwentieth century—Ludwig Wittgenstein (language games) and Bertolt Brecht(Verfremdungseffekt, an estrangement effect). Each of them uses these ideas toaddress different tasks—theoretical and artistic ones—nevertheless, they havethe same aim (despite varying fields of application). That is, determining thevalue of language (objectivity and potential risks of manipulation), i. e. the termsand systems of terms, on the basis of which theatre studies (or, in a broaderscope, art studies and some part of the humanities) solve its tasks.