Verbalization through phraseological units of the Anima and Animus archetypes as a single level of the unconscious within C. Jung’s theory of the human psyche

Mityushina Margarita Sergeevna Postgraduate student, the dpartment of Linguistic Theory, Moscow State Regional University 121309, Moscow, Seslavinskaya st., 32b2, 208 derbinova_margarita@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The verbalization of archetypes according to K. Jung has already been studied by us in previous works ^[5] as well as in general the psycholinguistic aspects of personality have been studied in the scientific literature ^[4].

The concepts of Anima/Animus were introduced by K. Jung in the context of defining and explaining to scientists the existence and functioning of hereditary experience about the images of a woman and a man transmitted by generations, which are unconsciously projected onto other people and underlie the mental phenomena of an individual ^[11]. Anima or Animus ( K. calls such archetypes Jung, in his theory about the structure of the human psyche, the manifestation of female and male in a person) personify the image of the opposite sex in the structure of the psyche, that is, female — in the male psyche and vice versa). Thus, in a strong man, female softness can manifest itself, and in a woman, stubbornness and independence inherent in a man initially ^[11].

The introduction of Anima / Animus concepts is related to K. 's own experience . Jung (observations of his mother, patients and himself). As a result of such observations , the author made the following conclusions:

– behind the male conscious appearance there is an unconscious female component with its own character and specific modes of action, characterized by autonomy, internal logic, which takes a female symbolic form in dreams, fantasies;

– the presence of two personalities in one gender: ordinary everyday and secretive, but real; at the same time, the second personality has similar features with the behavior and character qualities of the opposite sex (for example, in a woman you can see ruthlessness, authority against the background of a soft, pleasant female appearance) ^[9].

According to K.S. Voloshina, a man is primarily perceived as a representative of the external space – society and is aimed at transforming the surrounding world, while a woman is limited to the inner sphere ^[2]. When this balance is disturbed, there is a conflict of Anima and Animus, which also manifests itself in verbal form, acquiring negative ratings in it.

According to J. Hillman, male/female also cannot be considered separately from each other, their combination, manifestation and confrontation should be analyzed. Thus, their union reflects the mental integrity ^[6].

According to J. S. Bohlen, culturally, the images of Anima and Animus are associated with the patterns of behavior of the sexes, marital relations reflected in myths and religion ^[1].

A. Gugennbul–Craig noted that family structures are embedded in these images ^[3].

According to C.G. Jung, when studying the images of Anima and Animus at the level of an individual, the following key points should be taken into account:

1) the image may vary depending on the perception of the opposite sex;

2) the verbalization of images can vary from general images, for example, father, mother, to cultural images (names of famous people, gods, etc.);

3) the manifestation of Anima and Animus can be carried out in accordance with the level of mental development of the individual;

4) bipolarity of Anima and Animus: a positive property in the image of an Anima can be interpreted/evaluated as a negative property in the image of an Animus ^[7].

According to C.G. Jung, Anima and Animus represent a kind of filter of the content of the unconscious and consciousness before the image is verbalized in a specific interpretation. The sources of verbalized forms are myths, proverbs, fairy tales, folklore, and works of art. The process of cognition, storage, transmission of information, the expression of traditions, cultural values and the dynamics of their changes is reflected in the content of the linguistic picture of the world, at all levels of language and, above all, in phraseology.

Thus, we consider it appropriate to identify the following key points in the study of the archetypes of Anima and Animus:

– the manifestation of masculine and feminine qualities at the level of behavior is associated with the archetypes of Anima and Animus;

– the images of Anima and Animus in the same culture can be interpreted at the level of society and personality, therefore they may differ depending on the established traditions, ideas, as well as the level of development of this society / personality;

– the archetypes Anima and Animus find and confirm their vivid reflection in phraseology.

The study of the peculiarities of the verbalization of personality characteristics by means of phraseological units is due to the fact that the phraseological unit reflects the linguistic picture of the world along with background knowledge, national and cultural characteristics of the linguistic community and contains the evaluative attitude of the speaker in its meaning.  

Purpose and methods of research

The aim of the study is to study the verbalization of the Anima and Animus archetypes, representing a single level of the unconscious according to the structure of Jung's model of the psyche, by means of phraseological units in order to prove that the formation of these archetypes is really based on the traditions and culture of society.

The research methods were the analysis, synthesis and generalization of scientific and methodological literature on the problem of research, semantic analysis of phraseological units of the English language. The empirical basis for the study was the English phraseological units characterizing the Anima and Animus archetypes in the structure of the personality psyche according to the theory of C.G. Jung, selected by a continuous sampling method from English-language orthoepic sources.

Research results

The analysis of phraseological units characterizing the archetypes of Anima and Animus in the structure of the personality psyche according to the theory of C.G. Jung gave us the opportunity to divide these FE into several categories: male / female in personality, characteristics / qualities of personality, including their bipolarity, interpersonal relationships with the opposite sex, as well as models of marital relations, cultural images. During the analysis, we also identified the semantic features of FE when they verbalize these categories (Table 1).

Table 1 – Categories of phraseological units characterizing the Anima and Animus archetypes in the structure of the personality psyche according to the theory of C.G. Jung and their semantic features manifested during the process of verbalization of these categories

Let's take a closer look at the semantic features of FE when they verbalize the Anima and Animus archetypes in each of the categories we have identified.

In the sphere of Animus and Anima relations ("masculine/ feminine in personality"), traditional ideas about women and men that have developed over generations in the European cultural tradition and which are characterized by the following features come out on top:

– as a true representative of the sex:

(1) the daughter of Eve – a woman, a representative of the fair sex

(2) a man's man is a real man

(3) red blood – physical strength, courage, courage

(4) play the man – behave, act like a man

– appearance as a characteristic:

(5) Teddy boy – the stylist

(6) muscles of steel– steel muscles

(7) a dolly bird– pretty girl, "doll"

On the one hand, there is a purely biological characteristic of the images of a man / woman, and on the other — their typical behavior and character qualities: a real man is characterized by masculinity, decency, honesty, etc., a woman is usually charming, looks good, etc.  

Among the positive qualities of the Anima archetype are the following:

(8) a woman of honor – an honest, decent woman (honesty, decency)

(9) mistress of the situation – mistress of the situation (independence in a specific situation)

(10) be one's own mistress – to be the mistress of your destiny (independence in life).

A man can be characterized positively regarding his professional abilities and skills:

(11) Jack of all trades – Jack of all trades

(12) Mr. Fixit No. 1 – Mr. "Fix–fix"

In addition, the professional activities of men and women are verbalized due to gender differences indicated in the structure of the phraseological units themselves:

(13) a man of letters – writer, writer