Scholarly record

LANGUAGE PORTRAIT OF A В‘SELF-SUFFICIENT PERSONВ’ IN MODERN RUSSIAN LINGUOCULTURE AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF SWEDISH

Elena I. Zinovieva, A. V. Khrunenkova, A. S. Alyoshin, Y. A. Kuznetsov

Abstract

The research objective is to identify culturally significant information behind semantics of the adjective В‘self-sufficientВ’, which denotes one of the important properties of a human personality in Russian linguoculture against the background of Swedish one. To achieve this goal, definitions of explanatory dictionaries of Russian and Swedish, as well as illustrative contexts of this adjective usage in materials of national corpora of these two languages were analyzed, a questionnaire was developed and a survey of Russian and Swedish native speakers was conducted. The main emphasis was placed on the peculiarities of semantics and functioning of the adjective В‘self-sufficientВ’ in modern Russian. The study has shown that the concept of В‘self-sufficientВ’ in relation to a person in modern Russian does not have an accurate unambiguous definition, and an attitude towards self-sufficient people depends on the degree of manifestation of this trait of an individual. In general, a self-sufficient person is perceived by representatives of Russian linguoculture as a happy person and an integral independent personality. Negative attitudes toward self-sufficient people are more evident in women and men over the age of 40 who consider them overconfident, narcissistic, lonely people. In Swedish linguoculture, self-sufficiency is a negative characteristic of a person, emphasizing complacency, narrow-mindedness, stagnancy of outlook and inability to perceive other points of view. The obtained results can be used when studying national stereotypes, features of national mentality, in practice of teaching languages and in compilation of bilingual dictionaries. Findings of the study should be considered in intercultural communication.

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