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Section 5. Philology and linguistics
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20534/AJH-16-9.10-44-48
Solovyova Olena Anatoliivna, lecturer, Kyiv National Linguistic University Department of Near and Middle Eastern Languages and Civilizations E-mail: [email protected]
Methodological basis of research binary concepts GOOD-EVIL (on the material of the modern Arabic and Ukrainian phraseological units)
Abstract: The article proposes to investigate the methodology of research binary concepts GOOD-EVIL in modern Arabic and Ukrainian. The article deals with the research of phraseose-mantic field in modern Arabic and Ukrainian. The urgency of the problem under investigation is stipulated by the fact that the study of concepts through their linguistic explicates is currently one of the problems of the modern cognitive linguistics, which in turn, helps to reveal the very structure of the concept. A comparison of the equivalent concepts in the Arabic and Ukrainian language pictures of the world allows disclosing their cultural identity. Both Arabic and Ukrainian phraseological units determining human beings have integral and semantic features for each mental condition. The formed field is represented as a fragment of integral model of speech means that objectifies the category of mental condition.
Keywords: cognitive linguistics, sphere of concepts, phraseology, linguocognitive paradigm, phraseosemantic and lexical-semantic fields, binary concepts.
This article is the methodological part of the and the study phraseosemantic and lexical-semantic
research funds of objectification binary concepts fields of binary concepts GOOD-EVIL to enhance
GOOD-EVIL in modern Arabic and Ukrainian. Re- cultural and linguistic competence ofmodern Arabic
cently, in modern linguistics methodological stud- and Ukrainian.
ies due to the dominant linguocognitive paradigm The aim of research is a comparative analysis of
language is examined not only as a system, but also phraseological units of modern Arabic and Ukrai-
as a "quantum of structured knowledge" in cultural nian languages and establishment similarities and
ethnicity representations, national consciousness differences in the structural and semantic organiza-
which include moral concepts and representations. tion of phraseological units, as well as identifying the
An important role is given to the method of analysis ways of its formation. The objective of the study- is
of binary concepts' representations in phraseological modern Arabic and Ukrainian phraseological units
funds from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, (paroemias, proverbs and sayings), the scope of the
taking into account the cultural aspects. study- is the means of objectification ofbinary con-
The problem statement of the research work is cepts GOOD-EVIL in modern Arabic and Ukraini-
due the need for detailed analysis of the differences an in methodological basis of research. The methods
and similarities of phraseological units' internal form of research are: the component analysis method which
gives us an idea of the lexical field structure of semantic system in studied modern Arabic and Ukrainian; the method of semantic fields' modelling which makes us possible to introduce systematically the semantic relationship of phraseological units in the middle of the examined field; methods of contrastive linguistics help to identify the national identity concepts, as well as observe the difference between the concept and meaning of the word; contrastive (comparative) analysis is used to determine isomorphic and allo-morphic features ofphraseological units in GOOD-EVIL concepts of modern Arabic and Ukrainian.
Modern linguistics takes a great interest in the study and research of the cognitive approach, and the term "concept" is one of the most used. This term is studied within two areas: linguocognitive and linguocultural. Concepts are under the study of such scientists as: R. Jackendoff, G. Lakoff, A. Wi-erzbicka, D. S. Likhachev, R. M. Frumkin, Y. S. Ste-panov, E. S. Kubryakova, A. D. Shmelev, A. A. Za-lewska, I. A. Sternin, Z. D. Popova, V. I. Karasik, V. A. Maslova, E. I. Morozova and others. The concept has a complex structure.
The linguocultural concepts' researchers believe that the structure of the concept is similar to building a semantic field that consists of core and periphery. The core of concept -is a basic, relevant feature, general for different ethnic groups. The periphery has all that is influenced by culture, tradition, national or personal experience [5, 37].
There is no single universally accepted definition of the concept today. Such researchers as S. G. Vorka-chov, V. I. Karasik, Y. S. Stepanov insisted that the concept -is a multidimensional mental formation with several qualitatively different ingredients: conceptual, perceptual-shaped/associative-shaped/image, value, significant. The conceptual element reflects feature definitional structure and concept; the shaped element (also associative or perceptual-shaped) captures the cognitive metaphor; the value element proves subjective evaluative attitude to displayed; the significant element determines the place that takes the name of the concept in the language system [1; 4; 5; 6]. Among significant characteristics are semantic description of syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations of name-concept, construction
Methodological basis of research binary concepts GOOD-EVIL...
of synonymic and antonymous concept series [1, 10-11].
It bears mentioning that in modern interdisciplinary fields of linguistics used both linguistic and ' extra-linguistic study methods of the concepts. The similarities and differences of the semantic structure GOOD-EVIL concepts in modern Arabic and Ukrainian national consciousnesses are conditioned by the cultural and historical features of nation's formation and development and also by the individual informant characteristics, his personal life experiences.
In the late XXth century a new scientific paradigm took shape in linguistics: the researchers switched from the isolated language objects to the person speaking while the centre of cognition became the problems of man and language relationship. The an' thropocentric idea as the fundamental idea of the modern linguistics has been developed by the previous paradigms of science — systemic-structural and comparative historical, and was determined by the nature oflanguage as the multidimensional phenomenon. Over the past few decades J. I. Baudouin de Courtenay pointed out that the language exists only in the "individual brains", only in the mind of individuals or individuals that make up a given linguistic society [2, 53]. Emile Benveniste in his turn noted the special uniqueness of the language properties which allows us to speak about the presence of the language not one, but several structures, each ofwhich could serve the basis for the linguistics emergence [1, 94].
Anthropocentrism turned linguistics toward the person and culture. The new scientific paradigm presents new challenges in the study of language, requires new methods of its description, a new order in the analysis of its units and categories, leading out its regulations and laws. Particular attention is paid to the language and culture relations, language and national mentality, language and national identity and national specificity. The problems of studying the linguistic persona- the reconstructed persona on the basis of linguistic resources in close relationship with linguistic world-image are attracting more attention, due to the tendency of people to the understanding and the growing role of cross-cultural communication.
A logical step to the anthropocentric paradigm development of humanitarian (linguistic) knowledge was the release of the concept as a mental formation, marked by linguocultural characteristics. In recent years the term "concept" is very widely used; as any other complex social phenomenon it does not have the definite interpretation. Generalization linguistic views on the concept demonstrates, first of all, the diversity of the research opinions, consistent with the "tendency to" theoretical pluralism "in science, caused by a versatility of the object's study"
[4, 68].
Along with the classification and typology of concepts, obligatory/optional of their verbalization, one of the most controversial questions is a question of methodology for the study and describing of concepts.
After reviewing and summarizing the different approaches to the understanding of the term "concept", we can call the concept as a multidimensional mental concept of formation reflecting the cultural and historical experience of the people, and specifics of its world perception as well as a verbal expression [9]. By this method we understand the means of scientific knowledge, a certain approach to the studied phenomenon, a certain set of research techniques, the use of which makes it possible to study this phenomenon [7, 279-280].
The first concepts were born from the collision of primitive man with the surrounding nature, when the consciousness fixed external stimuli and evaluated it on the scale of good/bad. Thus, gradually formed the knowledge that helps the human existence in the natural environment. Individual knowledge socialized within a particular community ofpeople living in this environment. With the accumulation of life experiences, formation and development ofculture, including the improvement of the language system and the establishment of religious tenets, as well as expanding the scope of communication up to the concepts of interethnic contacts that multiplied, became more complicated and marked with the national characteristics [8].
By virtue of combining system (individual sphere of concepts), concepts stored gained experience as a representative of a particular man linguocultural
community. Integrating individual sphere of concepts in process of time created an ethnic sphere of concept, a set of images of consciousness, which is a certain image of the world language community. Ethnic sphere of concept is a complex, dynamically evolving system, which at the same time conservative enough to keep the "link of times" for the new generations, affecting their verbal and non-verbal behaviours. Individual sphere of concept-is a virtual world, which is formed in the human mind as a representative of a certain linguosocial and cultural community with his own life experience [8].
In order to describe the semantics of the word, the corresponding image, we need to explore the linguistic consciousness of speakers, rather than the outside world, which does not have these images, and there are real objects [3, 86]. This approach is essentially a way to obtain information: a concept can only be extracted from their experience knowledge.
At the same time, the scientist Kukhareva E. V. proposed her own vision of ethnic sphere of concept which we supplemented and its final version looks as follows: the ethnic picture of the world is designated and investigated through the concept of "value" and "value system" [6, 29]. By the value we mean series of assumptions about the world, based on a binary pair GOOD-EVIL stimulating and regulating the preferred type of human behavior, including linguistic level.
On the basis of theoretical and empirical generalizations we concluded that the problem field of methodological basis of a comparative study of modern Arabic and Ukrainian is taken a conceptual approach which is currently used in two directions.
Firstly, identify national characteristics of universal concepts GOOD-EVIL (in our case, as exemplified in phraseology of modern Arabic and Ukrainian).
Secondly, identify concepts that have no parallels in other linguocultural communities. Arabic sphere of concepts differs a lot in the presence of nominated concepts that have no parallels in Ukrainian sphere of concepts.
Consideration of the national cultural specificity of modern Arabic and Ukrainian linguoculture involves complex methods and techniques of research
aimed at modeling binary concepts GOOD-EVIL and identifying their semantic and structural features. The main method of research of objectification binary concepts GOOD-EVIL is a method of conceptual analysis which is used to implement methods of component analysis and semantic analysis. These techniques are used to describe the structure meaning of phraseological units in phraseosemantic field GOOD-EVIL in modern Arabic and Ukrainian, as well as the allocation in minimal semantic elements. The method of semantic field is applied in the organizing and grouping constituents within the studied field which helps to identify their interaction and hierarchical organization. Another method of research GOOD-EVIL concepts is a comparable method (contrastive method), which provides bicultural description of cognitive categories that helps to identify similar and different features ofphraseological units in modern Arabic and Ukrainian. The quantitative method used to identify the frequency use of phraseological units, which are part of GOOD-EVIL concepts. The method of continuous samplingis a fundamental act of searching and selection of factual language units, phrasemes, paroemias (proverbs and sayings).
Russian Arabists have the data, which can serve as a basis for development of a methodology conceptual research. In scientific publications of S. S. Maisel, V. S. Morozova, V. E. Shagal, E. G. Kukharevathe conceptual framework and linguistics categories of phraseology are defined, some aspects of national mentality are disclosed, ethnopsychologycal source study is described. However the methodology of contrastive linguocognitive research is not presented. Thus, this problem still remains outside of vision of the researches.
While Ukrainian researches O. M. Lashchuk, Z. Krasnobaeva-Chorna, O. V. Sakharova, I. E. Kole-snikova reveal the structure of the binary concept, present notional, perceptive-imaginary and axiologi-cal component of the concept, construct domain chains on the basis of fundamental domains "inner world of the man/environment".
The concepts GOOD-EVIL include lexical units, meaning constituting the content of the national language consciousness. We assumed the fact that the word itself as well as its verbal definition fixes the
Methodological basis of research binary concepts GOOD-EVIL...
results of the cognitive efforts of the human mind. Key lexical units are culturally marked components contributing to the revealing of the national outlook and way of thinking.
The variability of the images designating actions and behaviour is peculiar to the analyzed languages. Interlingual equivalents have been found in both Arabic and Ukrainian languages: — j
ISjI V jl — literally. That you arrive is
better than that you do not arrive at all. Better late than never; jy j-^l ¿jij — Leave evil and it will leave you; ¿J^ ^J Cyj^l ¿J1^ — literally. A good neighbour is a found treasure. Better your close neighbour than your distant brother [10; 11].
It should be noted the component analysis given below shows that the phraseological units of the identical meaning are formed on the different image bases which is usually a specific national feature of world perception. The nuclear zone of the analyzed concept is revealed via lexical units: ^ jli^j ^aJUI ^ital ^Ul - Praise be to God who made me change the dirham into a dinar. Said of a man who divorced and got another better wife; 4-iuiaJl jU^Vi
— literally. Good news walk, bad news circulate. Bad news sells better than
- * e
good news; UL—^c Jl ¿ta^L — Said to
describe a cunning person who is able to manipulate others. He can twist you around his little finger [10;
• 11].
Developing the methodology of linguocognitive research on scientific conceptual level we generalized and systematized methodological aspects of this study and gave a detailed description of its implementation.
The analysis of the vocabulary sources suggests that the component structures of modern Ukrainian and Arabic concepts GOOD-EVIL and j* -j^ are partially matching: the words have mutual archiseme and functional semes, the distinctions only in its nuclear and peripheral differential zones. Each pair of matched semes in contrastive pairs "GOOD -j^" and "EVIL - j*" received a response: the equivalent, non-matching, non-equivalent or lacunar (which indicates national specifics of the word semantics).
Conclusions: thus, the constructive importance of mental and verbal stereotypes for the expression
of a wide range of evaluation characteristics of a person is noted. Those dominant features and human characteristics which demonstrate its universal relevance for the people and which are determined by the peculiarities of its Arabic and Ukrainian culture, word-view and national mentality are found.
Summing up, it is necessary to notice, that in modern linguistics continue to improve and develop new techniques and methods of identifying semantic features, as well as their relationship, which, in turn,
extends the component analysis method. Among them: the methods of linguistic experiment, leading the beginning of the ideas of L. V. Shcherba and A. M. Peshkovsky, various procedures and questionnaire survey of informants O. N. Seliverstov, component synthesis A. M. Kuznetsov, varying of the syntagmatic words combinability Y. D. Apresyan, the method of dictionary definitions Y. N. Karaulov, as well as experimental research methods in the field of psycholinguistics.
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