The Concept «Human» In The Russian Language World View (1920-1980)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the content of the concept “human” in the post-revolutionary period. During the research the representatives of the concept “human” were drawn from social and political essays dated 1930. On the basis of methods suggested by LiHuitsi, the frequency indices of each representative were determined. According to the frequency indices of the representatives, they were assigned to the different fields of the concept representation, that is, the field model of the concept “human” was created. Besides, the representatives extracted during the research were assigned to the semantic groups. In total 5 different semantic groups were allocated such as “Social characteristics of man”, “Life space”, “Beliefs”. The comparative analysis of the concept “human” in pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods was carried out. The semantic groups, representatives of which were active during the exact period of time were determined. The conclusion was made concerning the way the historic events affected the content of the concept “human”.

Keywords: Conceptnominative fieldrepresentativesemantic groupfrequency indexrepresentation field

Introduction

The conceptual system of each language like the separate concepts involves the knowledge, accumulated by the nation during the process of its development. In spite of the huge variety of concepts, the most important for research study are the basic concepts, which represent the basis of a language and the whole language world view. One of those concepts is the concept “human”. It is interesting to study and compare the concepts of different languages because it makes possible not only to compare the ways of languages’ development but to give a fresh look to the nations’ history and culture (Pimenova, 2013). The object of study is the concept “human” in Russian and Chinese language world views. This choice is due to the hypothesis which states that historic events including the reconstructions of social and political frameworks in a certain country affect the content of both the concepts and the basic concepts. This idea can be applied to both Russia and China. The global purpose of the research is not only to compare the concept “human” in Russian and Chinese language world views but also to observe its formation in both languages.

Problem Statement

The formation of the concept may be observed though the study of its content in several synchronous states (Popova, 2007). Thus, several periods of time may be distinguished in the history of Russia, the transitions of which signified the hypothetical change in the content of the concept. According to the objectives and goals of the research it was suggested to determine the following periods:

• •before 1917;

• •1918 – 1980;

• •1981– modern times.

In order to study the formation of the concept “human” in its development, it is necessary to examine its content in synchronous states, according to the periods determined. The content of the concept “human” in the pre-revolutionary period has already been defined (Igosheva, 2017). The next step is to study the content of the concept “human” in the period of 1918-1980. In order to study the concept “human” in this synchronous state, its representation in newspaper was taken into consideration, as the newspaper was the most up-to-date and mass publication at that time. The representatives of the concept “human” under study were taken from the issue № 308 (4155), 1930 of the socio-political and business daily broadsheet newspaper “Izvestia”, established in March, 1917. The newspaper and the issue were chosen randomly. However, it is necessary to notice that from the 27 October (9 November) 1917 the newspaper “Izvestia” became one of the official printed publications of the new power, the main documents of the new Bolshevist government were printed in this newspaper. This fact means that studying the materials of the newspaper makes it possible to get the information urgent to that period of time.

Research Questions

Solving the problems of the research it is necessary to find the answers to the following questions:

• Do the historic events actually affect the content of the basic concepts? Has the content of the concept “human” changed in the post-revolutionary period?

• How does the content of the concept in the pre-revolutionary period correlate with that in the post- revolutionary period?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the research is to study the content of the concept “human” in the period of time indicated, and to compare it to the content of the concept “human” in the pre-revolutionary period.

Research Methods

This research is based on the methods of studying a concept, suggested by Li Huitsi (Li Huitsi, 2016). From the newspaper issue mentioned above, 519 representatives of the concept “human” were singled out.

The number of usage of the concept representatives is 1176. The total number of lexemes in the issue is 11933. Thus, the part of the representatives of the concept “human” in the continuous text is 1176/11933*100%=9,85%. It means that almost 10 out of 100 words used in the newspaper are the representatives of the concept “human”. The representative “worker” has the highest frequency index, it is 0,33% (39/11933*100= 0,33%). After that these representatives should be distributed according to the representation field zones: the nucleus zone, the circumnuclear zone, the close periphery zone, the far periphery zone. In order to do it Li Huitsi suggests using the frequency index- the number of frequency interval which includes the absolute frequency of the representative in the text. Besides, the scientist claims that in order to measure a phenomenon using proportions method, the measure unit should be chosen so that it is appropriate to the phenomenon. Basing on this proposition let the frequency index of the representative “worker”-39- be 100%. Then, all the frequency indices of the representatives of the concept “human” should be compared, after that, according to the frequency indices acquired, the representatives should be distributed to the zones: the nucleus zone, the circumnuclear zone, the close periphery zone, the far periphery zone.

The statistic value, according to Li Huitsi is the probability of 40%. Such statistic value of the phenomenon proves its effect on the changing of some process. On the assumption of this statistics rule, in order to find out the representatives of the nucleus zone it is necessary to compare the maximum frequency indices of the representatives with the figure of 40% from 39. The critical target value of the frequency index of the nucleus zone representatives is calculated the following way: 39*40%= 15,6.

Thus, the representatives of the concept “human” with the frequency index equal or more than 15,6 are distributed to the nucleus zone.

The value of the maximum frequency index that is equal or more than 40% is the significant value for the phenomenon in question. The representatives that have the frequency index of 40% or more from 39 may be distributed to the nucleus zone of the representative field of the synchronous edge (Li Huitsi, 2016).

The representatives which have the frequency index that is more than 40% from 39: “labour” (19/39*100=49%), “proletariat” (18/39*100=46%), “pest” (18/39*100=46%), “village” (18/39*100=46%), “capitalism” ( 17/39*100=44%), “people” (16/39*100=41%) and those with the frequency index that is more than 50%: “worker” (39), “unemployment” (34/39*100=87%), “the working class” (21/39*100=54%). Two zones are distinguished – the nucleus zone and the circumnuclear zone. The representatives “worker”, “unemployment”, “the working class” are distributed to the nucleus zone. The representatives “labour”, “proletariat”, “pest”, “village”, “capitalism”, “people” are distributed to the circumnuclear zone.

Findings

Thus, the representatives of the concept “human” with the frequency indices of 2 to 13 are distributed to the close periphery zone. 160 of such representatives were distinguished. The representatives of the concept “human” with the frequency index equal to 1 are distributed to the far periphery zone. The far periphery zone contains 350 representatives.

Then among the representatives of the concept “human” in the zones of close and far periphery 5 semantic groups were distinguished. Under the semantic group “Social characteristics of a man” the following subgroups were formed: “Occupation and other activities”, “Family”, “Beliefs”, “Interpersonal relationships”, “Social role” and “Groups and group relations”. Under the semantic group “Human” the following subgroups were formed: “Personalias” and “General terms”. Besides, during the research a certain number of words were found out to belong to other semantic groups. In order to avoid the unnecessary disintegration, these words are not studied in the research. Some scientists, for example, E.V. Erofeeva and E.A. Pepelyaeva suggest supplying the structure of the semantic group “human” with such groups as “Attributes”, “Life space” and others; however it is not necessary in this research (Erofeeva, 2011).

The analysis of the semantic groups of the representatives of the concept “human” in the pre-revolutionary period newspapers allows making the following conclusions. The nucleus zone of the synchronous edge of the representative filed includes the following representatives of the concept “human”, belonging to different semantic groups: “Social characteristics of a man” (unemployment, the working class, labour, proletariat), “Life space” (village), “Beliefs”(capitalism), “Human” (people). The close periphery zone consists mainly of the representatives of the groups “Social characteristics of a man” and “Human”. It is necessary to mention the special value of the representatives of the concept “human” of the semantic group “Social characteristics of a man”, comprising words, indicating: the occupation and other activities (proletarian, peasant, unemployed), beliefs (democrat, menshevik), groups and group relations (union, kulaks, class struggle). There is an insignificant amount of the representatives of the groups “Subjective evaluative characteristics of a man” and “Life pace”. It is interesting to note that these representatives are more active in the zone of far periphery.

Conclusion

Thus, under the research the field model of the concept “human” in the Russian language world view in the post-revolutionary period was formed. Besides, the conclusion was made about which semantic groups include the representatives of the concept “human” of the synchronous edge under question.

Comparing the results of the studying the concept “human” in pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods, it can be observed that the representatives of the concept “human” are more active in publicistic writings of the post-revolutionary period (7,54% and 9,85% accordingly). The number of the representatives in the synchronous edges under study which are distributed to the nucleus zone (10 and 8), the close periphery zone (167 and 160) and the far periphery zone (290 and 350) can be compared. If we take into consideration the semantic groups formed for each synchronous edge, we manage to form more semantic groups in post-revolutionary period and moreover to divide a number of groups to subgroups. In both pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods the representatives of the semantic group “Social characteristics of a man” were active. However, in the pre-revolutionary period the representatives of the concept “human” belonging to the subgroups “Occupation and other activities” and “Status” were more frequent. In the post-revolutionary period the representatives of the concept “human” belonging to the subgroups “Beliefs” and “Groups and group relations” were more frequent. The semantic group “Subjective characteristics of a man” was active in the pre-revolutionary period but lost its urgent character in the post-revolutionary period. Besides, the semantic group “Objective physical characteristics of a man” widely-spread in the pre-revolutionary period ceased to be active in the post-revolutionary period. In our opinion, the activity increase of the representatives of the group “Social characteristics of a man” is significant, particularly of subgroups “Beliefs” and “Groups and group relations”. It is also interesting to admit that the part of the representatives of the group “Subjective characteristics of a man” decreased. It may indicate that due to the historic events the importance of the person’s individuality has declined. A personality with its objective physical and subjective characteristics started to be opposed to a group of people. Besides that, the beliefs of a person obtained the special importance.

The next stage of the research is planned to include studying the contemporary status of the concept “human”, the cognitive interpretation of the results of the research and comparing the content of the concept “human” in all three synchronous edges. Then with the help of the same methods the concept “human” in the Chinese language world view will be studied and after that the results will be compared.

References

• Erofeeva, E.V. (2011). Structure of the semantic field “Human” in the mental lexicon of Russian native speakers. Vestnik of Perm university. Russian and foreign philology, 1(13) (pp. 7 -19).
• Igosheva O.F. (2017). The concept “Human” in the Russian language world view (on the material of publisistic texts of 1910). Science and Education in the modern conditions (pp. 427-435).
• Li Huitsi(2016). Dynamics of lexical representation of the concept “money” in the Russian and Chinese languages: diss. Cand.of phil. Sciences. Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk.
• Pimenova M.V. (2013) The types of concepts and the stages of conceptual structure analyses. Vestnik of Kemerovo University, 2(2) (pp.127-131).
• Popova Z.D. (2007). Semantic-cognitive analysis of language .Voronezh: Istoki, 250 pp.