Author’s name:
Zaur A. Zavrumov, Victor N. Strausov, Alina G. Monogarova
Pyatigorsk State University, Pyatigorsk, Russia
Abstract:
The article analyzes the units of the Russian language that go back to the Slavic code ‘vice versa’ of the pagan period and provides a comparative analysis of the functioning of this code in the pagan environment and the modern Russian linguistic culture. The ‘vice versa’ code is actively used in the Russian linguoculture to form linguistic units of the lexical, phraseological, and, less often, paroemiological levels. Linguistic means, directly or indirectly related to the pagan code ‘vice versa,’ constitute mainly the following nominative-ideographic fields: “physical action,” “thought process,” “speech action,” “character traits,” “volitional actions,” and “introduction to delusion.” The figurative meanings of paroemias, phraseological units and lexemes include: “deviation from the generally accepted norm of behavior,” “lies/lying,” “concealment or distortion of the truth,” “a sharp change in one’s opinion to the opposite,” etc. — and can all be classified as anthropo-oriented. In a pagan environment, the ‘vice versa’ code functioned in everyday life and rituals in the form of physical and speech actions: backward movement, turning out clothes, pronouncing sacred texts from end to beginning, counting down, etc. It was actualized in numerous binary semantic oppositions (“top — bottom,” “obverse — reverse,” “front — back” etc.) whose members were endowed with ambivalent axiology. Outside of the ritual, the right member of the opposition was always labeled negatively and the left one positively, which means that physical and speech actions conducted “to the contrary,” “contrarily,” were prohibited as actions directed to the forces of the netherworld. Within the ritual framework, the right-hand member of the semantic oppositions acquired positive labeling while the left one was labeled negatively. Thus, within the framework of the rite, the reverse actions were assessed positively and, as a rule had a healing, apotropaic or neutralizing function or other functions of sacred nature. Comparison of the sacred functions of the code in the pagan period with the nominative-ideographic fields and metaphorical meanings of linguistic means that have a connection with the code ‘vice versa’ shows that the code’s ritual symbolic function of protection from natural and other-worldly forces, a remedy for all kinds of diseases, or a means for attracting wealth, luck, and well-being in the family has been practically lost in the Russian language, with the exception of only a few examples. In terms of the axiological aspect, in the units of the modern Russian language the code ‘vice versa’ almost always follows the norm of the pagan period and, thus, is negatively marked.
| Section | LANGUAGE AND CULTURE |
| DOI: | 10.47388/2072-3490/lunn2022-57-1-28-42 |
| Downloads | 233 |
| Key words | cultural code; pagan cultural code; nominative-ideographic field; semantic oppo-sition; cognitive metaphor; evolution of the pagan code |
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