Word-Formational Formant as a Tool of the Process of Native Speakers’ Ethnocultural Identity (Case Study: Dialect Derivatives with the Formant –уш/а)

Abstract

Modern multicultural space is a result of globalisation processes at all levels of human activity. However, a complex of tendencies towards unification gives rise to academic interest in the study of language in the aspect of its functional characteristics as a way of forming ethnocultural entity of a linguistic community. Dialects are a specific language subsystem, which has its own unique units for the process of nomination of persons, artifacts and natural facts of the surrounding reality. Due to its sphere of functioning, the word-formation formant –уш/а is a linguistic unit that is used by the dialect speakers for an alternative to the literary language way of creating nouns denoting plants, animals, and fish. Derivative words with such a suffix represent the value paradigm, verbalised through the relevant for a person qualities of objects, such as taste, colour, shape, place of growth, and functional properties. The appeal to dialectal derivative vocabulary with the archaic suffix, which is not currently used in the literary Russian language, gives an opportunity to describe the cognitive processes of the linguistic creativity of the Russian-speaking population in terms of its typical and unique features