Ethnopsychological features of Hutsuls’ communication (based on the plays by Hnat Khotkevych)

The article discusses the ethnopsychoLogical features of the HutsuLs’ communication through the prism of communicative strategies in a drama text. Neopublikovannye gutsul'skie p’esy [ Unpublished Hutsul Plays] by Hnat Khotkevych describe the lifestyle of Hutsuls - an ethnic group from the Carpathian mountain region in Western Ukraine. The psycholinguistic and pragmatic analysis of communicative acts in an artistic dialogue has revealed the typical communicative behavior of the Hutsuls of different age, social, gender, psychological groups. The analysis of communicative strategies in the drama texts has shown that all characters regardless of their age, gender, and social status follow the same communicative pattern in typical situations. Their communication is characterized by excessive emotionality, aggressive speech behaviour, frequent use of performatives, mitigators with illocution of reassurance, regular use of communicative tactics of approval and confirmation to express solidarity with the interlocutor, withdrawal of an addressee from conversation as a way of their discrediting, etc. Communicative strategies of motivation are most often implemented by tactics of a request combined with a complaint (in cooperative communication) or by tactics of a demand, order with a threat (for conflict communication). The analysis of the communicative strategies in the artistic dialogues has identified the Hutsul mental traits, such as mystical perception of being, caused by ambivalence of believes (Christian and mythological); awareness of the human will limited by natural and supernatural forces; predominance of emotional psychological organization of Hutsuls over the rational one; deep inner conflict caused by sense of fear and desire to overcome it; staying within a community as a way of achieving mental balance.

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