Authors’ names:
Natalia V. Makshantseva – Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Abstract:
The article examines the value potential of words and expressions that embody the conceptual field of Russian. The purpose of our research is to consider the properties of connotative-evaluative increments of these words and expressions in media discourse using the example of the adverb “po-rossiyski” (“the Russian way,” where “Russian” means not the Russian ethnicity (“russki”) but belonging to the state of Russia). Using the methodology of cognitive-discursive analysis of corpus data, the author looked at dictionary interpretations of the adverb “po-rossiyski” (“the Russian way”), presented in Russian explanatory dictionaries, as well as contexts of the word’s usage extracted from the newspaper corpus as part of the Russian National Corpus. The volume of the analyzed corpus material is 230 contexts selected from 223 texts. In the language semantics of an adverb “po-rossiyski” (“the Russian way”), two semantic components are distinguished: the idea of how it is accepted in Russia as a state, and the idea of how it is accepted among Russians. Both semantic components are neutral, non-evaluative. At the same time, the analysis of corpus data made it possible to identify positive and negative evaluations of this word that arise in media discourse, implied by the immediate and further contextual environment. It is shown that the contexts of positive evaluative usage are associated with the phenomena in the life of the country or the Russian people which the speaker evaluates as positive because they correlate with national ideals and values. In turn, it has been established that the contexts of negative evaluative uses are determined by the idea that in the life of the country and in the life of the people there may be phenomena that deviate from the norm, are incorrect, or do not correspond to national value priorities or ideas about how things should be, from the speaker’s point of view. The author concludes that the adverb “po-rossiyski” (“the Russian way”) has significant potential to serve as a marker of contextual positive and negative evaluation, which allows us to obtain important information about which values and behavioral attitudes of Russian native speakers in terms of conceptualization of ideas about Russia and about Russians are objectified in their speech practices.
| Section | LANGUAGE AND CULTURE |
| DOI: | 10.47388/2072-3490/lunn2024-68-4-90-107 |
| Downloads | 64 |
| Key words | adverb “po-rossiyski” (“in Russian”); national values; contextual evaluativeness; corpus analysis; linguistic axiology; Russian speech |