The concept "Fear" in the Russian dialects of the Amur region (based on the material of verbal vocabulary)

Fan Haixu Independent researcher 680035, Russia, Khabarovsk Territory, Khabarovsk, Pacific street, 140, 306 362457061@qq.com Other publications by this author

Sadchenko Valentina Tarasovna ORCID: 0000-0001-6276-6819 Doctor of Philology Professor; Higher School of Russian Philology; Pacific State University 680000, Russia, Khabarovsk Territory, Khabarovsk, Karl Marx Ave., 68 ValentinaSadchenko@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

Verbal vocabulary plays a key role in expressing the linguistic picture of the world, since verbs are the main means of describing actions, processes and changes taking place in the world. The field of verbs of mental activity is nuclear for any language, the units of which have national peculiarities of their semantics and usage ^{[15, p. 120]}.

For modern Russian studies, the study of the lexical and semantic group of verbs of human mental activity is especially significant: according to scientists, this is "the most complex sphere in terms of internal organization, consisting of many denotative complexes united by the field of referential applicability: they all relate to the human subject" ^{[10, p. 121]}.

M. D. Chertykova draws attention to the fact that verbs can play a conceptualizing role in the process of creating a human image, which is facilitated by their specific semantics and a variety of shades arising at the syntagmatic level ^{[16, p. 6]}.

Conceptualization of the processes of thinking and emotional state can be expressed by verbs and verbal combinations that form a conceptual field. The conceptual field of verbs of mental activity is a multidimensional formation that includes a certain number of concepts verbalized by verbal lexemes as its units reflecting human mental activity. This field of verbs of mental activity includes verbs with mental meanings (verbs with the meanings of thinking and knowledge), emotive meanings, perceptual verbs of perception and sensation, united by a common categorical system "to show any mental abilities and qualities inherent in a person."

It is interesting that dialect verbs verbalize the mental activity of individual emotional concepts, peculiar microfields reflecting the dialect picture of the world, which is a fragment of the general linguistic picture of the world, but at the same time is characterized by a natural character, lack of codification, signs of traditional folk ideas about the world, as well as features in reflecting the world in accordance with regional conditions and values the attitudes of people peculiar to a particular place of residence. We turned to the little-studied material of the Russian dialects of the Amur region in this aspect.

Materials and methods of research

Russians Russian Dialects of the Amur Region, distributed over a large area from the village of Albazino to the city of Khabarovsk (dialects of the old-lived population of the Amur Region and Khabarovsk Territory along the upper and middle reaches of the Amur River), is the main source of empirical material from the 2007 edition of the Dictionary of Russian Dialects of the Amur Region (SRGP), which includes, as noted in the preface, "dialect vocabulary and phraseology of the Russian dialects of the Amur Region, spread over a large territory, from the village of Albazino to the city of Khabarovsk (dialects of the old-lived population of the Amur Region and Khabarovsk Territory along the upper and middle reaches of the river. Cupid)" ^{[11, p. 3]}. Russian Russian Dictionary of the Modern Russian Literary Language (SSRL) ^[13] and the Dictionary of the Russian Language (SRY) ^[12] were also checked. The work used the field method and elements of the cognitive commentary methodology in the analysis of the meanings of verbal lexemes in the aspect of the conceptual field and the linguistic picture of the world and elements of the quantitative comparison methodology.

The results of the study and their discussion

The study of verbal vocabulary with the general meaning of mental activity recorded in the SRGP showed that emotive verbs predominate in this lexico-semantic group, which indicates the emotionality of dialect speakers. Difficult life circumstances often lead speakers of dialects into an anxious emotional state. Most of the verbal emotive lexemes verbalize a negative emotional state and attitude, which corresponds to the semantics of the concepts "Fear", "Anger", "Sadness", "Grief", "Illness".

Fear, being one of the basic negative emotions, has repeatedly become the subject of linguistic research by such scientists as L. M. Vasiliev, L. G. Babenko, E. M. Wolf, etc. At the same time, there is no comprehensive linguistic description of it yet. The most common type of research is the description of individual linguistic or speech features of the expression of fear, which, however, according to L. M. Vasiliev, also turn out to be insufficient due to the lack of support for the general lexical and semantic meaning of verbs ^[3].

Thus, S. V. Minibayeva, exploring the lexicographic micropole "fear" in modern Russian, places the lexemes "timidity", "fright", "fear", "fear", "horror" in the nuclear zone of this micropole ^{[7, p. 88]}.

But the intensity of the emotional state of these synonymous lexemes is different. We see this in verbal lexemes.

Let's try to consider the micropole "Fear" based on the verbal vocabulary of mental activity highlighted in the SRGP.

Russian Russian studies, the concept of "Fear" has a significant history of study due to the fact that it is universal, common to many cultures and peoples, attempts have been repeatedly made to describe it on the basis of names and phraseological units of the Russian literary language or in a comparative aspect on the material of Russian and foreign languages; in the verbal presentation, this concept is still it was not analyzed.

The microfield of "Fear" is characterized by the presence of a core, center and periphery.

The core of the micropole consists of lexemes with the meanings "to be afraid" – to experience a state of fear and "to frighten" – to bring into a state of fear: to gasp, to wake up, to stir up. The first two verbs are absolute synonyms, and the lexeme to stir has a different grammatical characteristic – it denotes a different direction of action: it is a transitive verb denoting the emotional impact of the subject on the object:

WAKE UP, you, you, I, sov. To be scared. If he gets scared with a gun, the gun will pour out, if he gets scared of a rooster, the rooster will pour out (The keys are White). Someone knocked on the window last night, she was so scared to death (Argali Arch.). Amur. (Arch. Bel.) ^{[11, p. 417]}.

OUR SEWING, sh u, sh and sh u, sov., whom. Scare them. They [the Japanese] shocked me, I stuttered for a week (N.-Open Shim.). Cupid. (Shim.) ^{[11, p. 266]}.

In the Dictionary of the Russian Language, the verb "scare" means "to cause fright, to make one afraid", and "to be afraid" means "to feel fright, fear" ^{[12, vol. I, p. 685]}.

The near–nuclear zone – the center of the field - consists of lexemes having a connotative coloring, expressed in the intensity and duration of the emotion experienced. This is a more numerous group of words expressing fear: to be afraid, to be afraid, to frighten, to sniff, to stare, to miss.

The periphery of the field consists of the verbs to stir up, to stir up, to shade – these are lexemes in the semantics of which fear is optional, in particular, the verbs to STIR up, sh, sh, sov., whom. Exp. To alarm, to startle suddenly; to alarm. The fire alarmed everyone. We arrived at night and startled everyone (Blagoveshchensk). Amur. (Good); COME ON, shhh, shhh, sov. To be alarmed, to be alarmed. They were alarmed by empty news (Blagoveshchensk.). Amur. (Good.) ^{[11, p. 416]} have the main theme "to experience anxiety", "to lose mental balance"; the verb is to spread, sh y s y, sh y s I, sov. To be confused, to be shy, to be confused. I sang well to them, and then I blurred out something, and it turned out badly (Alb. Square.). Cupid. (Sle.) ^{[11, p. 366]} the seme "fear" is present in the above commentary on the lexeme: in the meaning of the literary verb-analogue "to be afraid". Anxiety, confusion, compared to fear, is a more general condition that has blurred, indistinct boundaries.

E. Y. Butenko, in an article on the concept of "Fear", writes the following: "... fear in the Russian language consciousness <...> is not a "popular" emotion, is not the main "theme" of life and culture. The word fear is a symbol, a cultural term capable of replacing specific shades of feeling, expresses emotion collectively, alienated from human experience, thereby objectifying the meaning of the emotion itself. In Russian linguoculture, the parameter of expecting something bad is represented, in addition to the lexeme fear, also, first of all, by the lexemes anxiety and longing" ^{[2, p. 109]}.

The verbal means of linguistic objectification of the concept of "Fear" allow us to draw some conclusions about the peculiarities of the representation of this concept in the speech space of speakers of Russian dialects of the Amur region.

The verbal verbalization of the concept of "Fear" in the Russian dialects of the Amur region reflects the physiological and psychological processes that occur with a person in the process of life and cognition of reality.

Fear can be caused by evil, dangerous animals (wolves); natural forces (water), elements (fire, flood); enemy invaders (Japanese); evil spirits (someone); empty news.

The intensity and duration of the experience of fear are expressed by synonymous verbal lexemes that enter the central zone and form a gradation series in accordance with the specifying semes of the intensity of the experience: more and less weak. Fear can be intense and prolonged, coupled with horror, usually caused by natural or significant social disasters.

With regard to dialect material, A. A. Antipova's conclusion is not confirmed that in the Russian language there is "only one case where it is possible to designate a reduced degree of intensity "in its pure form", that is, with the help of a word-formation formant, namely: to be afraid + the meaning "less than normal" = to be afraid" ^[1].

In the materials of the SRGP, the verb to attach is presented, where the prefix has the meaning of incompleteness of the manifestation of the sign, which is also emphasized contextually and by the adverbial lexeme.:

PLEASE, shh , shh, sov., whom. Intimidate a little. He does not put anyone on trial, so he will intimidate everyone (N.-Andr. Bel.). He scared the boys, they don't climb anymore (Mark. Good.). Cupid. (White Goods) ^{[11, p. 348]}.

There is no personification of fear, and the model is not noted, which S. V. Zaikina points out in his dissertation as the most frequent and characteristic of the Russian language: "... fear is a disease", <...> in the Russian language consciousness, fear-disease is thought of as an almost incurable disease, with extremely severe consequences, leading to temporary paralysis of the body" ^[4].

In this group of dialects, fear is not understood as a "neuropsychiatric disorder resulting from fright"; speakers of the analyzed dialect have a rather ironic attitude to fear (respondents describe this condition as a past and experienced event that caused significant fear, but did not have such severe consequences).

From the point of view of V. K. Prikhodko, the appearance of fear among residents of the Amur region is associated "with collisions with stormy water elements, severe frosts and winds, swampy swamps, impenetrable forests, poisonous insects, fires. Migrants are familiar with the concept of “animal fear”, i.e. fear for the “stomach", or for their lives. To this fear can be added the fear of disease, the fear of death, anxiety about tomorrow, the fear of God and a fantastic fear." According to V. K. Prikhodko, the feeling of fear "among old-timers is mainly objective in nature: an external threat to the environment (flood, fire, storm, etc.)" ^{[9, p. 24]}.

V. K. Prikhodko also notes that negative basic emotions are of great importance in the dialect language picture of the world of Russian dialects of the Amur region ^{[9, p. 12]}.

Researchers explain this fact in the general linguistic picture of the world by the fact that "people's consciousness perceives positive qualities of a person as a kind of norm, against which his negative qualities appear brighter, more prominent and therefore more often form the basis of the nomination." It is also noted that speakers of dialects negatively perceive any excessive manifestation of any quality, non-compliance with the norm in behavior ^{[14, p. 254]}.

In general, regarding the features of the highlighted concepts, the conclusions of linguists about the significant predominance of words with negative emotional and evaluative coloring are confirmed. At the same time, there are significantly more types of negative families than positive ones. This feature, following N. B. Lavrentieva ^[6], is noted by F. P. Ivanova, who analyzed the Russian dialects of the Amur region at one time and took an active part in compiling the dictionary. The author suggests calling it emotional-evaluative selectivity ^{[5, p. 30]}.

E. A. Oglezneva, in an article on derivative nouns in the Russian dialects of the Amur region, suggests that "the evaluative normative predicate expresses the assessment of a person from the point of view of folk ideas about what is due" ^{[8, p. 19]}. Therefore, the focus of dialect speakers is on vocabulary, nominating activities that violate the rules of behavior.

Conclusions

The micropole "Fear" in the Russian dialects of the Amur region has the following structure as a whole: it consists of a core, a central zone and a periphery; it is verbalized by synonymous verbal lexemes, which represent a gradation series with the meanings "to experience a state of fear" and "to bring into a state of fear", differentiating units according to the signs of intensity, duration of experiencing fear, as well as some features of its perception and formalization (the lack of personification of fear, the absence of the "fear-disease" model, the presence of cases of designation of a reduced degree of intensity using prefix formants).