The concept "work" in women's autobiographical stories of Siberian old residents: constants and transformation

The article is devoted to a cognitive-discursive study of the concept "work" in dialect communication. A concept is considered as a unit of thinking which is represented by means of language. The material is 80 women's autobiographical stories, which were recorded from 1961 to 2017 on the territory of Siberian dialects distribution. The choice of women's stories for the study is caused by the fact that the distinction between the male and the female permeates all spheres of culture, including work and ideas about work. In addition, changes in the public and political life of Russia in the 20th century had a significant influence on all spheres of women's lives. The analysis of the material showed that the content of the concept reflects stable representations of work and the transformation of some of them. The conceptual, figurative and axiological layers of the concept "work" are considered in the article. The conceptual layer is represented by names of professions and working women and a variety of naming units with the main meaning "activity". The factors influencing the transformation of ideas about work, which are manifested in the contexts separately and in a complex interrelation, are social, political, economic, environmental factors. For example, the conditions of military and post-war period blur the boundaries of typically "male" and "female" types of work: A man had a horse, and I had a horse. We worked like men. Conceptual, axiological and figurative layers of the concept "work" simultaneously represent understanding work as activities which occupy a major part of human life. The figurative layer is represented by a variety of metaphors and comparisons, including comparisons reflecting the displacement of gender, a comparison of women with men: I worked at a logging camp. I cut down trees, transported them like a man. Work as an activity which has a value, as a basis of human life, family, a source of wealth, respect, as a social value is represented in the axiological component of the concept. Finally, work is a concept structuring the speech genre of the autobiographical story. The sphere of its functioning and gender characteristics of the informants influence the specificity of its representation. Despite the stability of the concept content the concept is a dynamic unit, and its analysis allows determining constants and transformation of folk culture. Constant ideas about work are reflected in the conceptual, figurative and axiological layers, and transformation is mainly represented in the conceptual layer. Changes in the perception of work are caused by environmental, social, political and economic factors.

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