CC BY
18UDC 808.2-087
DOI: 10.17223/24109266/4/6
MEANS OF SHOWING THE LINGUISTIC DESIGNATIONS OF STAGES OF LIFE IN DIALECT COMMUNICATION (THE SPEECH GENRE OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STORY)
S.V. Voloshina
Tomsk State University (Tomsk, Russia).
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract. The aim of this paper is to reveal the means of linguistic designation of stages of life in the speech genre of the autobiographical story for dialect speech. This speech genre provides information about the speaker's life from the date of birth to the moment of communication. The main focus of attention is on the speaker's stages of development (childhood, youth and old age). Keywords: Autobiographical story; speech genre; concept; life journey; dialect communication.
Interest in various types of human communication increased markedly in the 1980-1990s. Colloquial speech is one of the most popular subjects of study in modern linguistics. The genre aspect, based on the concept of speech genre, has been actively developed over the last decades among approaches to its study. The study of speech genres, in turn, is carried out using different materials and in various aspects: cognitive [1-2], linguopersonolog-ical [3-4], psycholinguistic [5], gender [6], functional [7-9], etc. The functional aspect involves identification of the characteristics of speech genres in any sphere of communication and determination of means which take part in the formation of the speech genre. The functioning of language units of different levels is considered in close connection with an individual and linguistic identity and it attempts to identify speech characteristics of a speaker in the context of involvement of modern linguistics in the anthropocentric paradigm. Along with the study of reflection of an individual in language, it is no less important to study the reflection of language in an individual.
Thus, the subject of this research (the speech genre of the autobiographical story) is one of the ways to express the relationship between language and an individual - the human element in language, an individual in his or her self-fulfillment is fully realized in the speech genre.
The autobiographical story is a complex informative speech genre, which provides information about the informant's life from the date of birth to the moment of communication. Unlike autobiography as an official document, this speech genre is informal, it exists in oral form and it is not always characterized by the chronological order of a story. However, one of the basic concepts which constitutes the model of this genre is "life" with its
fluidity and numerous events, that is why autobiographical story is a description of life.
In this paper, the linguistic designation of individual's stages of age and life is considered using the Russian dialects of the Middle Ob. The source of this material is dialect speech (111 texts), which are stored in the Laboratory of General and Siberian Lexicography of TSU, and audio records of dialect speech made by the author of this paper in 2008 during an expedition to Pervomayskoye settlement of Pervomaisky District of Tomsk Region. The informants were dialect speakers, representatives of the folk type of speech culture, who were born between the end of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century (1893-1946).
The dialect speakers describe their life as a line from birth to death through the most important moments and events.
The units of lexical-semantic field "age" are some of the key ones in the designation of the stages of individual's life and, therefore, in building of a speech genre of the autobiographical story. In our opinion, the concept "age" accompanies an individual throughout all his or her life and it gives an indication of an individual's self-perception and his or her understanding of reality and their self-understanding in the world.
The investigation of verbalization methods of the concept "age" in the Russian language, conducted by F.A. Marzouk, suggests that "the concepts of "childhood" and "youth" represent the greatest number of lexical units in the Russian language. This indicates the major importance of these concepts for native speakers of Russian" [10: 6].
While studying the concept "age" in Russian and French linguocul-tures, N.V. Kryuchkova considers age as an ordered sequence of the main periods: childhood, adolescence, youth, maturity and old age [11]. The way the approaches of linguistic designation of stages of life are described in dialect communication allows us to make a conclusion about the significance of the three periods - childhood, youth and an old age for the dialect speakers. What is more, in the material there are no lexical units, nominating adolescence and maturity. The analysis of a speech genre of the autobiographical story in dialect communication showed that the concept "life" is closely associated with the concept "work" in the minds of the representatives of the peasant culture [12]. Consequently, life is divided into periods which are associated with working ability, that is why, the periods of adolescence and maturity, when people can work, may probably be equated to youth and they are not highlighted in a special way.
Childhood is the first stage of an individual's life. It is represented in the autobiographical story from the point of view of an adult. The reflection of this stage of life is also reflected in its nominations.
The stage of childhood is nominated with abstract nouns.
- childhood: "This is how our childhood passed" (Tom. Kolp.); "I had to work from my childhood, there was no time to study" (Tom. Nikolsk.).
- pupilage: "We lived poorly, the family was big. We asked people for help from pupilage " (Tom. Bat.).
Informants call themselves with such lexical units as an orphan, a stripling, a kid, a girl, a late bloomer, a small fry: "Mother Agrippina Niko-layevna died early, there were five orphans left" (Tom. B. Yar); "I also remember the Civil War, but I was a stripling at that time " (Tom. Bat.); "We worked day and night. I was a kid, I stood on a field stack" (Tom. Bat.); "My father died, my mother moved here, there were 2 of us girls left" (Tom. Zyr.); "We left school after the 3rd form, when I came to the first form, I was a late bloomer. There was only one school" (Tom. B. Yar); "The table was very long, there was a grandfather at the beginning of it, and we - a small fry - were at the end of the table " (Tom. Kolp.).
It should be noted that the informant is aware of age changes and often divides stories according to the stages and events in their life. Thus, there is a movement of an individual through time and his or her self-identification, which has an influence on self-designation and the choice of lexical unit for it. V. V. Nurkova notes that an individual expresses him or herself in the way he of she remembers, but not the way he or she actually is [13: 9].
In addition to nouns used for self-designation at the stage of childhood, adjectives can be used as well: little. "I was brought here when I was little" (Tom. B. Yar).
The use of different collocations should be noted on the phraseological level: one smaller than the other. "There were 12 of us in the family: 7 children, who were one smaller than the other, a grandfather, mother, father, a daughter-in-law, a grandmother and a sister-in-law " (Tom. Kolp.).
The next period of an individual's life is youth. A noun youth is used for its nomination: "After the Civil War we were poor, there was little land, the family was big, there were seven children, I lived in peasant's family in poverty till my youth. For example, I was 17 and I had no trousers, no shirt, and it was necessary to go to my girlfriend" (Tom. B. Yar).
The following nominations are used by dialect speakers to designate an individual during youth:
- preteen: "Earlier when you got a passport you could not find a job. A preteen, they said" (Tom. Togur); "I knew my future husband for a long time. He was older then us. And we, preteens, gathered in our own company" (Tom. Bat.);
- girl: "Father cried and took flour to sell, it was necessary to prepare tocher for the girl" (Tom. Bat.);
- chappy: "And then I got married. An unattractive, but good chappy came to hand... " (Tom. Kolp.).
It should be noted that a collective noun the young is used in addition to the mentioned units: "The life was interesting, we often gathered in companies. And the young were never bored" (Tom. B. Yar).
The use of an adjective young is also typical: "I had lived with him for 3 years, and the War began. I was young when I became a widow " (Tom. Meln.); "I was young when we got married" (Tom. Bat.).
Another way of designation is to use such word-combinations as young lad, young girl: "I lost my health there, although I went there being a young lad" (Tom. M. Bab.).
The dialect speakers associate this stage, first of all, with the following events:
- army service: "I was called up for military service in 1920. It was hard to serve; nobody spared our brother-soldier" (Tom. Bat.);
- study: "It wasn't possible to study. I left school after the third form and went to work" (Tom. Zyr.);
- wedding: "We didn't have a mighty wedding. We had a small wedding party and this is how we celebrated it" (Tom. B. Yar);
- birth of children: "The first baby, daughter Nadya, was born after 11 months. When she was three, another daughter Lyuba was born. After three years one more daughter appeared" (Tom. Meln.);
- work: "When they knew, who I had worked as earlier, they sent me to work as an associate director of a fish factory. I was still young then, I was 38 years old" (Tom. Nikolsk.).
The dialect speakers describe the events of their youth mainly with the help of perfective past tense verbs:
"I was called up for military service in 1942, I took discharge in 1947" (Tom. B. Yar); "We went and registered" (Tom. Meln.).
As we noted earlier, there are no lexical units nominating the age of maturity in the material. Only a substantivized adjective adult and the nouns baba (woman) and muzhik (man) are used in texts: "And then she (grandmother) taught me and told that there was some Lazarus, and he was indeed in the Bible. When I became an adult, after the War, I found that Bible" (Tom. Pervomaysk.). The nouns baba (woman) and muzhik (man) are usually used while speaking about somebody, participants of some events, to whom (participants) the informant adds himself or herself: "People were hungry and got tired of the War. It was necessary to raise farms, there was no money. All men were killed, only women left. We worked hard, all days and nights, and 5 years passed this way. And then it seemed to become easier" (Tom. Kolp.).
The next stage of an individual's life, which, as a rule, is opposed to youth, is denoted by the phrase old age: "Old age has come, I have lived till old age, and God forbid living till death - as people say" (Tom. Kolp.); "Everything hurts in old age " (Tom. Bat.); by the phrase get old: "I became a widow when my son was five. And I got old with him " (Kem. N. -Rom.).
An individual who came to this age is named by the nouns grandfather, grandmother, and the phrases an old man, an old woman: "Grandfather will be 70 years old" (Tom. Meln.); "We lived with grandfather and then he died" (Tom. Bat.); "We had lived here for 34 years, and then the old woman died" (Tom. Togur); "I am one for myself, my old man is old" (Tom. Meln.); "And now my old woman receives a pension and works as a caretaker" (Tom. B. Yar).
The informants can use the adjective old to nominate a person of this age: "Sometimes they visit their mother, but they don't pamper the old one, they are busy" (Tom. Bat.); "I also worked at kolkhoz, then I got old and then retired" (Tom. B. Yar).
The dialect speakers consider old age as a period of reckoning: "I have seen everything in my life..." (Tom. B. Yar); "I have done everything in my lifetime, and now I have a rest, and I have been granted a pension" (Tom. M. Bab.).
It is believed that those who have reached old age are experienced, wise, they can give advice: "Now I don't do anything by myself, but I can give advice, people come to me for advice how to locate fishing-nets and when it is better to pull them out" (Tom. Kolp.); "People come to me and ask when they should plant" (Tom. B. Yar). An old person is respected: "Isn't it pleasant to me that I am so respected" (Tom. Bat.).
This stage is accompanied by health deterioration: "I am very old now, everything hurts. I have a headache " (Tom. Bat.) and it is characterized as a stage of approaching death by the following collocations:
- to pass away: "We were born here and we will die here. The time is running out and we are going to pass away" (Tom. Bat.);
- to depart this life: "I have lived here for 67 years. It's enough! I should depart this life. I have not got a lot of vivacity. I don't go berry-picking in the forest... " (Tom. Bat.) ;
- word combinations to prepare to be taken: "All my life left behind, we prepare to be taken, let the young people live and enjoy the life, we have lived our life and it's time to die" (Tom. Bat.) and etc.
This stage of life is characterized by lack of strength, working capacity: "I don't go fishing, I left it, fishing is also a hard work, and I don't have any strength" (Tom. B. Yar); health: "And now we live out our life, we have not got health. What can we do? We live and waste life" (Tom. Bat.); memory: "I have become an old woman and started to forget everything" (Tom. B. Yar).
While describing life in old age, the dialect speakers use comparative constructions to show comparison with the life in youth: "We have become old, it is difficult to treat us, it is easier to treat young people, you are healthy, and you can recover soon" (Tom. B. Yar).
The most frequently used constructions are the syntactical ones: "then ... now", "earlier ... now", "to waste life ": "When I was young, everything
was easy. And now I don't live, I drudge. I waste life" (Tom. Bat.); "My strength was spent on work. And now I sit as a telega. But earlier I worked hard" (Tom. Bat.).
While comparing two stages of life, the dialect speakers can use implicit comparative constructions, where only one period can be expressed: "I had lived here for one year and then I got married. I was not even 17. I didn't have mind" (Tom. Bat.); "It is good now. Children are mature, healthy, they live well. And that is all we need, we have lived and suffered during our life for it" (Tom. B. Yar).
Apart from self-nomination and identification of stages of life in the autobiographies, the authors speak about age relations in family: "Our family was big, and I was the youngest" (Tom. B. Yar); "I was the last but one girl by age " (Tom. Nikolsk.).
The change of stages of age and stages of life may be indicated by means of perfective verbs used in the past tense. For example, had passed, had grown up: "My 16 years had passed, I went to work at a fish factory" (Tom. B. Yar); "I had grown up, I didn't want to study: we had horses, cows, we began to work" (Tom. Kolp.).
The dialect speakers can indicate the stages of life with the help of numerals, which nominate age, the year of event, designate stages of life, the beginning and the end of a stage of life: "I had worked from 13_ till the old age" (Tom. Bat.); "After the Virgin of Mercy I will be 68years old" (Tom. Bat.); "Iam 67" (Tom. Nar.); "Iam 70 without 2 years" (Kem. Mitrof.).
Cardinal and ordinal numerals are used in order to nominate all the above mentioned stages of life:
- childhood: "When I was 12, my mother and father died" (Tom. Kolp.);
- youth: "I got married when I was 22 in 1947... " (Tom. B. Yar);
- old age: "Iwill be 85from the 10th of September" (Tom. Bat.).
There is no clear separation of stages of life in the informants' speech.
An individual does not always imagine their life within the mentioned stages of life; it can be divided into pre-war and post-war life, before marriage and after it, independent life and life with parents. However, there are two clearly defined marks: birth and death.
The speech genre of autobiography is used for the description of life, that is why the units, which point on two main life marks - birth and death, appear to be the main ones among those forming the genre.
Thus, a group of lexical units naming the fact of birth is revealed. First of all, we should note the use of the verb "to bear" in Passive form past tense - "was / were born". The main construction, which points on the year and the place of birth, is a construction with "was / were born" + the preposition "in" + a year / a place of birth: "Iwas born in 1918" (Tom. Kolp.).
In addition to this construction the fact of birth can be nominated by
using:
- lexical units native: "I am native of Batkat" (Tom. Bat.);
- construction "personal pronoun "I" + was born + noun "year" + numeral: "I was born in the year 1921" (Tom. Zyr.).
The informants mention the place and the year of birth while speaking about the fact of their birth.
In addition to the designation of their own birth, the informants tell about the birth and death of their relatives (parents, brothers, sisters, and children): "I was born in 1924. My mother died at once. There was no food. My father died a year later; my brother and I left alone" (Tom. B. Yar); "Mother buried father, children left. The elder brother was 18 years old, another brother was 16, the third brother was 14, and there were some more, one smaller than the other. After father's funeral mother came and gave birth to my sister Manya. And I was the last but one " (Tom. Meln.).
Our study showed that the dialect speakers speak about their life dividing it into three main stages: childhood, youth and old age. Identification of units representing these stages of life allows us to indicate the specificity of the peasant worldview and means of language expression of the speech genre of the autobiographical story.
The list of abbreviations:
Bat. - Batkat
B. Yar - Belyy Yar
Zyr. - Zyryanskoye
Kem. - Kemerovskaya Oblast
Kolp. - Kolpashevo
M. Bab. - Maloye Babarykino
Meln. - Melnikovo
Mitrof. - Mitrofanovo
Nar. - Narym
Nikolsk. - Nikolskoye
N.-Rom. - Novo-Romanovo
Pervomaysk. - Pervomayskoye
Tom. - Tomskaya Oblast
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