Научная статья на тему 'Semiotic development potential of Henry Lawson’s individual concept “Mate/Mateship”'

Semiotic development potential of Henry Lawson’s individual concept “Mate/Mateship” Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
AUSTRALIA / HENRY LAWSON / MATE / MATESHIP / INDIVIDUAL CONCEPT / ARTISTIC CONCEPT / CONCEPT-IMAGE / SEMANTIC DEVIATION / CONCEPTUAL DERIVATION / CULTURAL SCRIPT / CONCEPTUAL ANTINOMIES / SEMIOTIC DYNAMICS / SOCIO-CULTURAL VALUES / АВСТРАЛИЯ / ГЕНРИ ЛОУСОН / АВТОРСКИЙ КОНЦЕПТ / ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННЫЙ КОНЦЕПТ / КОНЦЕПТ-ОБРАЗ / СЕМАНТИЧЕСКАЯ ДЕВИАЦИЯ / КОНЦЕПТУАЛЬНАЯ ДЕРИВАЦИЯ / КУЛЬТУРНЫЙ СКРИПТ / КОНЦЕПТУАЛЬНЫЕ АНТИНОМИИ / СЕМИОТИЧЕСКАЯ ДИНАМИКА / СОЦИО КУЛЬТУРНЫЕ ЦЕННОСТИ

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Dobryaeva Irina S.

The paper envisages semiotic development potential of semantic structure of individual conceptMate” created by Henry Lawson. The image in question is iconic for Australian culture. A certain share of idealization and romantization entails further development of the semantic meaning of this concept. The rooted semantic components of the concept-imageMate” gradually turned into concept-symbol “Mateship”. H. Lawson was the first Australian author, who made this concept one of the core concepts of Australian culture. Moreover, “Mateship” reflects the historical development of socio-economic relations within Australian society in 19 20 centuries. Having identifi ed axiological meaning of the concepts “Mate / Mateship”, we could be aware of the basic values of Australians as a nation, and understand connections of the language and society.

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Текст научной работы на тему «Semiotic development potential of Henry Lawson’s individual concept “Mate/Mateship”»

Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 3 (2016 9) 625-636

УДК 8Г37

Semiotic Development Potential

of Henry Lawson's Individual Concept

"Mate/Mateship"

Irina S. Dobryaeva*

Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia

Received 02.11.2015, received in revised form 26.12.2015, accepted 12.02.2016

The paper envisages semiotic development potential of semantic structure of individual concept "Mate" created by Henry Lawson. The image in question is iconic for Australian culture. A certain share of idealization and romantization entails further development of the semantic meaning of this concept. The rooted semantic components of the concept-image "Mate" gradually turned into concept-symbol "Mateship". H. Lawson was the first Australian author, who made this concept one of the core concepts of Australian culture. Moreover, "Mateship" reflects the historical development of socio-economic relations within Australian society in 19 - 20 centuries. Having identified axiological meaning of the concepts "Mate / Mateship", we could be aware of the basic values of Australians as a nation, and understand connections of the language and society.

Keywords: Australia, Henry Lawson, Mate, Mateship, individual concept, artistic concept, concept-image, semantic deviation, conceptual derivation, cultural script, conceptual antinomies, semiotic dynamics, socio-cultural values.

DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-2016-9-3-625-636.

Research area: culture studies.

Introduction

Australia is the country of immigrants whose hallmarks are multiculturalism and pluralism. New migrants, who want to become Australian citizens, should meet a series of requirements: to pass the English language test (IELTS), as well as to complete a multiple choice test, checking out historical issues understanding, political and legal system awareness, and core elements of Mateship phenomenon. In the opinion of Mr former Prime Minister John Howard, the shared knowledge of these areas of Australian social

life can unite people in Australian society, at the same time promoting respect for cultural and ethnic diversity. Mr Howard said that "Mateship is a great Australian concept, it's a concept of everybody pulling together in common adversity, a concept of treating people according to how you find them, not according to the colour of their skin... It is very much part of our ethos". According to Mr Howard, this concept is a cohesive, integrating Australian society. (West, 2012) As another former Prime Minister Julia Gillard said "Mateship defines the nation".

© Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved

* Corresponding author E-mail address: irena_do@rambler.ru

Mateship is believed to be authentic Australian value." (Dyrenfurth, 2012)

The lexeme "mate" belongs to the core of the English language and was borrowed ("transported") to Australia from the British English. "Mate" has become one of the most frequently used words of the Australian language. It is one of the key words of Australian culture, giving us the key to understanding national spirit, national ethos, and national character. (Wierzbicka, 2001, 2006)

The concept "Mateship" is derived from "Mate"-- the concept-image, created by Henry Lawson. It was Lawson who made "mateship" the watchword for Australia (AND). He is called "the apostle of mateship". H. Lawson is considered the founder of Australian literature of realism. His stories, based on his own youth experience, are deeply national and reveal the world of Australians. H. Lawson glorifies an Australian worker, the founder of Australian nation - mate.

Stories by Lawson are written in the genre of "yarn", which is a folk tale, where threads of life stories wind endlessly and entangle like yarn. The lyrical form of stories told by a witness or participant of the events emphasizes the inner identification of the writer with his heroes. The stories are yarns by the campfire told by mates, who become familiar to the reader. Their stories feature hardships and glory of the first Australians, they are full of witty comments and love for the country and admiration for its people.

H. Lawson gives the detailed description of mate - his character, appearance, habits, values, which influenced formation of Australian national character, mentality and system of values.

Theoretical framework

Cultural values represent the idea of a perfect man in different cultures. They represent individual or social reference points, are associated with the type of "praiseworthy" behaviour and a

particular life-style. Values organize reality, add evaluation to comprehension of reality. They correlate with ideal, desirable, and normative. Value is the characteristic of a person's attitude to an object, fixed in his mind. It is a special kind of sense that a person (culture) sees in an object (phenomenon). Culture is defined as a set of specific values, which forms its sense (semantic) core. (Vyzhletsov, 1996; Kagan, 1997; Gurevich, 1994)

Values influence national mentality, which is based on cultural constants-- categories, which form the matrix of the culture. They are mental phenomena, which are called concepts (mental conceptual representations). Concept is an element of the ideal (conceptual) system of a language, which is fixed in words (lexemes) of this language. A concept is verbalized cultural meaning, marked by ethnic semantics. (Vorkachev, 2004: 36). According to Yu. S. Stepanov, concepts are "collective unconscious" (Stepanov, 1997:4), "clots of culture in person's mind, gates for culture to enter the mental world of a person. But on the other hand, concept is also a way for a common person, not the creator of culture, to enter culture, and in some cases, influence it" (Stepanov, 1997:40).

The basic opposition of concepts in concept studies is the opposition of the concept as a phenomenon of culture and as a phenomenon of individual mind, as externalized and internalized concept, cultural and cognitive one. The important difference between these two types of concepts is the opposition of individuality-collectiveness. "Cognitive concepts are mental formations, containing individual meanings, structuring and restructuring the surrounding reality, while cultural concepts are collective mental formations, indicative of diversity of a corresponding culture (Karasik, 2009: 28).

S. G. Vorkachev defines concept as operational unit of thinking, unit of collective

knowledge, referring to the highest spiritual values, which have language representation and are marked by ethno-cultural specifics" (Vorkachev, 2004: 51-52). In his opinion, only mental entities that have ethno-cultural specifics can be called concepts.

Lingua-cultural concept integrates cognitive and cultural approaches to concept. V. I. Karasik views lingua-cultural concept as inherently mental formation, having ethno-cultural specifics, culture connected element. Lingua-cultural concept consists of notional, iconic and axiological components (KapacuK, 1992).

The means of coding and passing cultural knowledge is a language, which preserves and passes down the generations cultural information (content of culture) accumulated in its signs. Both language and culture are semiotic systems, whose elements-signs code the information (meaning). According to F.de Saussure, language signs are mostly conventional. This feature makes them fit for passing down cultural information unchanged because language signs "are based in tradition". That is how the language provides the mechanism of cultural memory. "Culture is a hierarchically organized system of different codes, secondary sign systems". (Lotman, 2000)

The main types of signs in semiotics are indexes, icons (images) and symbols, which represent three stages of semiosis (formation of a sign).

The second type of signs - icons or images, are individual and subjective. Such are artistic images, created by artists and writers. Artistic images contain evaluations and authors' attitude. They are created with the help of words of a language. This term correlates with the term "artistic concept". (Askol'dov, 1997)

Symbols belong to collective consciousness, they are objective, they are comprehensible for people. Symbols create the model of behaviour and program the course of action. According to

E. Kassirer - culture is production of symbols. People live not only in physical, but also in symbolic universe.

V.I. Karasik presents the model of semiotic development of concept as gradual complication of coded information in notional, iconic (image), and axiological parts of concept. In notional part it is expressed in doubling of signs: from index to epidegmatic (index+ algorithm of decoding of sense) and further to formulaic (index+ algorithm of decoding of sense + reformulating with specifying of vital features). This corresponds to the logic of scientific comprehension of the world. In iconic (image) part gradual extra meaning of impliedly coded information is expressed in movement from imitation sign (depiction) to tropeic (depiction + comprehension of depiction) and later-to symbolic (depiction + reinterpreting) + infinite emergence of feedback images. In axiological part semiotic complication is moving from background sign (potential advancement+ situational fixation of evaluation) further to emphatic (potential advancement + situational fixation + dominance of evaluation in the sign). Such type of coding corresponds to the logic of practical comprehension of the world (Karasik, 2013)

Statement of the problem:

The author's individual concept is usually understood as semantic deviation and is analysed on the basis of comparison with the traditional lingua-cultural concept. It can also fill a gap (a lacune) in the system of language (and culture) and is created by the author together with the word representing it.

We view the individual concept "Mate/ Mateship" as part of lingua-cultural concept. These concepts share the notional part, which was borrowed from British English, and was the result of divergent development ( Shveitser, 1983), which means that the lexeme with the

same name is also part of British-English, though with different system valeur and extra-linguistic meaning ( connotations). Strictly speaking, the lingua-cultural concept did not exist to provide the basis for comparison prior to its creation by H. Lawson. So, we find it hard to speak about semantic deviation of the concept in question as the cultural concept was in the process of formation, simultaneously with Australian nation.

We view H. Lawson's individual concept "Mate/Mateship" as the core of the lingua-cultural concept with the same name. Analysis of "Mateship" as a lingua-cultural concept presented considerable difficulties due to the absence of proverbial, idiomatic and folklore fund in the Australian language, which is the source of metaphorical meaning of the concept.

We found the works of H. Lawson to be equivalent to Australian folklore of white Australia (not aboriginal one). The difficulty with collecting metaphorical meaning was connected with the nature of the text. Henry Lawson is the founder of literature of Australian realism, which, in contrast to poetry, as prose in general, is not rich in metaphorical means of author's expression. On the other hand, in our opinion, his stories equal the epos of a nation in formation, which lay the foundation for the society's ethic, morale and values binding the nation.

We call the individual concept - concept-image, thus narrowing the scope of the analysis and focusing not on the individual peculiarities, but on culture formative features of the image, which help us to elicit the value-component. We base our term of the term words -images. (Grishaeva, 2011)

Concept-image is different from the artistic (literary) image in the way of its analysis, the former including lexicographical analyses of lexemes representing the concept.

For the purpose of our analysis we consider the structure of the individual concept to be

isomorphic to lingua-cultural concept as presented by V. I. Karasik and S. G. Vorkachev. That is it has the notional, iconic and value component. The first two are analysed on the basis of semantic components, obtained from dictionaries and the text. Semantic components are then interpreted to derive the values, underlying them.

Basing our analysis on the presumption of psychological reality of semantic features (D'Andrade, 2003), we aim to decode the value-component by interpreting the semantic structure. According to the theory of semiotic development of signs, we observe the process of symbolization of semantic features, connected with their metaphoric and metonymic cognitive development (Lakoff, 2004), proving the asymmetry of language sign as a means of accommodation to the changing societal conditions.

Methods: We used the methods of lexicographical and textual analysis, lexical field, component analysis of semantic structure of the word, text analysis, interpretative analysis and comparative analysis.

We started the analysis of the notional part with the comparison of the two lexemes -"mate" and "friend" in the English language of the 18 century based on the associations given in Roget's thesaurus. Having found the distinctive features, we then analyzed the character of semantic deviation of these lexemes in the works by H. Lawson. This analysis gave us the initial idea of the semantic fields, comprising the concept. In the further course of our work we defined the content of lexical - fields with the words and phrases frequently associated with this field. This produced group of lexical items, which we analyzed to derive the common semantic components, which we later interpreted to derive the values.

We find that the conceptual and semiotic development of the initial concept-image "Mate" results in creation of a new concept-symbol

"Mateship", which is conceptually derived from it, and is represented by a lexeme created with the help of morphological derivation. We describe the scenario of development of "Mateship" and antinomies, it is based on.

Discussion

The notional part of the concept-image "Mate" undergone the following changes:

The category "Similarity" is realized in the in-group and out-group evaluation, where the latter acquires a negative shade of socio - group stereotyping.

The category "Equality" is realized in the following subcategories:

A) strength of character and physical endurance;

B) equal lack of money and ambition (aims) to earn it;

C) equal status (of a worker) but not necessarily equal social origin.

3. The category "Traveller" is transformed:

A) it shows the inside attitude of the traveler, in contrast to the initial outside view, and is connected with sympathizing with the hardships of the traveler;

B) it presents travelling (in search of work) metaphorically as redemption of one's sins.

4) The category of "Auxiliary" is realized in the following subcategories

A) fight (To fight for a mate, To barrack);

B) helping as the essence of mateship: To help a mate Jack would go through flood andfire; No need to thank a mate;

B) the obligatory equality as a condition of accepting help, rejection of financial help in the situation of inequality: Not to accept help from more successful mates;

E) sympathy in helping: His sympathies are practical, Grin for a mate;

4) In the category "Failure" failure is viewed as the starting point of financial equality,

travelling in search of work, it is also the start of mateship. H. Lawson narrates about the following types of failures:

A) lawbreakers and outcasts of Western society;

B) people having troubles with police;

C) financial failure of an Australian, driving him to the Outback;

D) love failures.

In the analysis of the iconic component we group the lexems (conceptual features) into two mega-categories: "Bush" and "Relations (communication)"

Mega category "Bush" is related to the categories A) climate, B) travelling, C) work.

a) climate: Bush is opposed to civilization, technical progress and city and is a quintessence and equivalent of Australia and Australianness. Bush (Outback, Never-Never, No man's land) is the inner desert part of Australia, remote from the coast. They have exhaustively dry climate with long spells of pouring rain. Bush is men's country, it is opposed to women and girls' country.

B) travelling: it was extremely dangerous to travel alone in the bush, and also scary. The added components are fear (dark and dismal scrubs), sharing (of food short of tucker and tobacco, of sugar and tea), and danger (plains like a sea).

Track and tramp (hump the bluey) are used metaphorically to indicate

1) the way to do things : There were only two tracks open to him now: either to give in or go on as he was going to shut himself out from human nature and become known as "Mean Wall," "Hungry Wall," or "Mad Wall, the Squatter.";

2) Future: When the tracks lay divided before us-your path through the future and mine;

3) romantic relationship (courting) : "I'M travellin' with her, that's all; and we're going to get married in two years!"

C) working in the bush: Bushwork was very hard and required a partner (mate) and often involved walking long distances in the bush.

"Bush mates" is the generic term, including all kinds of bushwork: bush carpenters, shearers (shearing mates), rouseabouts, the selector, bullock drivers, gold miners (digging mates), drovers, fossickers. All of them are travellers in certain periods of their work.

2) The second mega-category "Relations (communication)" includes such categories as: A) inclusiveness-exclusiveness (in-group -outgroup) B) communication C) language , D) alcohol , E) norms and rules of conduct

A) The category (1) inclusiveness-exclusiveness (in-group - out-group) includes indication to group insiders and group outsiders.

Insiders: chaps, chums, especial chum, cove

Outsiders: spiler, crawler, dude, gentlemen, crony 'whaler', jackaroos

Outsiders are evaluated either negatively (spiler, crawler, 'whaler',), or neutrally or ironically (dude, gentlemen, jackaroos). For example, gentlemanly behavior is mocked or scorned, but is based on recognition of the tradition of British class society and accepted as a norm of the society, while themselves are viewed as sinners and failures. But spiler and crawlers (the damned old crawler!) is classless, it expresses indignation and condemned as mean, betraying the trust of a person who considers them trustworthy on the bases of belonging to the same social strata.

3) The word "friend" is used by women, and to talk about educated, respectable, influential people.

In-group and out-group form of address

"Mate" is used as a term-reference "His mate is alive!", "He is a mate of mine", "I'll smash any man that-that sais a word again' a mate of mine!".

As term-address "mate" is rare among in-group members. "Chap" (come on, chaps), "old man", a first name or a nickname (Brummy and Swampy) is used instead. When used as address between in-group members, it is highly emotional and verbalizes respect, warmth, gratitude and support "It's Macquary, old mate!".

When addressed to outsiders whose name is unknown, it is meant to emphasize the nonexistent solidarity with the addressee, based on his perception of the in-group membership as desirable and worthy of respect, however, in fact it is used to cover for dishonesty, by flattering the addressees with the in-group status.

B) The category "Communication"

Communication between mates is characterized by informality and takes place at certain venues. It takes place either near the campfire, where mates boil the billy, fry the chop and yarn by the fire, reading poetry, singing songs, looking at the stars. Another popular venue is the shanty, which includes drinking alcohol and "Not common-place polite conversation, you do not want to "talk pretty", do not have to mind your p's and q's."

The popular mode of communication is chyaking, which means joking (having a lark), administered to both insiders and outsiders of the group. Chyaking the mates might seem quite hurtful practice to the outsiders, but overall is connected with the Australian cult of toughness, and is preferred to flattering.

Another practice, incomprehensible to outsiders is barney, which is a quarrel of two (most often drunk) mates, "a barney between old two bush mates that threatens to end in a bloody fist fight and separation for life, but chances to end in beer".

Barracking is yet another solidarity practice, used to support the fighting mate. It implies verbal humiliation of the opponent of one's mate before or during the fight.

Yarn is specific genre of storytelling. It can be an intimate conversation with the old mates "to see old mates and have a yarn". Usual topic of such yarns is bush work, mutual acquaintances. Yarns can also be monologues "to tell a yarn", like a tale. It is a funny (humorous) or life story, which might not be 100% true "and lied like -like Australian bushmen". "The humour of his good yarns made atonement for the rest".

C) The category "Language"

Genuine pure Australian language is the language of the bush "It's the bush growl, born of heat, flies, and dust". Bushman's speech is illiterate, many of them speak in dialect (Cockney or Irish) all of them swear. However, coming back to woman-and-girl's country, mates stop swearing. Swearing is a way to conceal the feelings, displaying which is considered inappropriate for a man.

Professional jargon: "An' she says that, when I'm sleepin', oft my elerquince'll flow/ In the bullick-drivin' language ov the days o'long ago".

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Features of dialect speech: 'An' if Jimmy uses doubleyou instead of ar an' vee,/An' if he drops his aitches, then you're sure to know it's he."

D) The category "Alcohol"

Drinking alcohol (periodic sprees) is an inseparable part of bush life, helping to break the routine and establish, maintain and reinforce mutual understanding, trust and respect between mates. This is another aspect of equality-equality in drunkedness, one of the mates becoming a teetotaler is an unfortunate situation, disturbing this balance and threatening to put an end to their communication. The existing tradition of shouting (buying drinks for everyone in the bar) bespeaks of generosity and communicativeness of mates, but often leads to their wasting all the earned money (checks).

E) The category "Rules and norms of conduct"

The key component in the relations of mates

is trust: " they hold him true who is true to one however false he be", "with seldom track a man can trust and mountain peak to guide, mateship is lost if there is no faith in each other".

Other rule are: sharing, (share food, tobacco, hardships, sorrows, hopes, dreams, money), not asking questions, not judging, not letting your friends be spoken ill of.

Anticategories

Bush is opposed to the categories of :

A) "City"

"Shun the poison breath of cities, Go where you can breathe God's air and see the grandeur of the stars! Find again and follow up e old ambitions that you had."

Prototypical mates carry their swags, sleep on the ground, cager for food. Cities stop the romance, limit the freedom, put mates into the confines of law and society. In the city mates are poor beggars, unemployed, they feel dirty, mean and degraded by contrast with well dressed people (dudes), despised, feeling like a criminal, and it seems that every policeman regards them with suspicion, which is terrible to a sensitive man.

And B) "Progress"

Mateship is connected with the early development of the country, time before railroads were built. People could rely only on themselves and their mates when they set out for the unknown lands. Technical revolution transformed Australian society. "The flaunting flag of progress/ Is in the West unfurled/The mighty bush with iron rails/Is tethered to the world."

«Ah, them early days was ended when the reelroad crossed the plain,

But in dreams I often tramp beside the bullick-team again».

Conclusions/Results

Notional part of the concept-image "Mate" was transformed in Australian surroundings. Where failure started to be regarded as a starting point, bush became the essential part of it, and it acquired distinctive male features: fight, strength, socio-group stereotyping, inside view, with the added component of redemption of sin, and emphasized equality and help.

Iconic and value components

The core of the iconic component is the category of bush (Australia) which molds, strengthens the character of mate. Very important category is face-to-face communication in the absence of any technical means of communication. The concept correlates with male group identification, and it is obviously romanticized. The emphasis is made on equality, informality, freedom, trustworthiness and truthfulness, reliability and non-judgmental solidarity.

The value component is comprised of such social values as: reliability, endurance, communicativeness, quick wit, resourcefulness, solidarity, truthfulness (honesty) (in relation to mate), toughness, mutual help, generosity, freedom, independence.

Scenario of development of mateship

1) Pre-stage

a person has some problems (usually because of money) and he needs to go to the bush where he hopes to earn money, he starts travelling in search of work;

2) The initiating stage

the person starts to work in the bush and finds a companion (mate) because he needs him and they start travelling (working) together

3) the main stage

mates travel together for some time while they work in the bush , enduring hardship, helping and cheering each other, and sharing things with

each other Mateship is necessary to survive in the bush, mates sleep in turns, take care of each other. Mate is also necessary to stay sane.

4) final stage

mates stop working together, (start tramping different tracks) and become old mates. It happens when mates (or one of mates) need to return back to their families, or one of mates settle down, or mates may fall out and stop being mates.

The notion of "old mate" is connected with old days (usually remembered with warmth and pleasure despite the hardship endured as a time of hope), "when the tracks lay divided before us-your path through the future and mine"

5) after-stage

After mates stop working together, they become old mates. In fact, mateship is felt, analyzed, cherished after the actual companionship is over. Mates can keep in touch, visit each other's families, remember old times, drinking together in pubs, in which case it is frowned upon by the female side of the family. But the discomfort of financial inequality is not compatible with furthering these relations. Mateship as a memory is as important as the actual state of being mates.

Conceptual oppositions

The mostfundamental opposition is that of men and women. The word "mate" belonged to the bush-"men's country" with its hardships and unwritten laws. Mates swear to help themselves overcome difficulties, but when they come back to "the women-and girl's world", they stop swearing and start to behave.

The opposition between being polite and not minding your P's And Q's, between the graces observed for the sake of politeness and having a good time drinking in the inn and being yourself.

The opposition of bush and city. The life of bush mates was connected with hardships, but

also with romance. They breathed the free air of the bush, were free to go wherever they meant to, looked at the stars at night, they could wash themselves and make a mutton chop. There was nothing to regulate their life (except their own agreement) and make them feel inappropriately dressed. In the city mates felt badly dressed and disapproved by police and other people. They were badly dressed tramps, potential lawbreakers. It was not romantic in the least but humiliating and restraining at the time when travelling in the bush was an important part of the concept of mateship. As time went and gradually the population of Australia moved to the cities, this concept inevitably transformed, but its core remained basically the same.

Opposition of older and younger generation. Mateship in its core is a rather romanticized ideal. Mates believe in some things which the generation of their children cannot understand - it is a somewhat naive belief in luck and fate, which is difficult to explain to outsiders. For example, when a father tells his children how some woman-singer, who came to their camp to give a concert, was put down a new shafts for luck, in the hope this would help diggers to find gold. The children were at a loss to see the meaning of this action, they could not understand why do it unless she was actually looking for gold. Fathers-mates always had dreams-dreams about future life, better life. Old mates remembered their dreams, looking into the fire or sunset. Their dreams were the things they shared with each other, but not with outsiders, even if they were their own children. However, sometimes children can be mates to their fathers, for example in the story "His father's mate", a boy, named Isley (who was for his father like an island in the ocean of despair), helped his father work in the shaft.

There is also the opposition of Australiansness and Britishness. Between class society and classless one. Between toughness and

whining, helping another in adversity, despite having some feud and disputes, and letting other man's crops be ruined by fire.

Oppositions between need and wealth, between equality and inequality, between loyalty and disloyalty. Money is a very important and at the same time a very sensitive issue for mateship. It is the driving force for a man to take the jobs they would need a mate for, it is the initial impulse. Mates are on equal footing, they share their checks and shout (buy drinks) for each other. But when mates part and meet again after some time, if one of them has achieved success by this time and the other has not, it might be the end of mateship, because they both feel awkward and this gap cannot be repaired by words.

The opposition between Anglo-Australians (Aussies) and the rest of the population of Australia. Australia is an immigrant, multinational and multilingual country. The first free settles started to arrive to Australia in 1791. They were mostly people from European countries, first of all, from Britain. Later when gold was found in Australia lots of fortune seekers rushed to the country. Among the first were Germans and Chinese, then came Italians and Greeks. But it is the mainstream Australian - that is, the language of Anglo-Australian population, which is considered the national language of Australia. And as we know, cultural concepts are encoded in the language. So, alongside preserving ethnic diversity, the process of assimilation is also important to ensure the integrity of the society. To become full-fledged members of the Australian society, immigrants need to learn not only the language, but also the cultural patterns of Australian culture.

The opposition between Australia and the rest of the world. "Your Australian mate is someone who will defend you no matter what you've done". "Australia is all mates again". (Freeman, 2005) In fact, we can say it is not a

division but distinction, where mateship defines the national identity of Australians.

Opposition between slang and Standard English, between what is acceptable and unacceptable in society. As a term used in civilian life 'mate" was simply a slang word and you would lose marks in English composition for using it. In fact, the word "mate" is not marked in AND as a slang word, but at the same time, according to W. Ramson, words are not given stylistic marks in AND because they can move freely from unofficial to official use. The ban on use of the word "mate" shows that it is inappropriate in official situations. (Freeman, 2004)

To sum up, the concept - image "Mate/ Mateship", created by H. Lawson, demonstrates the tendency to change its semantic structure due to societal changes. It was connected with

certain location (bush), which was later extended to cities. It also was limited to a certain group of people: male workers of pre-industrial Australia and later was extended to soldiers and still later to the whole population of Australia ("Australia all mates again"), and group identification was extended to national identification. The historical core of this concept establishes connection between generations of Australians and develops patriotism as a value, the reason to be proud of your country, which was redeemed by its history, by the utmost endeavor of its people.

Being in modern times the key concept-symbol of multinational country, "Mateship" symbolizes such universal values as freedom, equality, and friendship, combined with Australian egalitarism, determination to achieve one's aim, supporting your fellow country-men, relying on yourself, and solidarity.

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Семиотическое развитие семантической структуры индивидуально-авторского концепта Г. Лоусона "Mate/Mateship"

И.С. Добряева

Сибирский федеральный университет Россия, 660041, Красноярск, пр. Свободный, 79

Статья отражает семиотическую динамику развития семантической структуры индивидуально-авторского концепта "Mate" (англ.). Данный образ иконичен, списан с натуры. Некоторая доля романтизации и идеализации образа способствует дальнейшему развитию его семантического значения, поскольку семантические компоненты данного исходного концепта-образа становятся основой для метафоризации и символизации производной морфологической и концептуальной деривации - концепта-символа "Mateship". Созданный в произведениях Г. Лоусона концепт-символ "Mateship" воспринимается как ключевой концепт австралийской культуры, вобравший в себя историю развития социально-экономических отношений внутри австралийского общества на рубеже XIX-XX вв. Определив на основе анализа семантической структуры данного концепта его ценностный компонент, мы получим представление о ключевых ценностях австралийской нации, заложенных в ее языке.

Ключевые слова: Австралия, Генри Лоусон, Mate, Mateship, авторский концепт, художественный концепт, концепт-образ, семантическая девиация, концептуальная деривация, культурный скрипт, концептуальные антиномии, семиотическая динамика, социо культурные ценности.

Научная специальность: 24.00.00 - культурология.

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