Basic Constituents Of The National Linguistic Picture Of The World

Abstract

The problem of national mentality has always been the object of close attention of scientists. In this regard, studies of the regional cultural and spiritual characteristics of the Russian people themselves through the prism of language are promising, since they broadcast the historical features of the formation of the national language and mentality, respectively. Our scientific view is directed primarily to the dialect, since it is the dialect as a mode of human existence that is the linguistic and «mental» foundation of the nation. In this article, we attempted to describe the dialect linguistic personality as a typical representative of the Russian peasantry, the bearer of folklore wealth, the Orthodox faith. In an attempt to reveal the foundations of the formation of the Russian national mentality, we analyzed the functioning, updating the concept of «God» in the national linguistic picture of the world from the perspective of diachrony and synchrony. Our focus is not only on man, his language, but also wider – the vision of the world by man, due to language, the connection of language and culture, reflection in the language of the human worldview, language as an instrument for creating, broadcasting, storing and transmitting linguistic and cultural traditions and national mentality.

Keywords: Linguistic personalitydialect personalitylinguistic picture of the worldmental-value conceptual spheredialect

Introduction

The anthropocentric paradigm in the science of language, which replaced systemic structuralism, has actualized research in the field of the linguistic picture of the world and linguistic consciousness, where homo loquens – the person speaking – in other words, the linguistic personality, the images of her consciousness, formed and «embodied» become the anchor object of description with the help of language means - words, free and stable phrases, sentences, discursive practices, texts, associative series and fields. At the same time, the determining role in the phrase «linguistic personality» belongs, naturally, to the language, the verbal sign, which “hides the various shades of the expression of thought (in the meaning of mens, mentis), and not only symbols, but also images, concepts, myths and etc.” (Kolesov, 1975, p. 15).

The concept of a linguistic personality is inextricably linked with such concepts as a linguistic (in the interpretations of some scholars, a conceptual) picture of the world and linguistic consciousness: it is obvious that a linguistic personality is the bearer of the national-cultural code of the nation, «encrypted» in the language, since “behind every word stands a view of the world conditioned by national consciousness»” (Ter-Minasova, 2000, p. 25).

Our focus is on the dialect linguistic personality. Being a special form of mastering reality, a dialect also translates a certain linguistic picture of the world of its speakers - naive, «archetypal», «primordial» - a system of values reflected in the language at all its levels, while the dialect is a source of knowledge of the most important thing - the native speaker.

“... It is the study of dialects that provides invaluable and inexhaustible material in order to understand the laws of language development, for the linguistic features of any local dialect are not due to the carelessness of the speech of its speakers, but to strict historical laws” (Maslova, 2001, p. 77).

Recently, in the science of language, there has been a surge in interest in the speech and mental portrait of a dialect linguistic personality, metalanguage consciousness, and the conceptual world. This thesis is confirmed by many domestic studies (Ivantsova, 2018; Lyutikova, 2000) and Tomsk linguistic school as a whole, Ilyina (2017), Gyngazova (2009, 2010), Olenev (2016), Zubova (2017), Belenkevich (2019a), Dracheva (2016) and others. The proposed research is embedded in the modern anthropocentric paradigm of linguistic research, which determines the relevance and timeliness of the undertaken research. However, despite the increased interest in the personality language, studies on its conceptual world are not so numerous.

The novelty of our study is that for the first time a mental-value conceptual sphere is introduced in the linguistic picture of the world of a dialect speaker, integrating national basic constitutions - concepts that reflect the life's dominant personality. At the same time, questions of the formation of a national mentality (as well as its definition) are very blurred, require close attention of the researcher, therefore, any attempt to comprehend the national-cultural specificity is important and justified.

Problem Statement

Our scientific task is to describe the dialect linguistic personality from the position of the language (phonetic, morphological, syntactic, lexical levels of the language), as well as from the standpoint of the cognitive approach, i.e. the reflection in her language of the features of nationally marked, characteristic of the Russian mentality as a whole. So, from the point of view of the history of the language, and accordingly, the history of the people, the linguistic and mental being of the dialect linguistic personality, paired with national-cultural specificity, comes to the fore. It seems that in this context it is worth clarifying the question of the typology of linguistic personalities. About ten types (with differentiation within the class) of linguistic personalities identified according to linguistic and extralinguistic grounds (Ivantsova, 2010, p. 83) are represented within the framework of Russian linguistic personology. It should be noted that the classification of linguistic personalities by belonging to a particular speech culture seems to be the most «demanded» in the area of attention of linguists: carriers of the folk speech culture in this typology occupy leading positions, for the reason that the folk speech culture was and remains a substrate of all speech cultures, and the speaker of the dialect is recognized as the fundamental principle of the national linguistic personality, without the study of which it is impossible to cover the issue of a national mentality that has a general scientific and interdiscipline ary value (Lyutikova, 2000, p. 5).

At the same time, the trend towards the integration of the humanities (linguistics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, ethnography, etc.), emerging since the middle of the 20th century, allows us to look at the dialect linguistic personality from a voluminous «3D» perspective, i.e. not only from the standpoint of language, but also wider - taking into account extralinguistic factors that form the linguistic picture of the world, psychological, sociological, gender, ethnic and other criteria. Thus, only having described after analyzing all the linguistic and extralinguistic factors in the formation of the dialect linguistic personality, we can draw some generalizations and conclusions regarding the national-cultural specificity and national mentality.

Research Questions

We came to the idea that studying a linguistic and mental portrait of a dialect linguistic personality will reveal significant aspects of the formation of a national mentality, enrich our ideas about the ethical and aesthetic ideals of the Russian people. In connection with the foregoing, the subject of our study is the dialect linguistic personality in Altai - Anna Vasilievna Medvedeva, was born in 1913, a representative of the Russian Siberian peasantry in the second generation of immigrants from the European part of the country: «My father came from Rasei, and my mother came from Voronezh. We built this house ourselves. Yes, I have my mother’s mother, and they hijacked their court. And here, too, the land was like a beggar, and here they settled». «I was born in Shulgin, right now where is Verkho-Ozerno, and after him the village was Shulgin. «I lived in Shulgin for seventeen years, then moved to Dikola».

Russian, illiterate, old-timer of the village of Bystok Istok, Altai Territory, a vivid representative of the South Russian dialect and traditional folk culture is a «relict» object of study for the linguist from the perspective of diachrony. In the speech of the speakers of the dialect, language features are preserved at all levels of the language system, and hence the mental characteristics of a certain period of the development of the Russian language. Having described the linguistic portrait of the dialect linguistic personality, we get the opportunity to trace over a short period of time (in our case a little more than 100 years) what transformations have occurred and are taking place in the language, secondly, to analyze how changes in the language system affected the mentality of the people. At the same time, we understand that the principle of diachronic research is to look at the subject from a greater time distance. However, an analysis of the language dialect material showed that changes in the language system take place in the period under consideration (100 years), which means we can talk about a diachronic section.

A different aspect of the consideration, requiring close attention of the researcher, is a description of the mental, or conceptual, portrait of the linguistic personality of the carrier of the dialect. Those. through language, reconstruct a fragment of the linguistic picture of the world, highlighting basic concepts as the main unit of measurement of mentality. Language as a concept sphere defines a certain conceptual algorithm that models the linguistic picture of the world of its carrier. The key to this «algorithm» is a metalanguage code (a plan for the content of concepts or concepts).

“Reconstructing the linguistic picture of the world of a dialect linguistic personality (archetypal perception of the world) by immersing in a regional linguistic culture through an idilect allows you to «open» the metalanguage code, unravel the «cipher» of this code, since culture is the only representative of national consciousness” (Belenkevich, 2019b, p. 491).

Apresyan (1995) “The image of a person in the language: an attempt to describe the system» presented an analysis of the emotional vocabulary of the Russian language in terms of a «naive» linguistic worldview, a kind of «naive psychology”: ... he is naive (look at the world - U. Apresyan) in the sense that in many significant details it differs from the scientific picture of the world. At the same time, naive ideas are by no means primitive. In many cases, they are no less complex and interesting than scientific ones. Such, for example, are naive ideas about the inner world of man. They reflect the experience of introspection of tens of generations over many millennia and are able to serve as a reliable guide to this world (p. 39).

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to describe the linguistic features of speech and the mental-value conceptosphere in the linguistic picture of the world of a regional dialect linguistic personality. To achieve this goal it is necessary to fulfill, we have collected language material in conditions as close to natural as possible. We analyzed such language levels as phonetic, morphological, syntactic, determining the type of dialect. According to the typology of linguistic personalities, we described the extralinguistic parameters of a dialect linguistic personality, namely: gender, age, level of education, type of work, social status and social environment, family history and history of residence, traditions, religion, etc.

The next step is the analysis of dialectic discourse: the identification of basic constitutions / concepts in the linguistic picture of the world, a description of the mental-value conceptual sphere (actualization of meanings). Our goal was also to collect dialectal linguistic material from other speakers of the Altai village dialect with the aim of a comparative analysis of the semantic actualization of previously identified concepts.

Research Methods

The initial and at the same time supporting verbal basis for the study of the linguistic and mental portrait of a dialect personality is, of course, «living» language material - an array of dialect texts recorded in our case for more than a decade (2000-2012) of collecting language material in the village The Quick Source of the Altai Territory by the method of language inclusion in the coexistence of the speaker. At the stage of development of modern linguistic personology, the method of language inclusion is considered one of the most complex and at the same time reliable methods for describing the language of a person (Ivantsova, 2002; Lyutikova, 2000). Records were kept on a sound recorder and processed on the same day, which indicates the high reliability of the information. Similar language expeditions were carried out several times (2-4) per year.

The method of linguistic inclusion in the speaker’s coexistence, the result of which is recording not so much disparate information as a whole discourse of a regional dialect personality. It is from the data of such material that it becomes possible to restore the geomorphological conditions of human life, the sociocultural dominants of the personality, its linguistic and partly psychological characteristics - parameters that allow you to outline a portrait of the dialectal personality of the region. Conversations were conducted both on abstract topics and on the questions asked by the author. Having described, for example, one typical day of an old-timer, we can draw some conclusions not only about the language, but also about other levels of organization of the regional dialect personality. The total amount of recorded material is constantly updated and today is about 1000 pages of printed text in A4 format.

In this article, we attempted a comparative analysis of the concept of «God» in the linguistic picture of the world of speakers of the dialect of the Altai Territory and modern youth aged 18 to 24, who also live in the Altai Territory.

The object of the study of the content of the concept of «God» in a synchronous section was the data of an associative experiment. More than 800 people took part in the associative experiment. All informants are students of Altai universities (AltSTU, ASPU, AGAIK). An associative experiment was conducted from 2016 to 2018. In the questionnaires, students were asked not to hesitate to write the entire associative series that appears on the stimulus word «God». The age of informants is in the range from 18 to 24. Thus, the time gap between the first object of study (dialect carriers / old-timers of villages born in 1913–1919) and the second (student audience of 1999–2001) is an average of 90 years, which, in our opinion, will allow us to draw preliminary conclusions about the temporary transformation (if any) of the national linguistic picture of the world. Note that 70% of the respondents studying at universities are residents of Altai villages, therefore, this comparative analysis involves the study of the linguistic picture of the world of modern old-timers of Altai villages and their descendants.

Findings

Based on the analysis of the dialect material, we determined the mental-value conceptual sphere in the linguistic picture of the world of the dialect carrier, which includes the following invariant concepts (Belenkevich & Dmitrieva, 2016):

I ↔ FAMILY ↔ HOUSE ↔ VILLAGE ↔ MOTHERLAND ↔ PEACE ↔ FAITH / GOD. With a high degree of probability, we assume that the presented mental-value conceptual sphere is a universal «supporting» basis for a dialect linguistic personality - the basic conceptual world, the core. All presented concepts have a complex structure (division into layers and meta-layers), high nominative density, diffuseness of the far periphery. The mental-value conceptual sphere does not have a core - each «name» here in itself has a national nuclear significance, breaking up inside into many more private, subjectively-colored subconcepts. In our opinion, these are the same national basic constitutions that represent the mental invariant of the Russian linguistic picture of the world. Undoubtedly, the actualization, content of concepts «included in the mental-value conceptual sphere will not be identical from one dialect carrier to another, but as supporting «pillars» they function stably in the linguistic picture of the world of a dialect linguistic personality, despite the fact that during the life of the subject they are relevant the meanings within each concept can and should be modified.

The mental-value conceptual sphere has a closed «structure», reflecting the essential manifestations of the interconnectedness and interdependence of concepts. Let us explain, starting with the concept of «I» (akin to the biblical motives «Азъ есмь» (This is Me), the presented concept sphere defines the boundaries of the living space: it translates the life cycle of a person from «I» as a subject of life to «GOD» as the final (in the Christian worldview) point of life subject. We give an example from the speech of A.V. Medvedeva (as cited in Prokofieva, 2012) the subject of our study is the dialect linguistic personality in Altai: «An angel is standing behind the window when a woman gives birth, and he decides his fate: what kind of life, what kind of death he will have». Or: «As born, so baptized immediately. Immediately baptized. But the Holy Spirit comes out of a man when he dies» (Prokofieva, 2012, p. 134-135).

It is no coincidence that the mental-value conceptual sphere «begins» with the constant of any national culture - «I» - with a person, his self-identification in this world, in his linguistic and mental environment. The concept of «I» acts as a basic universal concept not only for the Russian cultural space, but also is one of the so-called national universals common to all natural languages. However, the name «I» in the Russian cultural space stands apart, because the Christian world is based on the name of Christ «Азъ есмь», meaning «This is Me» and affirming the essence of man, the essence of the entire Christian world (Belenkevich, 2019a,b).

For a long time, Russian spirituality has been the subject of close attention of many scientists. One cannot but recall in this connection the works of the great Russian philosophers Soloviev (2004), Berdyaev (2008), who wrote about Russian spirituality as a trait that defines the Christian people of Russia, and who considered collegiality, community as key spiritual values of the Russian people. Soloviev (2004) in his report, read in France in 1888, outlined the Russian idea of the people, which consists in the thought of God:

A vocation or that special idea that God's thought puts for every moral being - individual or nation - and which is revealed to the consciousness of this creature, as his supreme duty, the idea acts in all cases as real power, it determines in all cases the existence of a moral being ... (p. 260).

Famous domestic scientist Kolesov (2006) talks about the ontology of spirituality, which pre-exists in the Russian character, while the mentality is epistemological.

Thus, we single out the Christian faith as one of the constituents of the national mentality that influence the formation of the linguistic picture of the world and the self-awareness of old-timers of villages born in the 19th-20th centuries. The concepts of «I» and «Faith» coincide at the bifurcation point - «God»: akin to biblical motives: «I am coming from you and I will come to you». Based on the foregoing, we analyze the concept of «God» in the linguistic picture of the world of speakers of the dialect.

The analysis of dialect texts has shown which tokens actualize the meaning of the concept of «God»: The most frequent and personality-marked in dialect discourse are:

1. The Holy Trinity: «So I think there is the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit», «They say that God sits in heaven», «Now we are baptized ... here are three fingers».

2. Punishment: «Punishment is not in the next world. It is in this world. And the punishment for me is how I live for a long time. The holy spirit comes out of a person when he dies».

2. Punishment: «Punishment is not in the next world. It is in this world. And the punishment for me is how I live for a long time. The holy spirit comes out of a person when he dies».

3. Sin: «Iʹm a great sinner: I «have killed» one child. This is the worst sin in the world. This is the punishment for me for how long I live», «We carried bags on ourselves like that on a collective farm! «Oh, how we worked! And now that everyone plows?! That's why she ate an apple - now we all go in sin».

4. Angel: «An angel sits on a window and hangs its legs, but it can be seen», «An angel stands behind a window, where a woman gives birth and decides his fate».

5. Holy spirit: «There is a Holy spirit, when a person dies, the spirit will come out of him.

6. Throne of God (dinner table): «Do not sit down at the Throne of God unthinkingly (without washing your face in the morning before breakfast!)», «Our family was big. We sit at the table, the aunt sits with us, who spoke, he spooned on his forehead - this is God’s pebble in you. You cannot speak at the throne of God».

7. Cross: «Previously, they didn’t go without the cross: as they were born, they baptized right away», «That's what I tell you, daughter, I say don’t go without the cross. After all, are you baptized ?! So it’s on gaitan, but under a jacket, if you don’t want to».

8. Church: «Before, they went to the church with the whole world», «Hail and prayed», «The spoiled ones were healed there. Here was a case during my life. The boy was spoiled. He was brought to the church, and he shook himself like a dog, a direct breach, a breach. Well, he’s faster to the altar, he’s quieter and quieter and stopped jingling. Here is the talk. That's the way».

Unfortunately, the format of the article does not allow us to give a detailed analysis of the concept of «God», therefore, we note the most frequent tokens: soul, fasting - fasting, space, icon, submission, death, divine holidays, church, prayer-prayer, etc.

We also noted the high nominative density of the concept, which confirms the thesis of the basic / «nuclear» meaning of the Christian faith in the formation of worldview, world outlook, value system, dialect carrier, representative of traditional folk culture and the village villager of the 18-19 centuries as a whole. This concept reveals some features inherent in the Russian people. For example, the high frequency of words with a family of fear, punishment, eternal torment in the dialectic discourse of old-timers determines the main characteristic of the Russian people - humility, patience.

Among the problematic issues, it is worth noting that the presented mental-value conceptual sphere is identified on the basis of linguistic dialect material, thus, we are talking only about typical representatives of the village peasantry. Given the typology of linguistic personalities, in which, for example, the linguistic personality of a representative of an elite culture or urban vernacular exists, it is not yet clear whether this conceptual sphere will be actualized in their linguistic consciousness. In this context, Gyngazova (2009) talks about the mismatch of the conceptosphere of the Siberian old-timer and the representative of urban culture. Calling «value loopholes» in the linguistic worldview of the city dweller «value gaps», referring to such concepts as «Potato», «Cow» (Language personality…, 2015). This issue requires a separate study.

No less problematic (in the context of our study), the following question seems to us: what is the content of the concept of «God» in the linguistic picture of the world of dialect speakers who deny its existence. How is their mental-value conceptual sphere transformed, taking into account the fact? So far, these issues remain open.

Conclusion

The most frequent reactions to the stimulus word «God»: a total of 79 reaction words were recorded, of which the most frequent reactions were «Faith» (443 people, or 50% of the total number of respondents), the Church (40%), Almighty (20 %), Spirit (30%), Hope (20%), Tradition (20%), Myth (20%), Remorse (10%), In me (10%), With everyone, Mine (10%), Left us a long time ago, Grace (10%), None (5%), None (10%), Jesus (5%). The solitary reactions of Love, Ray, the Universe deity are also interesting. That is, without which, human life is impossible, Fiction, Always right, Relative, Creator. The «Russian Comparative Associative Dictionary (2019)» offers similar data to our stimulus word «God»: Yes, In Heaven, My, Church, Lord, Knows Heaven, No, Jesus, Religion, Helps, Father, Almighty, etc. We present the obtained data in Table 1 .

Table 1 -
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As can be seen from Table 1 , in most cases we have to talk about the coincidence of data among the three groups. So, while describing, we showed that over the past 100 years, the linguistic picture of the world (more precisely, its fragment) has practically not changed. We only note the fact that words with a family of fear and punishment are absent. Whether this may mean that we are losing the very «spiritual bonds» of modern society remains to be seen.

The presented mental-value conceptual sphere verbalizes the essential characteristic of the basic conceptual «world» - the fundamental and life-affirming dialect as a subject of the vital activity of concepts, which allows us to assess the significance and significance of the considered domestic culture as a whole. These concepts as some traits always inherent in human activity - «traces», being included in the discursive array of the dialect personality, require their meaningful analysis and elucidation of the conditions for the functioning of the dialect personality, the conditionality and interpenetration of these concepts in the social and living space of the village ( with extrapolations, especially in memoirs, to other territories), the discovery of personal communicative meanings in them, frame prospectivity and given terra torial space «features (properties, features) of linguistic portrait» dialect carrier.

Against the background of the analyzed material, the concept of «God» acquires special significance, where the foundations of the formation of a dialect linguistic personality, and therefore the national mentality, are revealed. It was in a deeply believing family that spiritual foundation was laid, which subsequently determined the vision of the world, which, in turn, was reflected in the linguistic picture of the world.

A few more problematic questions in the context of this article are: will the linguistic picture of the Christian world be different from the linguistic picture of the world of an atheist? What will these differences be? How will the atheistic linguistic picture influence the national mentality and will it affect it at all? What features are inherent in the linguistic picture of the world of an atheist? Egocentrism? And if there is no such «bond» for the Russian people as faith, then what unites us? We are now looking for answers to all these questions in the language of the speakers of the dialect.

References

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Publication Date

03 August 2020

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978-1-80296-085-3

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European Publisher

Volume

86

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Sociolinguistics, linguistics, semantics, discourse analysis, translation, interpretation

Cite this article as:

Belenkevich, E. (2020). Basic Constituents Of The National Linguistic Picture Of The World. In N. L. Amiryanovna (Ed.), Word, Utterance, Text: Cognitive, Pragmatic and Cultural Aspects, vol 86. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 92-101). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.08.12