CC BY
41
Section 1. Linguistics
Blyzniuk Kateryna Rostyslavivna, senior lecturer,
General and Slavic Linguistics Department, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, E-mail: blyznjukkr@ukma.edu.ua
AMERICAN PATRIOTISM: THE SPECIFICS OF VERBALIZATION IN THE FORM OF THE LEXICAL-SEMANTIC FIELD
Abstract: The article deals with the specifics of the verbal representation of the concept of patriotism in the American variant of the modern English language. The study analyses the central-peripheral organization of the lexical-semantic field of "patriotism", the hierarchy of its semantic components, universal and nationally specific semantic characteristics of the concept of patriotism in the linguistic picture of the world of the modern US citizens, and connections of the lexical-semantic field of «patriotism» with the other semantic units in the structure of English language.
Keywords: lexical-semantic field, lexeme, seme, semantic connection, linguistic picture of the world.
1. Introduction. Patriotism is one of the key concepts in the structure of national self-consciousness. Although it is believed, that every real member of the group should feel and express his or her patriotism through love, devotion, loyalty, sacrifices, readiness to fight for their own country, to protect it and to work for its merit, American patriotism has some specific traits because of the complicated history of creation ofAmerican nation: "Europeans define themselves in terms of their "type" or national character, but America, the nation of immigrants, has so many different types that that could never bind them together. The real mucilage in America is its people's adherence to the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other founding documents" [3, 5]. It should be noted that the American patriotism has nothing to do with ethnicity. American people were bonded around common aims, ideals, dreams and struggles.
Thomas Grillot suggests that "in the United States, patriotism has revolutionary origins and a more conservative history. "Patriots", in 1775, were the members of the population of settlers originating mostly in the British Isles who decided to rebel against English "tyranny". Based on an act of defiance and what self-identified "loyalists" regarded as treason, the revolt of North American colonists paradoxically launched the career of a word, patriotism, that eventually came to be identified, at the beginning of the twentieth century, precisely with loyalty and compliance" [2, p. 1]. According to the "Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary" the word patriotism means 'love for or devotion to one's country' [5, 909] in the American variant of the modern English. This definition represents the core meaning of the concept of patriotism typical for the everyday use, but there are many other meaning components connected to the concept of patriotism. They are functioning in the
linguistic picture of the world of English-speaking US citizens, and may be revealed through the study of the lexical-semantic field of "patriotism".
2. Methodology. The main method of the study is the componential analysis, that is, the method of decomposing of the word meanings on the smallest components called semes, and organizing all the lexemes and semes in the form of semantic matrix. The method was proposed by N. Trubets-koy and further improved by E. Coseriu, V. Evans, W. H. Goodenough, A. Kusnetsov, E. Kusnetsova, A. Luchyk, M. Fabian and other linguists. According to the methodology we selected words semantically connected to the word patriotism from the "Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms" [7]. Then with the use of "Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary" [5] and "Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Thesaurus" [4] their definitions were decomposed to the smallest components of meaning. The study showed that the lexical-semantic field of "patriotism" is formed by 311 lexemes and 3477 semes. After establishing the constituents of the field, lexemes were arranged vertically in a table from the most polysemic located at the top of the list to the lexemes that have less semantic components - in the bottom. Semes were organized horizontally from the most frequent to the less frequent and semes that appeared only once. Although 3477 semes are functioning in the structure of the lexical-semantic field of "patriotism", we found out that there are only 954 types of them. Moreover, 477 semes actualize only once, the other 477 types are represented by the repetitive semantic components.
3. Discussion. According to the semantic matrix, that we built, the core of the lexical-semantic field of "patriotism" is formed by the lexemes: honor (42) (In parentheses next to words, the number of semantic components of their meanings is indicated), nationalism (34), sympathy (34), love (33), devotion (30), dedication (27), respect (27), faithfulness (26), chauvinism (25), consideration (25), devoutness (24), dignity (24), boldness (23),
fierceness (23), faith (22), friendliness (21), worship (21), ardency (20), constancy (20), cult (20), glory (20), racism (20), regard (20), conceit (19), delirium (19), homage (19), jingoism (19),passion (19), pompousness (19), preference (19), segregation (19), vanity (19), mercy (18), affection (17), allegiance (17), arrogance (17), courage (17), discrimination (17), enthusiasm (17), care (17), attraction (16), daring (16), duty (16), energy (16), greatheartedness (16), interest (16), partiality (16), piety (16), prejudice (16), pride (16), sacrifice (16), scorn (16), vainness (16), veneration (16). These lexemes represent the most important concepts related to the patriotism in the linguistic picture of the world of the US citizens.
The most active semantic components of the field are 'quality' (85) (The figure in parentheses next to the semantic component indicates its frequency), 'feeling' (81), 'state' (57), 'strong' (57), 'act' (51), 'be' (46), 'showing' (39), 'desire' (36), 'other' (36), 'very' (34), 'respect' (31), 'self (28), 'enthusiasm' (27), 'belief' (26), 'ability' (25), 'excitement' (23), 'interest' (23), 'own' (23), 'people' (23), 'behavior' (22), 'love' (22), 'loyalty' (22), 'courage' (21), 'esteem' (21), 'lack' (21), 'kindness' (19), 'opinion' (18), 'power' (18), 'regard' (18), 'sympathy' (18), 'affection' (17), 'determination' (17), 'devotion' (17), 'pride' (17), 'conceit' (16), 'excessive' (16), 'expression' (16), 'liking' (16), 'energy' (15), 'support' (15). Another active semes are attitude' (14), 'consideration' (14), 'disposition' (14), 'favor' (14), 'having' (14), 'intensity' (14), 'admiration' (13), 'emotion' (13), 'great' (13), 'help' (13), 'inclination' (13), 'tendency' (13), 'worth' (13), 'better' (12), 'group' (12), 'honor' (12), 'person' (12), 'sympathetic' (12), 'activity' (11), 'approval' (11), 'brave' (11), 'high' (11), 'idea' (11), 'worship' (11), 'eager'
(10), 'extreme' (11), 'giving' (11), 'God' (11), 'good'
(11), 'importance' (11), 'loyal' (11), 'spiritual' (11), 'thing' (11), 'achievement' (9), 'action' (9), 'anger' (9), 'bravery' (9), 'compassion' (9), 'confidence' (9), 'fidelity' (9), 'more' (9), 'not' (9), 'relationship' (9), 'special' (9), 'strength' (9), 'thinking' (9), 'too' ' (9), 'ardent' (8),
'attention' (8), 'concern' (8), 'contempt' (8), 'danger' (8), 'fact' (8), 'force' (8), 'important' (8), 'need' (8), 'obligation' (8), 'practice' (8), 'religious' (8), right' (8), 'vigor' (8), 'warmth' (8), 'advantage' (7), 'attachment' (7), 'country' (7), 'craving' (7), 'deep' (7), disrespect' (7), 'duty' (7), 'enjoy' (7), 'exaggerated' (7), fear' (7), 'fervor' (7), 'generosity' (7), 'generous' (7), 'mental' (7), 'much' (7), 'praise' (7), 'prejudice' (7), 'race' (7), 'satisfaction' (7), 'superiority' (7), 'unfair' (7), 'vanity' (7), 'wanting' (7), 'zeal' (7).
The core of the lexical-semantic field represents the most essential characteristics ofthe American patriotism. First of all it is semantically connected not only to universal traits such as love, devotion, loyalty and courage, but also it has some nationally specific qualities (especially in the terms of frequency), for example, excitement, interest, kindness, affection, pride.
Another national specific characteristic of the American patriotism is its connection with religion, which may be seen through the semantic components 'worship' (11), 'God' (11), 'spiritual' (11), 'religious' (8), 'religion' (6), 'faithful' (4), 'faithfulness' (4), 'lord' (4). George McKenna in his work "The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism" writes: "Foreign observers have long noted the distinctive-ness of American patriotism. What impresses them is that, unlike the patriotism of the Old World, it is not tied to blood or soil but is a dynamic blend ofJu-deo-Christianity and political liberalism" [3, 5]. The researcher believes that common religion alongside with common aims and struggles helped to create the American nation. Moreover, religion became the role model for the real patriotism, which was based on the faith and unconditional love and devotion.
Patriotism for any person is an individualized feeling based on the self-identification with the group and contrasting one's group to another. Patriotism may be defined "as a type of group egoism, a morally arbitrary partiality to "one's own" at odds with demands of universal justice and common human solidarity. A related objection is that patriotism is exclusive in invidious and dangerous ways. Love of one's own
country characteristically goes together with dislike of and hostility towards other countries. It tends to encourage militarism, and makes for international tension and conflict" [6]. The process of contrasting own group to another is revealed through the semes 'other' (36), 'self' (28), 'own' (23), 'your' (5) and the dislike towards others is indicated by the semantic components 'contempt' (8), 'advantage' (7), 'prejudice' (7), 'superiority' (7), 'unfair' (7), 'vanity' (7), 'arrogance'
(6), 'disdain' (6), 'superior' (4) etc.
Betty Jean Craige states: "Political dualism, arising out of allegiance to men, produces a continuum between martyrdom, or "hard-core altruism", acclaimed as the highest form of patriotism, and treason... Because patriotism, in this model, is defined as love of the group, criticism of the group, whether expressed as criticism of the government's policies or criticism of the nation's social values, is understood to indicate lack of patriotism and softness on the enemy. Individuals who do not display the "hard-core' loyalty that manifests itself as unmitigated opposition to the enemy are not considered by patriots to be real members of the group. The slogan "Love It or Leave It", appearing on the bumper stickers during the Vietnam War, was directed at war protesters, whose disagreement with the government's foreign policy was taken as dislike of the nation" [1, 27]. That's why there are many components of meaning, that emphasize and intensify the patriotic feelings and acts: 'strong' (57), 'very' (34), 'power' (18), 'excessive' (16), 'intensity' (14), 'great' (13), 'better' (12), 'high' (11), 'extreme' (11), 'importance' (11), 'eager' (10), 'more' (9), 'too' (9), 'ardent' (8), 'vigor' (8), 'deep' (7), 'exaggerated' (7), 'much'
(7), 'bold' (6), 'firm' (6), 'intense' (5), 'pompous' (5), 'urgent' (5), 'devoted' (4), and other.
7. Conclusion. To summarize, although the main characteristics of the concept of patriotism in the American linguistic picture of the world are universal, the study of its lexical-semantic field revealed the nationally specific traits, such as connection with religion, intensity of acts and feelings, contrasting own group to another, which originates from the
history of creation and development of the American also shows their importance for the US citizens in
nation. The frequency of the semantic components the context of patriotism.
References:
1. Craige B.J. American Patriotism in a Global Society / Betty Jean Craige.- State University of New York Press, 1996.- 197 p.
2. Grillot T. First Americans: U. S. Patriotism in Indian Country after World War I / Thomas Grillot.- Yale University Press, 2018.- 288 p.
3. McKenna G. The Puritan Origins ofAmerican Patriotism / George McKenna.- New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2008.- 448 p.
4. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Thesaurus // Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. URL: https://www.merriam-webster.com
5. Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary.- 11th ed.- Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2005.1623 p.
6. Primoratz I. Patriotism / Igor Primoratz // The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition) / Edward N. Zalta (ed.). URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/ patriotism/
7. Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms: G.&C. Merriam Company.- Springfield, Mass, 1984.- 942 p.
