The World of Nature in the Mirror of the Dialect (A Case Study of the Concept “Swamp”)

The article discusses the conceptualisation of the world of nature in dialect discourse based on the concept “swamp”, which is region-specific. The swamp is a significant part of the Siberian landscape; it affects the living conditions and human activities. The concept is verbalised by lexical and syntactic units of the language. At the lexical level, the concept is modeled through an appeal to a rather broad semantic field. The nuclear zone of the field is structured by lexemes denoting types of swamps classified on different grounds. Then follow lexemes representing the denotative sphere of objects associated with the swamp: names of berries, mushrooms, trees, shrubs growing in a swamp, footwear (for example, bolotniki “rubber boots with high legs designed to move around the swamp”). The dialect classification of swamp types has more elements in comparison with the standard language one; it is expressed by a wide range of lexical units that are different in origin and reflect the historical, ethnic, and natural originality of Siberia, contacts of Russian dialects with indigenous languages. The lexical classification of the names of the swamp is supplemented by the analysis of statements explicating the cognitive foundations of the division of the world as presented in dialect communication. Most statements recorded in situations of live easy communication contain the lexeme swamp and reflect rural residents' utilitarian ideas about the swamp as a biological resource used in various activities. The statements reflect negative assessments of the swamp: the swamp creates inconveniences for life and has an adverse effect on its quality. The data of the Tomsk dialect corpus, which contains materials of recent years, do not confirm the hypothesis about the good preservation of the vocabulary denoting nature in the dialect. The most frequently used lexeme is the all-Russian swamp. Dialect names are generally used in answers to dialect collectors' questions and are not numerous. A comparison of dialect discourse with the scientific one showed that some dialect lexemes are widely used in telmatology as terms (mochazhina, sogra, ryam). In the author's opinion, this observation shows the role of dialects in the formation of speech styles of the national language, its importance as a source of replenishment and enrichment of the vocabulary. The analysis shows that regional variants of the Russian language are created by various discursive practices, primarily related to the perception of the surrounding nature. The outlined contours of the comparison of ordinary and literary speech testifies to the variable nature of the concept “swamp” manifested in the different development of its layers. In literary texts, utilitarian ideas about the swamp are complemented by its aesthetic perception, figurative, symbolic components. The swamp is considered in the article as an element of the regional conceptosphere, connected by semantic, motivational, functional and other links with other concepts, which requires further study.

Keywords

Authors

References