Abstract
The article is devoted to the case texts of a regional orientation, created by famous Russian writers associated with the Lipetsk region. These texts are included in the Provincial text of Russian literature. The nuclear concept of the Provincial (Lipetsk) text is the concept of a provincial town, which is represented by such regional toponyms as Lipetsk, Yelets, etc. An important feature implemented by the concept of a provincial town is the “patriarchal” one. The near-nuclear concept of this extra text is rest, represented with the help of lexemes, which are singly rooted to the word rest, as well as empty, deserted, uninhabited, fixed, etc. Among the peripheral concepts of the Provincial there is a church, a bell, a prison. In the Provincial (Lipetsk) text of Russian literature the ambivalence towards the provincial town typical for Russian people manifests itself: both positive and negative. The analysis of regional case texts as components of the Provincial text of Russian literature expands the concepts of case phenomena and extra text that are relevant to modern philology and are used in the framework of the anthropocentric approach to language learning. The regional case texts have a strong influence on the formation of a personality, on the intensification of historical continuity of generations, preserving and developing the language wealth, literature and culture of Russia. This kind of case texts is one of the means of the formation of civil, national and cultural identity of Russians.
Keywords: AnthropocentricregionalProvincialidentityanthroponyms
Introduction
The modern science of language develops as an anthropo-oriented linguistics, the leading principles of which, besides anthropocentrism, are closely related to the functionalism, expansionism, explanatory nature of it. As the leading principles of the modern linguistic paradigm, which replaced the system-structural paradigm, they were first identified and characterized by Kubryakova (1994, 1995). It is necessary to add two more principles to the abovementioned ones: textocentrism and semantic-centrism (Popova, 2002). Nowadays there is no area of linguistic research that would not have acquired an anthropocentric orientation, but the essence of anthropocentrism linguistics is most clearly manifested in studies of a text, as evidenced by many works, including the applied ones (Barteld, 2017; Joseph, Wei, Benigni & Carley, 2016; Ong, 2016; Prinsloo, Bothma, & Heid, 2017). A text cannot be studied without person who is its producer and recipient, as well as the main subject of a message. For this reason, the text has become a key concept for the anthropological paradigm of learning a language, the main linguistic object, which is often compared with the linguistic outer space or the universe: “The world of texts is ... linguistic space, the study of which will continue as long as there is a person, activity and communication, and all new aspects of its research will arise” (Thalia & Grafova, 1991). This new aspect of textual research is presented by the study of case texts. This term was introduced into the science by Yu.N. Karaulov in the 80s of the twentieth century. He called texts as case ones that were “significant for ... personalities in cognitive and emotional relations, having a extra personal character, i.e. well-known to the wider environment of a given personality, including its predecessors and contemporaries”, such texts “the appeal to which is resumed repeatedly in the discourse of a given linguistic person” (Karaulov, 1987).
Further study of case texts led to their different classifications (one of the most common is the division of case texts into universally case, national case, professional case), as well as their inclusion in a number of case phenomena, such as case names, case statements, case situations (Zakharenko, 2004). One of the new aspects of the study of case texts is the determination of regional case texts among case texts in general (Popova, 2015). These are national case texts (first of all, artistic, as well as memoirs, epistolary), in which we are talking about a particular region (province). Such texts refer to regional toponyms and anthroponyms.
For example, “Lipetsk” toponyms are found in the works of A.S. Pushkin, L.N. Tolstoy, I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Bunin, M.M. Prishvin, E.I. Zamyatin, K.G. Paustovsky and other authors: the towns of
Many authors of national case texts are related to the Lipetsk region. Several generations of ancestors of A.S. Pushkin were born and lived on the Lipetsk land as well as the father M.Yu. Lermontov, I.A. Bunin, M.M. Prishvin, E.I. Zamyatin et al. A.S. Pushkin, V.A. Zhukovsky, M.Yu. Lermontov, I.S. Turgenev, G.I. Uspensky, M.A. Bulgakov, B.L. Pasternak, K.G. Paustovsky, M. Gorky and other writers stayed here at Astapovo Station village, L.N. Tolstoy spent his last days here. These and other writers of national classic literature created outstanding works, which are the pride of Russian culture. Regional case texts are a part of the Provincial extra text. Extra text is “a collection of statements or texts that are combined meaningfully and in accordance with situation. This is a holistic education, the unity of which is based on the thematic and modal similarities of its units (texts)” (Danilevskaya, 2003).
Problem Statement
The analysis of case texts of a regional orientation as the components of the Provincial (Lipetsk) text of Russian literature will expand the concepts of case phenomena and extra text that are relevant to modern philology and are used in the framework of the anthropocentric approach to language learning. In the future, this study will involve the identification of a full corpus of texts of a regional orientation and their analysis from the standpoint of current scientific areas (linguistics of extra text, linguistic axiology, etc.).
Texts of a regional orientation have a strong influence on the formation of a personality, on the intensification of historical continuity of generations, preserving and developing the language wealth, literature and culture of Russia. This kind of case texts is one of the means of the formation of a civil, national, cultural identity in Russia. Civil identity is understood as “1) the awareness of belonging to a community of citizens of a particular state, having significant meaning for an individual; 2) the phenomenon of super individual consciousness, a sign (quality) of civil community, characterizing it as a collective subject.
These two definitions do not mutually exclude each other, but focus on various aspects of civil identity: from an individual and from a community” (Vodolazhskaya, 2003). Ethnic identity is “the result of an emotionally-cognitive process of awareness of ethnicity, identifying an individual with representatives of his ethnic group and isolation from other ethnic groups, as well as deep personal meaningful experience of his ethnicity” (Naumenko, 2003). Cultural identity is a personal identity of an individual to a particular culture.
Civil, ethnic, cultural identity can almost completely coincide in mono-national states and regions, such as the Lipetsk region, the majority of whose population is Russian. In multinational entities there is no complete coincidence between these concepts although overlap points may be found.
For a person, the world and everything existing in it is always divided into “own” and “alien”, the boundaries between which are often very conditional. Regional case texts not only reflect the spiritual and intellectual values of the people, preserve the cultural memory of many generations, but also transform great writers and their works into a part of “their” world. They help, as the philosopher Bulgakov (1996) wrote, “
The fundamental scientific task is the analysis of the Provincial (Lipetsk) text of Russian literature from the standpoint of the current directions of the linguistics of anthropocentrism.
Research Questions
The object of this article is the identification and analysis of regional case texts as a means of the formation of a civil, national, and cultural identity of Russians.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the work is to develop a methodology for the description of regional case texts that constitute the Provincial (Lipetsk) extra text, through the analysis of a number of concepts of this extra text.
Research Methods
During the course of the research the following methods were used:
1) descriptive and statistical methods in order to identify the corpus of texts of a regional orientation;
2) the method of conceptual analysis, which makes it possible to study the concept sphere of the Provincial (Lipetsk) text of Russian literature and its linguistic and axiological components;
3) the functional method that helps to identify the features of the objectification of the studied concepts and their representatives in texts;
4) the method of analysis of dictionary definitions, objectifying scientific findings based on the disclosure of the structural features of the concept and its semantic environment.
Findings
One of the components of the Provincial extra text of Russian literature is presented by the works related to the towns of
In the autobiographical novel by I.A. Bunin “Life of Arsenev”, the story “The Late Hour” the topononym Elets is not used, instead he uses the common noun town: “The town is bursting with its wealth and populations <...>” (“The Life of Arsenev”); “I see mentally, look around the city” (“The Life of Arsenev”); “... The antiquity of the town is spoken only here and there by traces of the town walls on the precipice under the cathedral and this bridge” (“Late hour”). Often the word town is combined with possessive pronouns
In Russian literature, a provincial town is always contrasted with capital cities. E.I. Zamyatin in the story “Rus” the important role is played by the antithesis of Petersburg, Russia - the province, Rus: “Not by Petrovsky arshine the prospectuses are measured, no: it is Petersburg, Russia. Here - Rus, narrow streets, - up and down, the place where children ride ice-crates in winter, - lanes, dead ends, front gardens, fences. <...> ... all of the Volga Yaroslavl, Romanovs, Kineshmas, Puchezhi - with a town garden, wooden sidewalks, with squared squat, tasty - like holy bread, five-headed churches; and all the black earth
An important feature implemented by the concept of a provincial town is the “patriarchal” one. According to definition dictionaries, one of the meanings of the adjective is patriarchal, “as in the old days, true to the old traditions, alien to the new culture” (Dictionary of the Russian language, 1999). It is this meaning that is realized in works on the Lipetsk region with the help of the words
The near-nuclear concept of the Provincial extra text of national literature, including works on the Lipetsk region, is
The concept of
Everything in the life of the heroic figure of the novel is changing, but the provincial town, which she considers to be “the main place of her life”, remains unchanged. Patriarchal and filled with some extraordinary rest, a provincial town appears on the pages of the work of K.G. Paustovsky “Golden Rose”, which refers to a trip to
According to the “Russian Associative Dictionary”, the word town reveals as positive (big, hero, dear, beautiful, beloved, ours, gorgeous, eternal, grand, childhood, youth, home, green, hope, etc.) , and negative associations (dirty, hunger, strange, dusty, fools, smoky, sultry, tired, unimportant, doomed, dustbin, boring, death) of native speakers (Karaulov, Cherkasova & Ufimtseva, 2002). In the Provincial Text of Russian Literature, the ambivalent attitude to the provincial town peculiar to the Russian people is manifested: on the one hand, it is a lovely, native town, often associated with home, childhood, family, first love. On the other it may appear to a reader as not very pleasant boring place.
The ability of the words
An important component of the topos of a provincial town is a temple. The concept of a
Bunin in “The life of Arsenev”, describing the first visit of a hero to the town, writes about the strongest impression made on the child by the Archangel Michael bell tower in Yelets:
The concept of
An important place in the topos of the provincial extra text, including texts related to the Lipetsk region, along with the concept of a church, is occupied by the concept of prison, which is represented by the lexemes
The concepts revealed during the research are basic for the conceptosphere of the Provincial (Lipetsk) extra text, as they form nuclear, near-nuclear and peripheral zones.
Conclusion
The presented research made it possible to identify a part of the corpus of case texts of a regional orientation related to a specific region of Russia - the Lipetsk region. The works of Russian writers about the Lipetsk region (“Life of Arsenev”, “Above the town”, “Snowdrop”, “The Late Hour” by I.A .Bunin, “Rus” by E.I. Zamyatin, “The Chain of Kashchey” by M.M. Prishvin, “The Golden Rose” by K.G. Paustovsky, “Pushkin” by Yu.N. Tynyanov, and others) are components of the Provincial (Lipetsk) text of Russian literature. The nuclear concept of the texts identified presents the concept of a provincial town (the representative of regional toponyms
The near-nuclear concept of this extra text is
The methodology for the investigation of case texts related to a specific region can be used to study case texts of other regions, for example, Chechnya, which is described in the works of many well-known Russian writers. In the modern world, the problem of national, cultural and civil identity is very acute, the main means of the preservation of which is the language of the people and the literature created on its basis. Literature related to the native land, through the concept of a small homeland and its components (the texts of a regional orientation, the Provincial text of Russian literature, regional toponyms and anthroponyms, etc.) will help modern speakers of the language and culture to feel their involvement in a large Motherland, its language and culture and thereby preserve their national, cultural and civil identity, become resistant to global external threats to national security.
Acknowledgments
The presented research was conducted with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Department of Education and Science of the Lipetsk Region in the framework of the scientific project “Provincial (Lipetsk) Text: Linguocultural Aspects and Mental Essential Characteristics” (No. 18-412-480003 \ 18).
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Cite this article as:
Popova, E. (2019). Regional Case Texts As Means Of Formation Of Identity In Russia. In D. K. Bataev (Ed.), Social and Cultural Transformations in the Context of Modern Globalism, vol 58. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 1484-1492). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2019.03.02.172