The concept of death in euphemistic view of the world on the material of English, German, Russian and Buryat languages

Abstract

The category of “death” is based on the concept antipodal to the category of “life”. Death marks the end of life; its semantic dominant is the notion of the “absence of being” of a human. Meanwhile, “death” is a socially formed category, and the stance on this phenomenon is developed under the influence of a range of factors – literature, art, religious doctrines, cultural rituals, and burial traditions. There exists an opinion on the intuitive and explicable commonness of views of the cultures of different nations and religious representations with regards to “remembrance of the dead and veneration of their souls”. The concept of “death” as one of the basic meanings of human being, can be ranked among universal, holding a special place within the linguistic view of the world. Perhaps this explains the interest of the researchers to this concept. The subject of this article is the euphemisms of the English, German, Russian and Buryat languages that form semantic space of the concept of “death”. The scientific novelty lies in introduction into the scientific discourse of the previously unstudied euphemisms of Buryat language representing the concept of “death”; as well as determination of the universal in English, German and Russian languages nationally marked components reflecting the linguistic view of the world by various ethnoses and cultures.