Native Speakers Of Language Research Articles

From language to meteorology: kinesis in weather events and weather verbs across Sinitic languages

Interactions among the environment, humans and language underlie many of the most pressing challenges we face today. This study investigates the use of different verbs to encode various weather events in Sinitic languages, a language family spoken over a wide range of climates and with 3000 years of continuous textual documentation. We propose to synergise the many concepts of kinesis that grew from Aristotle’s original ideas to account for the correlation between meteorological events and their linguistic encoding. It is observed that the two most salient key factors of weather events, i.e., mass of weather substances and speed of weather processes, are the two contributing components of kinetic energy. Leveraging the linguistic theory that kinesis underpins conceptualisation of verb classes, this paper successfully accounts for the selection of verbs for different meteorological events in all Sinitic languages in terms of both language variations and changes. Specifically, weather events with bigger weather substances and faster weather processes tend to select action verbs with high transitivity. The kinesis driven accounts also predict the typological variations between verbal and nominal constructions for weather expressions. The correlation between kinesis and the selection of verbs is further corroborated by an experiment on the perception of native Sinitic language speakers, as well as analyses of regional variations of verb selections that do not follow general typological patterns. It is found that such typological exceptions generally correspond to variations in meteorological patterns. By explicating the pivotal role of kinesis in bridging weather events and the linguistic encoding of weather, this study underlines the role of cognition as the conceptualisation of physical and sensory inputs to sharable knowledge encoded by language.

RESEARCH OF ORAL SPEECH WITH SIGNS OF INTERLINGUAL INTERFERENCE, VERNACULAR WITH FOREIGN LANGUAGE ELEMENTS, IMITATION OF SPEECH IN NON-NATIVE LANGUAGE

The need to write this article is due to the linguistic situation, that has developed, in particular, in Ukraine, when, as a result of the activation of migration processes, the object of forensic research is increasingly becoming speech with foreign language elements. Based on this, an acute problem arises of developing methodological approaches to the forensic study of speech material with signs of interlingual interference, its distinction from common speech using foreign language elements (pidgin in Ukrainian realities), and, if necessary, the appearance of signs of imitation of speech in a non-native language. The article deals with the universal basic criteria for establishing signs of interlingual interference: consistency, complexity, predictability, stability of their manifestation, which makes it possible to distinguish them from signs of speech in the native language, and, no less important, from signs of pidgin or imitation, which do not have the above properties. The possibilities of obtaining useful information in the process of studying speech with signs of interlingual interference are also analyzed, which concerns, in particular: 1) establishing whether the speaker is a native speaker of the language in which he speaks; 2) establishing the native language of the speaker (provided that the expert is fluent in this language); 3) establishing whether the participants in the polylogue or dialogue are speakers of one or different languages; 4) conducting an identification study of speech in a non-native language of two speakers of the same language, etc. Proceeding from the fact that interlingual interference is, in fact, a complex feature that can be unambiguously established only if its manifestations are recorded at different linguistic levels, the article discusses possible forms of its implementation in phonetic, prosodic, morphological, lexical, syntactic, ethnolinguistic levels. As specific examples of a comprehensive study of the signs of interlanguage interference, the article sets out the systems of the main signs of interlanguage interference that can be recorded in the speech in Russian of the native speakers of the Ukrainian language and in the speech in the Ukrainian language of the native speakers of the Russian language.

Коннотативные макротопонимы: динамический аспект

We present an analysis of the connotative potential of macrotoponyms Asia, America, Europe, China, Russia, whose emotional-evaluative connotations form a fragment of the value world picture of modern native speakers of the Russian language. The purpose of the undertaken research is to find out onymic and postonymic connotations of the onyms which have taken shape under the influence of political, economical and cultural factors in the Russian society for the last three decades. To evaluate these connotations we analyze the contextual usage of the studied onyms in connotative usage in texts of mass media and journalism. We determine the dynamic of the research macrotoponyms connotations in the designated period. We identify persistent connotations of research toponyms, connotations which are losing their relevance and connotation which are forming last several years. This indicates the mobility of the language consciousness of native speakers of the Russian language, also this shows that this or that connotative meaning of onym is relevant in a certain period of time. An interesting fact is that by macrotoponyms Europe and America positive connotations are replaced by negative connotations. Toponyms Asia, China and toponyms China, Russia has synonymous connotations. Connotations of toponym Europe are often contrasted with connotations of toponym Russia. The obtained results can be used by the lexicographic description of the research connotative toponyms.

НОВООТКРЫТЫЙ РУКОПИСНЫЙ СЛОВАРЬ КОМИ-ЗЫРЯНСКОГО ЯЗЫКА В ИСТОРИИ КОМИ ЛЕКСИКОГРАФИИ

The article presents an analysis of the lexical composition of the newly discovered Zyryan-Russian dictionary of the 17th century and clarifies its place in the history of Komi lexicography. The article solves the problems of classification of lexicographic monuments and systematization of approaches to their description, and reveals gaps in research that has not been conducted since the mid-20th century. The currently known lexicographic monuments of the Komi language are limited to the dictionary materials of D.G. Messerschmidt, F.I. Stralenberg, G.F. Miller, P.S. Pallas and I.I. Lepekhin; the materials were collected during their expeditions in the 1720s–1770s. Unlike the church monuments of the Old Komi language of the 14th–17th and 18th centuries, the materials have not yet received a thorough archaeographic description, textual analysis and cultural and historical interpretation. The new Zyryan-Russian dictionary, discovered as part of the manuscript collection of the monk Prokhor Kolomnyatin and accurately dated (1668), is the earliest monument in the history of Komi lexicography today. The dictionary is interesting because it belongs to the period almost undocumented by written evidence and differs from all existing monuments in its dialect basis. The article describes the structure of the dictionary, thoroughly analyzes the lexical composition and presents most of its content, and reveals parallels with the dictionary materials of other monuments. The Russian-Komi dictionary-phrasebook that I.I. Lepekhin found and published in his Diary Notes is considered in more detail. Later V.I. Lytkin reprinted and deciphered the phrasebook, as well as made commentaries on it in his Old Permic Language (1952); thus, it became an auxiliary material for the reconstruction of the Old Komi language of the 14th–17th centuries. The dictionary dates back to the 18th century, although it has not been subjected to serious cultural-historical and chronological attribution. The newly discovered monument, unlike Lepekhin’s dictionary created by the type of translated old Russian dictionaries-phrasebooks based on the Russian questionnaire, reflects the live Komi-Zyryan language of the second half of the 17th century. It does not contain typical phrases, phrases from dialogues and connected texts that are typical of translated phrasebooks. There is only a certain tendency towards a thematic presentation of the material, although not always consistent. Like the dictionary materials contained in the draft papers of Russian and foreign travellers of the 18th century, the vocabulary of the new dictionary was written by the author of the collection directly from the words of a native speaker (or native speakers) of the Komi language in order to fix it and, apparently, was not intended for communicative use. Unlike the existing dictionary materials, which often contain short lists of Komi numerals, the new dictionary contains a consistent detailed money vocabulary list, from “denga” to “thousand rubles”. Numerical values are given in the Cyrillic numeral system using letters, which is undoubtedly of interest for ethnohistorical research and Russian paleography.

К бурятско-якутским этническим связям: *ǰimken || *емкон, *жемкон

The article is devoted to the analysis of the Yakut ethnonym *J̌emkon and *Yemkon, which can be identified in the personal onomastics (the name Zhemkon and surname Yemkonov) and derived names of various administrativeterritorial units (Yemkonskaya or Yamkonskaya volost’, Zhemkonskiy nasleg) recorded in the Russian documents. For the first time, the ethnonym becomes known in the documents of 17th century related to the population of the Lena River valley, which later became part of the Kangalasskiy ulus. Later the name was recorded in Vilyuy region. The modern Yakut spelling cöppön, cökpön, cökkön, cömkön reflects a late adaptation in the Yakut environment. In this connection the authors of the article draw their attention to the ethnonym known among the Buryats. It is widespread in different versions over vast territories among several ethnic-territorial groups of the Buryats. It is form Zemχed (letter ǰimked) of the Khori (Qori) tribe Khudai (Qudai). The various forms of the ethnonym and the corresponding eponyms as Yenχen, Zenχen, Ženχen, Žinχen are widely represented both among the Khori (Qori) tribe Galzut (Γalzuud) settled not only among the Khori (Qori) and Aga Buryats, and among the Verkholensk, Ol’khon, and Barguzin ethno-territorial groups of Western Buryats. The analysis shows that the Russian spelling of the Yakut ethnonym could reflect an adaptation of the original variant to be close to the pronunciation of *ǰimken (~ *dʹimken?), which in turn makes it possible to characterize its phonetic appearance as tending to Western Buryat dialects. Therefore, there are reasons to associate the penetration of this ethnonym into the Yakut environment with native speakers of a Western Buryat type language. The etymology of the analyzed name is difficult. Formal analysis of morphology leads to the opinion that the possible reconstructed semantics would be more likely to a personal name or toponym. It is also noted that it is possible to consider the spelling *J̌imken ~ *Yimken as correspond in its Mongolic form to the name known from the sources of the 11th–14th centuries and related to the Turkic tribe Yemäk ~ Yimäk. However, the authors leave this remark only as a hypothesis to be possible for further discussions.

“Texts about texts”, or “Communication about communication” (based on the unprepared reading of Russian texts by native speakers of Russian and Chinese languages)

“Texts about texts”, or “Communication about communication” (based on the unprepared reading of Russian texts by native speakers of Russian and Chinese languages)

СЕНТИМЕНТ-АНАЛИЗ ЧИТАТЕЛЬСКОГО КОММЕНТАРИЯ: АВТОМАТИЗИРОВАННАЯ VS РУЧНАЯ ОБРАБОТКА ТЕКСТА

The verbal and structural features of the reader comment, a genre of Internet communication, were studied. The method of sentiment analysis (ParallelDots API) was used to reveal and measure the emotive component of the reader comments (N = 3000) in the English and Russian languages. The results obtained were verified by the manual linguistic text analysis. The experts were specialists in the field of philology of the English and Russian languages (N = 6), students of philology, as well as native speakers of the Russian language for whom English is a foreign language, i.e., their level of proficiency is C1 (N = 4). As a result of the comparison of the data collected through the automated and manual text processing, a number of factors that reduce the reliability of the results of automated sentiment analysis of the reader comments were singled out. Difficulties hindering the objective determination of the sentiment by the program were found in the reader comments in both analyzed languages. This is indicative of the structural similarities between the English and Russian reader comments at the lexical and syntactic levels. The feasibility of the mixed automated and manual text processing in order to obtain more detailed and objective data was demonstrated. The results of this work can be used for comparative studies of two or more languages performed by the method of sentiment analysis, as well as for drawing parallels between the lexical, grammatical, and cultural components of languages.

Features of construction of a spontaneous monologue-description (on the material of Russian speech by the native speakers of Russian and Chinese languages)

Features of construction of a spontaneous monologue-description (on the material of Russian speech by the native speakers of Russian and Chinese languages)

Коннотативные имена собственные постсоветского периода: особенности понимания и воспроизведения

The paper presents the results of an experimental study of the proper names that have changed or acquired emotional and evaluative connotations over the last 30 years (the connotative names used in a figurative sense in the texts of different genres). The experiment, 200 respondents from Volgograd and Tyumen involved two stages: first, the degree of names recognition was determined, second, the level of reproducibility of these names in a figurative meaning was identified. Socio-political situation changes tend to lead to significant semantic shifts in the meaning of well-known connotative names. Of particular relevance is the post-Soviet period, a new stage in the history of modern Russia, due to having affected both the economic and political processes in the country and the value priorities of Russian society reflected in the language of the last three decades. Psycholinguistic methods for studying lexical semantics, namely, the method of addition and synonymous replacement and the method of restoring incomplete utterance, were applied to establish the features of understanding and reproducibility of connotative names of the post-Soviet period by native speakers of the Russian language. The results allow ranking the names according to the degree of recognition (low, medium, or high) and marking the levels of reproducibility (names with stable or lost connotations). The regional and age peculiarities of understanding and reproducing the connotative names of the post-Soviet period are noted. The prospects and relevance of the lexicographic description of the connotative names are determined.

THE CONCEPT PATRIOTISM IN THE CHINESE LINGUISTIC WORLDVIEW

The article analyzes the concept of “PATRIOTISM”, which is closely connected with the core of the value system of the Chinese people. The aim of the study is to discover the cultural associative components of semantic structure of the concept of “PATRIOTISM” in the Chinese linguistic worldview. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that the components of the concept of “PATRIOTISM” in the Chinese linguistic worldview are considered with the help of a combination of the methods of conceptual analysis, contextual analysis and associative field analysis. The article presents the results of the analysis of the Chinese phraseological units and well-known sayings, as well as the reactions of Chinese respondents to the word-stimulus “patriotism”, obtained during free associative experiments. Based on these data, the author describes the specificity of the associative-semantic perception of the concept by native speakers of Chinese. In the linguistic consciousness of the Chinese, patriotism is often associated with the words and expressions “to love home/family”, “to love the people”, “feeling”, “to contribute”, “dedication to work”, “duty”, “five-star red flag”, and “China”. In the minds of the modern Chinese youth, patriotism, just as in ancient times, is associated with passion, enthusiasm, pride, fervent love for the country and with the image of China in the heart of a person. In the minds of modern native speakers of the Chinese language and culture, patriotism is expressed in the politics of our time. There are special cultural-semantic components in the Chinese linguistic worldview: a true patriot is ready to fight and die to save their Motherland.

АББРЕВИАТУРА В ГРАММАТИКЕ ГОВОРЯЩЕГО: ЭКСПЕРИМЕНТАЛЬНОЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ

The article presents the results of a directed associative experiment carried out with high school students of secondary schools. The purpose of the article is to reveal the relationship between the structural and semantic features of the utterance and the strategies of the respondents’ choice of a linguistic sign (word/abbreviation) in the context of a directed associative experiment. The analysis of the experimental material made it possible to draw conclusions about the peculiarities of using the initial abbreviation as an associate; about the possibility of the abbreviation of stable and individual, situational associative links; about the strategies for choosing a linguistic sign (words, abbreviations, phrases) depending on the semantics of the reference word and the type of grammatical structure of the experimental sentence; on the consolidation of initial abbreviations in the linguistic consciousness of native speakers of the Russian language, which is associated with the strengthening of the law of economy of linguistic means in modern speech communication.

Аб магчымым уплыве грэцкай мовы на развіццё дзеепрыметнікаў залежнага стану цяперашняга часу ў славянскіх мовах

The passive participles of the present tense have been actively used only in Russian out of all Slavic languages since the 19th century and are a grammatical category that is not accepted by all native speakers of the standard Belarusian language as a normative one. During the development of Slavic languages, it has been experiencing two opposite tendencies: decline and revival. The article examines extralinguistic and intralinguistic factors that could have influenced the development of this verb form in a number of Slavic languages. According to the author, the bilingual Slavic-Greek consciousness of the creators of Slavic writing could have influenced the strengthening of these forms in the Russian language. The article analyzes possible connections of the Slavic participles of the present tense with the medial and passive participles of the Greek language in the light of their common origin from the Indo-European participle, as well as the process of development of participles during the restructuring of the voice category and in connection with the development of the aspect category.

Social distance and speech behavior: A case of Pakistani English speakers’ apology responses

This study investigates the production and perception of apology responses (ARs) of English-using Pakistanis (L2), British English speakers (Native speakers of the target language), and Pakistani Urdu speaker (L1) under the influence of social distance variables. For data collection, two instruments are used; a discourse completion test (DCT in English and Urdu) and a scale response questionnaire (SRQ in English and Urdu). Findings signal that three groups tend to use more Acceptance strategies with the interlocutors of social distance than the close and neutral level respondents, moreover, close and distant level participants tend to favor the use of Acknowledgement ARs than neutral social distance participants, besides, the Evasion category demonstrates that BritE speakers of close social distance prefer the use of Evasion (EV) ARs more often than EuP and PakU. Further, at neutral and distant levels, three groups tend to use a similar proportion of EV strategies. The least number of ARs interacting with social distance factor is used in Rejection category. The close social distance level participants of three groups (EuP, BritE, and PakU) tend to prefer the use of more Rejection strategies than the participants of neutral and distant social distance levels. The SRQ results indicate the operation of negative pragmatic transfer where English-using Pakistanis have assigned the similar values in Situation1 and Situation4 as the PakU group participants have allocated. Generally, both EuP and PakU group approximated the target culture’s sociopragmatic knowledge, both groups assessed the speaker’s close and distant social relation quite significantly equal a pattern that indicates development towards the target culture’s sociopragmatic norms while still under the influence of the L1

Перехресний усний переклад у Словаччині: табуйована реальність

The present paper is a partial research work within the author’s dissertation thesis and seeks evidence to refute or support the hypothesis that interpreters are more effective in terms of quality when working into their mother tongue in comparison with interpreters working between two foreign languages. The data for this study were collected via interpreting questionnaires with thirteen selected criteria (e.g. native accent, pleasant voice, exaggerated fillers, fluency of delivery, logical cohesion, sense consistency, completeness of interpretation, significant omissions, use of correct terminology, etc.) that had been filled out (assessed on a 5-grade scale) by three target groups (professional interpreters, students of interpreting and so-called delegates), after having listened to three records of simultaneous interpretation (from English into Russian/Ukrainian). The records include three conference interpretations of a speech by NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, delivered in English on defensce and political topics. Two of the three interpreters (N 1 and N 2) are native speakers of the target language, while the third interpreter (N 3) works between two foreign languages. This paper presents the results for three target groups’ rating of the selected quality criteria for simultaneous interpretation. The aim of the present paper lies within comparing the output-related quality of B to A language interpreting vs. B to B language interpreting from the audience quality perception point of view.

Эксперимент как метод выявления имплицитных смыслов в лингвистических экспертизах по делам о рекламе

In general, modern linguistics is characterized by an appeal to the everyday (linguistic and metalinguistic) consciousness of native speakers of the Russian language. The relevance of using the experimental method, with the help of which it is possible to obtain indications of everyday consciousness, is also noticeable in the field of legal linguistics, in particular, for resolving controversial situations arising in cases of advertising. This article substantiates the need to use the experimental method in order to obtain objective conclusions in linguistic studies and examinations on advertising texts based on the analysis of the testimony of ordinary linguistic consciousness, and not on the introjection of a specialist-expert. A specific case of using the experimental method to solve a conflict situation associated with the functioning of an advertising text is considered. In this case, special attention is paid to the formulation of questions and the interpretation of the results of the experiment.

О роли антропоцентрического фактора в реализации деривационного потенциала наименований копытных животных как мотивирующих лексем

The paper is dedicated to describing the word-building system of the Russian language in terms of its vocabulary. Lexical factors are discussed influencing the formation of lexical units’ potential as motivating units of word-building processes and relations and the realization of this potential in language activities. Of most interest for the authors are anthropocentric determinants, most of which are coordinating the lexical system and, through its mediation, the word-building system with the worldview of native speakers of the Russian language. The proposed model of derivational development of vocabulary provides such coordination through studying the deep-seated process of conceptualization of the words that are the potential motivators of neologisms. This study identifies the word frequency as an external manifestation of conceptualization. The frequency data were obtained from Google search system statistical data. Capturing not only usual but also occasional and potential words, this source is an effective tool for studying word-building processes and their results. This study has unveiled the interrelation between the language worldview of native speakers of Russian and their “word-building behavior” in language activities. The worldview has been found, first of all, to be determined by the pragmatic factor, which primarily influences the usage of a word in the speech reflected by its frequency. The frequency ranks lexical units due to their derivational potential and thereby provides a researcher with a reliable instrument for its study.

Representing school discourse stimuli

Discourse study in contemporary science is characterized by various approaches, whose integrative feature is the fact that this theoretical phenomenon is considered as a communicative activity and is caused by anthropocentric factors of speech generation. The representation of school discourse stimuli allows simulating the speech portrait of participants in educational activities. School discourse is a complex communicative phenomenon created by the subjects of the school educational process. It reflects the totality of accepted values and behavioral stereotypes in a particular socio-cultural space. The work aims to investigate the stimuli of school discourse. This work was conducted employing methods, such as 1) the free associative experiment; 2) quantitative analysis, which allowed identifying the actualization of the incentive perception based on quantitative data; and 3) discursive and conceptual analysis, which involved the identification of concepts, simulating them based on the conceptual totality of the means of their lexical representation in the usage. In the course of conducted study, about 600 native speakers of the Russian language were interviewed, and 9,440 associations were obtained for the school discourse stimuli. In the language consciousness of schoolchildren and teachers, associations for the “Family” stimulus were dominant, and the associative field of this stimulus was represented most broadly. The smallest number of associations was noted with regard to the “Evil” stimulus. The frequency of associations in the stimuli “Good”, “Happiness”, “Love”, “Friendship”, “Joy”, and “Labor” was approximately the same. The representation of school discourse stimuli reflects the value system, worldviews, moods, and assessments of recipients. Such a study was conducted for the first time.

Semantic and linguocultural features of English and Uzbek proverbs with concept of friendship

The concept of "friendship" is one of the main categories of ethical character that determines the spiritual values of a national culture. The concept of "friendship" is a complex, on the one hand, but interesting, on the other hand, the object of research in a comparative aspect. This concept has its own slots: mental, moral, ethical, spiritual, etc., and "when comparing, a set of semantic features is formed, the totality of which forms a "standard of comparison".The study of the concept of "friendship" is one of the most important inexhaustible sources of social, national and cultural information about native speakers of a particular language. At the present stage of scientific development, this aspect is undoubtedly becoming relevant and is explained by the need to study it for a deep understanding of the culture of a particular nation or ethnic group.

Noun Phrase in Mandailing Language

This paper discusses on the rules of Noun Phrase (NP) in Mandailing language. The objectives are firstly to structurally examine the phrase structure rules (PSR) of NP in Mandailing language and to investigate the constituents of each rules in NP. The method is descriptive qualitative with a case study. The data taken from the native speakers of Mandailing language through interviewing. The data are the utterances of Mandailing language in daily conversation. The analysis is based on the use of X-Bar theory, to see how NPs in Mandailing language are hierarchically governed and presented in tree diagram. Thus, the findings showed that there are five major rules of NP in Mandailing language, (a) single noun as headword, (b) pre-modifier preceedes head noun, (c) post-modifiers follows head noun, (d) head noun between pre-modifier and post-modifier, and (e) complex NP with coordinative conjunction. Also, there is found particle na to relate NP with the complement such as AP. To summarize, Mandailing language has similar patterns of word order with Indonesia language. Overall, this research gives contribution to provide a deep understanding in studying morphosyntactic in linguistics especially phrase structures beyond the effort on exploring and revitalizing a regional language in Indonesia.

КОНЦЕПТ «СЕМЬЯ» В УСТНЫХ АВТОБИОГРАФИЧЕСКИХ РАССКАЗАХ ЖИТЕЛЕЙ СИБИРИ

The aim of the article is to analyze the implementation of the concept “family” in the speech genre of an autobiographical story. The research material is 200 oral autobiographical stories, which were recorded in the villages of Tomsk Oblast during dialectological expeditions from 1946 till 2021. The informants are residents of villages of Tomsk Oblast; they are representatives of different types of speech culture (native speakers of dialect and literary language). All stories are characterized by a relatively stable theme, means of language implementation, and structure, which allows qualifying them as a speech genre whose communicative purpose is to tell about life from the moment of birth to the moment of communication. The novelty of the article is connected with: (1) its appeal to the problem of interaction and mutual influence of the concept and the speech genre in oral everyday discourse, (2) the identification of cognitive features of the concept, (3) the definition of factors of transformation of ideas about the family in ordinary consciousness. The analysis of the concept makes it possible to obtain new data about the speech genre of the autobiographical story and its construction. The speech genre shows the dependence of the features of the content and implementation of the concept “family” on the sphere of functioning. This factor determines the theoretical significance of the results obtained. The analysis of the concept in the speech genre is carried out using the method of modeling and description of the conceptual, figurative, and value layers in the structure of the concept. As a result of contextual analysis, 16 cognitive features were identified; they are represented in the conceptual layer of the concept “family” and actualized in the speech of informants (family size, social status, compliance with moral norms, relations between family members, attitude to work, etc.). The conceptual layer is developed in detail in the oral everyday communication of Siberians. It is represented by a large number of lexical units. The figurative layer of the concept is characterized by single actualizations. At the same time, the variety of their expression is noted: metaphor, metonymy, comparisons are used. The world of the family can form the initial and resulting spheres of metaphorical models. In the initial sphere, the world of plants (roots, mushrooms), products (noodles) is mainly reflected; the semantics of unity and kinship is actualized in the initial sphere. The value layer of the concept “family” is well represented in the oral autobiographical discourse. It indicates that the family occupies one of the main places in the system of life values of peasants. The specifics of structuring this concept in the oral everyday discourse are determined mainly by the attitudes, norms of traditional culture (the family should be large, friendly, hardworking, young members of family honor the older ones, etc.). At the same time, changes in the system of family values determined by sociohistorical processes are noted. These changes are evaluated ambiguously by informants, and the family is still one of the main values of life for them. Regional (natural, social, historical, geographic) specificity is reflected in the actualization of the concept.