Russian Linguistic Worldview Research Articles

The Semantic Structure of the Image of “Vision” in the Russian Linguistic Worldview

This article examines the structure of the image of “vision” in the Russian linguistic worldview. The structural reconstruction was performed through the study of the key meanings of “vision” in the Russian language. The proposition, a logical outline of the components involved in visual perception, was selected as a way by which the knowledge about “vision” is gathered. The following components were found to be a regular source of figurative meanings: the subject of visual perception, the process of visual perception, the subject’s features indicating the quality of visual perception, and the means of visual perception. The dominant meanings of different propositional elements constituting the structural core of the image of “vision” were revealed: “the ability to see,” “the quality of vision,” “light,” “mediation,” and “accommodation.” The main denotative spheres covered by the knowledge about “vision” were distinguished: the human sphere, as well as the spheres of artifacts (technical means of image capture, artificial light sources) and nature (primarily natural light sources). It was shown that the metaphors referring to the human sphere are based on the idea of a close connection between visual perception and mental activity. The anthropomorphic metaphors arising from the artifacts used to produce images are created following the same logical pattern. The metaphorical understanding of light sources, both artificial and natural, is determined by the association between “vision” and light in the minds of native Russian speakers.

Традиционные представления о собаке по данным русской паремиологии

The aim of the research is to establish the traditional perceptions of the dog in Russian linguaculture, using the material from V. I. Dal's ‘Proverbs of the Russian People’. The article identifies various characteristics of the animal (appearance, behavioral traits, human-dog relationships, comparison of dogs with other animals, etc.) that served as sources for folk sayings about dogs. It conducts a lexical-semantic and quantitative analysis of animal nominations, interprets the literal and metaphorical meanings of proverbs. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the reconstruction of the mid-19th-century image of the dog based on proverbial texts, including previously unstudied riddles, reflecting the perception of the animal in the collective consciousness of the Russian people. Dog features are classified into three aspects: 1) the dog as a domestic animal; 2) the dog and humans; 3) the dog and other animals. Proverbial units are interpreted as cognitive structures containing condensed information about the phenomenon of reality. The study proves that the linguo-cognitive interpretation of folklore texts of small genres allows for the reconstruction of a relatively complete image of the dog as a specific fragment of the Russian linguistic worldview.

Analysis of temporal and spatial systems in chinese linguoculture (on russian language background).

The present article is dedicated to the concepts of time and space as a fragment of the Russian and Chinese linguistic worldviews. Notions of time are fundamental to any culture and people's worldview, hence in this study, we attempt to "unify" the aspects of Chinese and Russian time and space that we have identified through research. Our research object, as a fragment of the Russian linguistic worldview, is connected with notions of time and space. The subject of our investigation is the linguistic means in which Russian speakers' notions of time are expressed, considered against the backdrop of the Chinese language in lexical, semantic, and grammatical aspects.The aim of the study is to identify and describe the main features of the representation of time in Chinese and Russian languages, as well as to highlight the main differences in the representation of time and space in the Chinese and Russian linguistic worldviews. Structural-semantic, linguacultural, and comparative analysis methods are employed to analyze the conceptual models of time in these two languages. The scientific novelty of this article lies in the attempt to use a spatial model to describe the concept of time in order to identify possible temporal dimensions in language, as well as in attempting to interpret and generalize the notions of time from the perspective of the cognitive perception of Chinese language speakers. The theoretical significance of this article lies in the endeavor to specify the cognitive perception of language speakers through the analysis of historical and cultural origins of time models, as well as in generalizing some regularities of time expression in modern languages. Studying the fundamental concept of time and space models contributes to the further development of cognitive models, translation, teaching Russian and Chinese as foreign languages etc.

ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЯ ОБРАЗА СТАРИКА В СОЗНАНИИ МОЛОДЫХ НОСИТЕЛЕЙ РУССКОЙ ЛИНГВОКУЛЬТУРЫ

The purpose of this article is to model the image of an old man in Russian linguistic culture, that is, to identify the conceptual, figurative and value features of the OLD AGE concept, verbalized by the old man lexeme. The main research methods are: conceptual and definitional analysis of the old man lexeme based on the material of lexicographic sources and reconstruction of associative-verbal networks of the lexeme-verbalizer of the concept; the analytical algorithm also includes the method of free associative experiment. The study revealed significant changes in the consciousness of young Russian speakers in perceiving of the old man stimulus. Semantic transformations primarily affected the value and figurative signs of an old man, namely: reactions describing the appearance of an elderly person became frequent: a gray-haired grandfather with a beard leaning on a cane. It was also found that in the minds of young speakers of Russian linguistic culture, the old man appears to be a kind, weak, sick, lonely person in need of help from others. Russian linguistic culture speakers’ consciousness can be penetrated by the results of the study and the potential associative characteristics of a significant fragment of the Russian linguistic world view can be reconstructed.

The semantic expression of “a labor”, “an expanse” and “a will” key concepts of the Russian linguistic world view in the poetry of A.V. Koltsov

This article demonstrates methodological techniques and fundamentals of anthropological linguistics by means of examples from Russian belletristics. Special attention is paid to the “key” concepts of the Russian linguistic world view, which to the fullest degree accumulate the ethnocultural meanings. Namely, the basic concepts of the Russian linguistic world view “a labor”, “an expanse” and “a will” and their representation in the artistic space of Alexey Vasilyevich Koltsov’s work are analyzed. The authors identify the specifics of the manifestation of the national linguistic world view stable concepts semantics in relation to the individual artistic picture of the world, determine how the concept of “labor” is foregrounded and romanticized in the poetry of A. Koltsov and establish the lexical and semantic field of the concepts “an expanse” and “a will”.

Лексико-семантическая экспликация понятийного компонента концептуальной триады МИЛОСЕРДИЕ – РАВНОДУШИЕ – ЖЕСТОКОСТЬ в русском и английском языках

The work aims to clarify the specifics of the notional representation of the conceptual triad MERCY – INDIFFERENCE – CRUELTY in Russian and English. The paper carries out a deeper analysis of the nature of interaction between the constituents of the triad under consideration to gain a better understanding of how the studied concepts in their interrelation are perceived by representatives of the compared linguistic cultures. The research is novel in that it is the first in linguistics to study the notional representation of the concepts MERCY, INDIFFERENCE, CRUELTY from the perspective of a systemic triad in Russian and English in comparison. It is revealed that the studied concepts, along with universal properties, exhibit the individual ethnic nature of relationships in the linguistic cultures under consideration. The study found that the Russian linguistic worldview confirms the essence of the triadic relations of mercy, indifference and cruelty, in which these concepts have points of interconnection. In English linguistic culture, mercy is contrasted with a dyadic tandem of indifference and cruelty, the boundary between which is not so clearly visualized, leading to one state merging into the other under certain circumstances.

Ключевые лингвокультурные ценности российской языковой картины мира в интернет-отзывах туристов о поездке в Китай

Tourist review is a popular and modern type of Internet communication. The object of consideration in the article is the Internet reviews of Russian tourists posted on social networks about a trip to China. 
 The purpose of the study is to analyze the Internet reviews of tourists in the axiological aspect and to identify the linguocultural specifics of the Russian linguistic worldview. 
 The material of the study was 585 texts of online reviews. The main research methods are the content analysis, interpretive and linguoculturological analyzes. 
 As a result of the study, the authors identify the key linguistic and cultural values of the Russian linguistic worldview, reflected in the concepts of travel, culture, knowledge, communication, China and hospitality, which make up the concept sphere of Russian tourism discourse with the destination China.

Когнитивные механизмы цветообозначений в рекламном туристическом нарративе (на примере озера Байкал)

The aim of the study is to determine the cognitive mechanisms of colour terms in the advertising tourist narrative. The scientific novelty of the work is accounted for by the problem statement: it is the first time that colour terms have been considered taking into account the mechanisms of their cognitive organisation in the advertising tourist narrative using Lake Baikal as an example. The paper analyses the views of researchers describing colour terms in the Russian linguistic worldview, the advertising discourse, cognitive linguistics, historical and comparative linguistics. The study emphasises that colour as a culture code is a significant cognitive category and colour terms possess associativity and axiological value, are connected to the history of the nation, its peculiarities in relation to ethnic norms, traditions, customs and rituals. As a result of the study, it has been found that the main cognitive mechanisms of colour terms in the advertising tourist narrative include foregrounding as the informational-pragmatic core in the structure of the textual whole; metaphor as a source of figurative naming; standard comparative constructions and realised comparisons. The analysis of the material attests to the fulfillment of the potential of lexical units with secondary colour naming in such main conceptual-thematic areas as “Animate nature” and “Inanimate nature”.

OTTEPEL (‘THAW’) AS A METAPHORICAL REFERENCE TO A HISTORICAL PERIOD

The article deals with the semantic structure of the word ottepel(‘thaw’), the relevant information comingfrom the National Corpus of the Russian language (hereinafter referred to as NCRL). The main attention is paid to ottepel(‘thaw’) as a metaphorical nomination of one of the periods of the Russian history. The aim of the article is to describe the semantic development of the word and to explain the peculiarities of its modern functioning and punctuation in derivative meanings. The basic meaning (the core seme - ‘change’) and its connotations (‘unpredict-ability’, ‘short duration’), realized in derivative meanings, are described. The pragmatics and syntactics of this lexeme of fatalism and uncontrollability, typical of the Russian linguistic world view, is revealed. The sources of high ‘positive potential’ of the metaphorottepel(‘thaw’) are discussed in detail, as well as the connection with connotations of the word ‘spring’ and with other ‘temperature’ metaphors. The opposition to the substantive of frost is considered as an element of the ‘cyclic’ representation of historical time. Based on the analysis of modern contexts, derivative meanings that are not recorded in dictionaries are identified, 250 contexts are distributed according to the selected meanings, and the punctuation of the word is analyzed. The authors provide the results of a linguistic experiment aimed at identifying the features of the punctuation design of a word in different meanings. The authors analyze the reasons why the widely used linguistic metaphor ottepel(‘thaw’) in the meaning of ‘historical period’ in most contexts is given in quotation marks, while in other derived meanings this metaphor is usually used without quotation marks, even if it has an occasional character. If, at the stage of the metaphor entering into the language, the use of quotation marks can be explained by reference to a literary source and vivid imagery, at present such explanations are not enough. In the considered derivative meaning, the word ottepel (‘thaw’) is an ideologeme - a word that belongs to an ideologically marked discourse, and quotation marks as an indicator of distancing allow the speaker to remove ideological bias, to make the nomination neutral. The conclusion is made that the derivative metaphorical meaning of thaw is a positively evaluative wordideologeme, which prevents it from becoming the main nomination of the corresponding historical period.

Ценностный концепт LOYALTY/ПРЕДАННОСТЬ в английской и русской лингвокультурах (на материале современных медиатекстов)

The aim of the study is a contrast-comparative analysis of the concept LOYALTY/ПРЕДАННОСТЬ in the English and Russian linguistic cultures, which allows us to identify the similarities and ethno-specific features of this phenomenon, representing the mentality and culture of the studied societies. The scientific novelty of this work is substantiated by the fact that the concept LOYALTY/ПРЕДАННОСТЬ has not been previously studied as a spiritual value of modern society on the basis of media texts with its subsequent comparison in the studied linguocultures. The paper presents the results of a contrast-comparative analysis of the field structures of the concept LOYALTY/ПРЕДАННОСТЬ, highlights its common and distinctive components in the English and Russian linguistic worldview.

러시아 민속문학에서 신체어 ‘코’의 언어문화적 함의 연구: 관용구와 속담을 중심으로

Somatism, which refers to human body parts, forms the basis of universal basic vocabulary in any language along with human history, and at the same time contains the linguistic and cultural specificity of a language. Humans understands the world through the sensory functions of body organs, and conceptualize objects of the external world by projecting them onto body lexicon. The human body was the most accessible means of self-observation, the basic measure for understanding the surrounding objects, and the most primitive form of expression of opinion. The human body was able to overcome limitations of the body by constructing a cognitive system based on accumulated experiences and fully transferring the linguistic function of memory and knowledge. Somatism is a basic vocabulary that exists in all languages. Folk literature texts are meaningful materials that show the historical and customary usage of somatism, various aspects of derivation, and the unique linguistic image of a nation. Somatism reflects the universal psychological characteristics of the language subject, the way of recognizing the world, the way of acting or thinking, and the way of expressing emotions. Therefore, idiomatic expressions including somatism are worthy linguistic phenomena that can examine the universality and specificity of a language. Somatism refers to human external body organs (faces, head, hands, nose, ears, etc.) as well as internal organs (heart, blood vessels, nerves, liver, etc.). This paper examines aspects of meaning expansion focusing on somatism used as a component of proverbs and idioms in folk literature texts that consider the communicative aspect of the language subject. We will analyze in depth the semantic structure of idioms and proverbs and examine the specificity of metaphorical and metonymic mechanisms and cultural variants of somatic idioms that reflect the unique Russian linguistic world view.

Национальная ментальность в зеркале происхождения репрезентантов орнитологических концептов в русском языке

This article presents a conceptual analysis of individual components of the structure of ornithological concepts important for the Russian linguistic worldview. The concepts SWALLOW (lastochka), STORK (aist) and SWAN (lebed’) are studied from the perspective of considering the motivating signs that form the basis for naming the representatives of these concepts as fragments of Russian national worldview and mentality. A concept originates upon the appearance of the primary sign – the inner, initial form of a word that objectifies a concept in a language. An overview of modern scholarly literature has shown that the abovementioned ornithological concepts have not been previously investigated in terms of the origin of their names in the Russian language. This constitutes the novelty of the article. The analysis identified 4 motivating signs of the concept SWALLOW (‘flying/to fly/to flutter’, ‘love/caress’, ‘fast’, ‘to jump’), 2 signs of the concept STORK (‘chernoguz stork’, ‘grey heron’) and 5 signs of the concept SWAN (‘white’, ‘white spot’, ‘dove’, ‘the Elbe’, ‘light/whitish’). All of the signs point to the primary national ideas about the concepts under study in the linguistic consciousness of the Russian people. These signs reflect the attitude of humans toward the birds and the idea of their place in each other’s lives. The identified motivating signs already contain “future” conceptual and symbolic signs. Turning to the National Corpus of the Russian Language for examples, the paper demonstrates the relevance of these motivating signs. Having studied the original meanings of these ornithological concepts in Russian linguoculture, the author concludes that the swallow is most often associated with humans, while the swan personifies God, and the stork is identified with the heron.

ОБРАЗ-СХЕМА КАК ТИП КОНЦЕПТА (на примере концепта «круг» в русской языковой картине мира)

This article discusses the traditional image schema theory, which is J. Lakoff and M. Johnson’s conceptual. Although it was introduced several decades ago, certain clarifications and refinements must be made to its framework and key terms in response to the latest advance in cognitive science. In particular, questions have been raised about certain properties of an image schema, such as bringing together different types of perception, relying primarily on human motor experience, abstractness, and being able to morph into other image schemas. For a better understanding of these properties, the concept “circle” in the Russian linguistic worldview was analyzed, and the following properties of the image schema were singled out by the methods of analysis (component, definitional, contextual, logical-linguistic, and etymological), modeling, and cognitive interpretation: spatiality (the presence of a spatial image), visualization, generalization of the experience to a logical scheme, high ability to form meaning due to the cognitive and semantic types of variation, and combinatorial activity (the ability to combine with various image schemas as parts of a larger image or to become the center of association for other image schemas in a different situation). Of special interest are the means of representation characteristic of an image schema: unlike in concepts of other types, its verbalization is performed with the help of not only lexical and phraseological means but also word-building morphemes with spatial semantics (prefixes). A macro-image schema can consist of many micro-image schemas bounded together under the principle of “family resemblance”, wherein any image schema can be central, i.e., play the role of a unifying one. The results obtained here on the refinement of the traditional image schema theory should promote further development of linguocognitive research.

Особенности реализации концепта ВОЗРАСТ ЖЕНЩИНЫ и его искажения в новостном дискурсе

The aim of the study is to identify the distortions of the WOMAN’S AGE concept in the news discourse of Russian online media. The scientific originality of the study lies in the fact that it for the first time raises both the question of the implementation of the WOMAN’S AGE concept in news discourse, and the problem of this concept distortions. As a result, such distortions as underestimation of woman’s age and ignorance of woman’s age characteristics were identified and described. These distortions reproduce stereotypes historically formed in the perception of female age in Russian linguistic culture and reflecting the dependent position of women. The analysis of the WOMAN’S AGE concept allows reconstructing the fragment of the Russian linguistic worldview behind it.

The Concept of Uchitel / Uchenik (Teacher / Pupil): Motivating Signs

The research was based on fifteen etymological and explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language and featured the motivating signs of the macroconcept uchitel / uchenik ( teacher / pupil ). Conceptual, descriptive, and interpretive analyses revealed 46 motivating signs, which indicates the long history of the macroconcept. The signs constituted thirteen blocks: 1. Results of cognitive activity (expertise, knowledge, skills, views, and experience). 2. The process and result of learning (teach, instruct, hold classes, inculcate, enrich, acquire, preach, train, study, memorize, learn). 3. Methods of teaching (instruction, teaching). 4. Method of memorization (repeat, get used to, get used, be adjusted to). 5. Participants of the educational process (teacher, student, lecturer, learner, mentor, educator), head of teaching, cleric, novice). 6. Mode of behavior (custom) 7. Commitment (admirer, fan, follower). 8. Violent ways of teaching (beat, punish, force). 9. Science (science, scientist, learning). 10. Educational institutions (school, college). 11. Effort (try). 12. Trust (trust). 13. Learning activity (learning, learning activity, studies, curricular, lesson, schooling, textbook). The signs grew less numerous with time: the contemporary Russian linguistic worldview contains only 41 out of the original 46.

Специфика функционирования концепта «автомобиль» в российских рекламных радиотекстах

Advertising is known to successfully combine elite and popular culture. It reflects the attitudes and values characteristic of modern society as well as participates in the formation of new views, beliefs and priorities, thus indirectly controlling the recipients’ actions. Radio advertising is specific due to the absence of visual images. In this respect, the text itself and the images it generates in the minds of listeners acquire special significance. Information is provided to recipients through the system of expressive language means only, attracting the audience’s attention and forming certain values. This article aimed to reveal the specifics of the CAR concept in radio advertisements, which had not been sufficiently studied before. The research material included 800 spot commercials obtained by means of continuous sampling. The following words were selected: avtomobil’, avto, mashina, kar (‘car’), mark (‘brand’), model’nyj ryad (‘model range’). The conceptual analysis allowed the author to identify the main and additional semantic components of the concept under study as well as to describe its value components. The research showed that the CAR concept in radio advertisements is special in terms of its ability to generate new meanings that go far beyond the dictionary definitions of the lexeme car. Value dominants of the Russian linguistic worldview are transformed in radio advertisements to meet the needs of the audience.

Семантические преобразования лексемы менталитет в метафорических моделях субъектно-предикатных отношений

This article presents a new stage of the research project on the frontal analysis of conditions and results of contextual actualization of lexemes representing the Russian concept MENTALITET/MENTAL’NOST’ (‘MENTALITY’). Here, the author studied the word mentalitet (‘mentality’) in non-usual subject-predicate combinations. The aim was to analyse semantic transformations of the lexeme mentalitet in the conceptual metaphorical models of reification and animation. L.O. Cherneiko’s method of cognitive interpretation of abstract words and the method of conceptual analysis elaborated by Nizhny Novgorod Conceptological School were applied in the paper. For material the author turned to the Russian National Corpus. The scientific value of the article consists in introducing a new aspect of conceptual analysis, i.e. conceptual metaphorical transformations of the word mentalitet in subject-predicate combinations. The key findings are as follows: 1) in the contexts of conceptual metaphorical reification, the lexeme mentalitet is interpreted as a sensually perceived object: a concrete thing, device, mechanism, material (substance); 2) in the contexts of conceptual metaphorical animation, mentalitet is perceived as a living, rationally and efficiently acting being endowed with consciousness, emotions and will. The author comes to the conclusion that this borrowed abstract concept has been to a large extent appropriated by the Russian linguistic worldview. The paper makes a sufficient contribution to contemporary cognitively oriented linguoculturological research strategies as well as to the theory and practice of conceptual analysis. The practical value of the article lies in the opportunity to use its main results in journalism and PR projects, as well as in compiling a new type of concept dictionaries and in linguistic examination of media texts.

Концепт МУЗЫКА в русской языковой картине мира (на материале лексикографических источников)

The article is devoted to the description of the concept MUSIC in a Russian linguistic worldview. The target of the paper is to analyze Russian lexicographic sources and try to depict the structure of the complex universal concept MUSIC according to the modern postulates of cognitive linguistics. And understand how Russians treats music as a phenomenon. The structure of the concept consists of cognitive elements which is usually verbalized in words. It is spoken in details about sensual image (music is beauty, passion, euphoria), informative content (music is an art in general, a piece of art, the sound of a piece of art and a harmonic sound in general), interpretative content (music is beautiful, music is a message, we need to study it, music educates and entertains us, the names of the musicians becomes the part of our culture, the idioms content the word with musical semantics describe professional sphere of the musicians and social sphere of common people etc.) of the concept. A brief description of musical metaphoric is also given (the music of life, the music of words etc.). The paper concludes with a consideration that MUSIC is a complex and poly aspect phenomenon. The huge number of representatives indicates the important of the concept in Russian worldview.

Фразеологизмы с местоимением я в свете ключевых идей русской языковой картины мира

This article presents a part of a comprehensive research on lexicographic portraying of Russian personal pronouns in the context of the communicative-pragmatic, linguoculturological, and cognitive linguistic approaches. The paper aimed to describe semantic, stylistic, and functional properties of Russian phraseological units containing the pronoun ya (‘I’) and its case forms in terms of representation of key culturally significant ideas of the Russian linguistic worldview. The author applied the pronoun referential analysis methodology developed on the basis of E.V. Paducheva’s ideas. The material included data of Russian explanatory dictionaries as well as a semantic and a phraseological dictionary. The usage examples were extracted from the Russian National Corpus. The scientific value of this paper consists in introducing a new aspect of Russian personal pronouns analysis, namely, the cultural significance of phraseological units with the pronominal component ya in the Russian linguistic worldview. It is shown that phraseological units containing the pronoun ya and its case forms have considerable conceptual and evaluative potential for representing culturally significant ideas and attitudes of the Russian linguistic worldview. These phraseological units embody empathic attitude (estimation of the degree of a speaker’s personal involvement in the situation) and the idea of primary importance of the speaker’s world to him/herself. The human ‘I’ in phraseology is a natural measure of norms and values, a criterion of one’s attitude to outward things. The paper makes a certain contribution to the theory and practice of integral description of language as well as to the linguoculturological study on Russian phraseological units. In terms of practice, the results can be used in teaching linguoculturological disciplines at universities and compiling a new type of dictionaries, as well as in forensic linguistics.

Источник и исследования повседневных словосочетаний в русской картине мира

This study examines the origins behind the meaning of everyday phrases forming the linguistic world image of Russian speakers. A large corpus of linguistic literature concerns the lexicon and phraseology and only a few studies look at phrases as the most common forms of thought formation in everyday pragmatics. The aim of this study was to identify origins behind the meaning of everyday phrases, and analyze their role and place in the formation and presentation of the linguistic world image in linguistic pragmatics. Unlike most studies, this work examines the problem of the worldview rooted in the language through the content analysis of phrases, rather than single lexemes, and analyzes them in the context of everyday use. The study monitored 128 individuals, aged 18 to 61 years, for three days to determine what phrases they use every day. The collected linguistic data underwent statistical processing and unique categorizes were distinguished. Of these categorizes, only one is likely to convey the linguistic worldview (it contains words with a broad range of meanings and multi-level semantics). The other two categorizes reflect single characteristics of linguistic consciousness and the pragmatics of social interaction. The results of the study may be useful in establishing links between the cognitive and communicative functions of the language and creating a map of the Russian linguistic worldview for the comparative linguistic research purposes.