No, I am not lying vs. No, I am lying: Traditional culture in the mirror of predicates of profane speech

The article analyses the predicates of profane speech behaviour, which occupy an important place in the "word-centred" Russian culture and function in modern everyday discourse. The aim of the article is to identify the purpose of their self-reference forms in the linguistic culture. The study focuses on verbs that are relevant to dialect discourse practice. Taking into account the common cognitive basis of dialects of one language, the author used Volumes 2 and 3 of SRNG, a number of regional dictionaries and the Central Ob Dialect Archive to compile an open lexical group of predicates with an integral seme "to speak", "to inform the addressee about something (information, thoughts, etc.) through speech", and with different semantic components that create two oppositions: "conformity/discrepancy of the reported to reality" and "meaningfulness/meaninglessness of the reported". The all-Russian verbs vrat' [to lie] and boltat' [to chatter] can be considered bright representatives of this group. To solve standard communicative tasks, the speaker uses the analysed words in non-performative positions (vresh' / boltaesh', vret / boltaet, ne vru / ne boltayu). In this case, the verbs express the speaker's inner position, which unites ethical and truthful assessment aimed at the outside world (a speech-behavioural act). Using discourse analysis, it was found that the ethos of the dialect linguistic culture, under certain conditions, prescribes the actualisation of the predicates of lying and chattering, even within the strict performative framework. The self-referential use of the verbs vrat', boltat' and their numerous synonyms leads to the unevenness of the expressed ethical and true/liel assessment and the change of their object. The study of the contexts of actualization revealed the conditions and reasons for the shift of empathy in the direction "author ^ text" and "text ^ author". Both the classic performative form vru / boltayu and word forms which go beyond the present tense indicative and are supplemented with variations of modality are equally designed to serve the fundamental semiotic opposition "Us vs. Them"; they become a kind of its language correlates. When speakers include the addressee in the universe of their "life world", the interpretation of the speech act is deprived of its "behavioural" component. The author ceases to be the object of assessment of the lie- or chatter-predicate. With the recognition of its estrangement from the interlocutor, the ethos of traditional culture makes speakers explicate an external assessment of themselves and their place in the world. As a result, assessment expressed by the predicates vrat' and boltat' loses its truth component, since the author becomes the object of assessment. Thus, the functional importance and the complex nature of the predicates vrat' and boltat' better shows in the "low" texts of culture, which allow their performative actualization, which is not characteristic of its "high" precedents.

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