Methodological procedure for the reconstruction of ethnocultural stereotypes as the main technique of modern linguo-comparative studies

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Kyiv National Linguistic University

Methodological procedure for the reconstruction of ethnocultural stereotypes as the main technique of modern linguo-comparative studies

Shutova Mariia Oleksandrivna Doctor of Linguistics, Associate Professor, Head of Germanic and Finno-Ugrian Philology Department

Abstract

The article presents the methodological procedure of reconstructing ethno cultural stereotypes to develop a deeper understanding of the cultural beliefs and attitudes that exist within a particular society or community. By identifying these stereotypes and examining the ways in which they are perpetuated, the set of methodological procedures are introduced. The interaction of comparative historical diachronic research and cognitive-onomasiological analysis by comparing the results of both procedures for examining ethnocultural stereotypes was proved to be effective. The neccesity to build a sociolinguistic correlate of proto-language processes was determined by the historical study of a language that involved not only the construction of abstract models, but also the knowledge of the historical reality of the language. The different types of reconstruction - historical, ethnographic, cultural and cognitive-onomasiological - correlated with the results of linguistic reconstruction. Providing the understanding of the actual semiotic and linguosemiotic nature of ethnocultural stereotypes, the methodological procedures important for their analysis as signs of culture and as signs of language were distinguished. Hence, the procedure for the reconstruction of a stereotyped formation is, first of all, the identification of its elements and the genetic links between them. In the process of creating an onomasiological model of stereotype formation, the lexemes that verbalize it have been analyzed. The key methodological basis is a new understanding of reconstruction, which was based on the methods of comparative historical linguistics and has broader tasks than the actual restoration of the archetype, in particular, the search for its motivational basis. The process of stereotypes reconstruction is essential for developing a deeper understanding of the ways in which language shapes and reflects cultural identity and diversity.

Keywords: ethnocultural stereotype, linguistic reconstruction, semiotic reconstruction, stereotypical model.

Анотація

Шутова Марія Олександрівна доктор філологічних наук, доцент, завідувач кафедри германської і фіно-угорської філології, Київський національний лінгвістичний університет

МЕТОДОЛОГІЧНА ПРОЦЕДУРА РЕКОНСТРУКЦІЇ ЕТНОКУЛЬТУРНИХ СТЕРЕОТИПІВ ЯК ОСНОВНИЙ ПРИЙОМ СУЧАСНИХ ЛІНГВОКОМПАРАТИВНИХ ДОСЛІДЖЕНЬ

У статті представлено методологічну процедуру реконструкції етнокультурних стереотипів для глибшого розуміння культурних переконань і вірувань, які існують у конкретному суспільстві чи спільноті. Задля виявлення таких стереотипів та дослідження шляхів їхнього увічнення, пропонується набір методологічних процедур. Доведено ефективність взаємодії порівняльно-історичного діахронічного дослідження та когнітивно- ономасіологічного аналізу шляхом порівняння результатів обох процедур дослідження етнокультурних стереотипів. Необхідність побудови соціолінгвістичного кореляту прамовних процесів була зумовлена історичним дослідженням мови, яке передбачало не лише побудову абстрактних моделей, а й знання історичної реальності мови. Різні види реконструкції - історична, етнографічна, культурологічна та когнітивно-ономасіологічна - співвідносилися з результатами лінгвістичної реконструкції. Забезпечуючи розуміння актуальної семіотичної та лінгвосеміотичної природи етнокультурних стереотипів, виділено методологічні процедури, важливі для їх аналізу як знаків культури та як знаків мови. Отже, процедура реконструкції стереотипного утворення полягає насамперед у виявленні його елементів і генетичних зв'язків між ними. У процесі створення ономасіологічної моделі формування стереотипу проаналізовано лексеми, які його вербалізують. Ключовою методологічною основою є нове розуміння реконструкції, яке базується на методах порівняльно-історичного мовознавства і має ширші завдання, ніж власне відновлення архетипу, зокрема пошук його мотиваційної основи. Процес реконструкції стереотипів є важливим для розвитку глибшого розуміння того, як мова формує та відображає культурну ідентичність і різноманітність.

Ключові слова: етнокультурний стереотип, мовна реконструкція, семіотична реконструкція, стереотипна модель.

Introduction

Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics, examines the procedure of reconstruction of various linguistic formations through the prism of linguistic cognitive studies, but continues to rely on knowledge about the evolution of the protolanguage, the dynamics of its dialectal differentiation, the disintegration of the protolanguage community, and the formation of separate Indo-European languages on various chronological levels.

The necessity to build a sociolinguistic correlate of proto-language processes determines the topicality of the research. Due to the fact that the historical study of a language involves not only the construction of abstract models, but also the knowledge of the historical reality of the language, which is a combination of the general and the unique and, therefore, is closely related to the specific conditions for the existence of the language.

Therefore the results of linguistic reconstruction should be correlated with the results of other types of reconstruction - in our case, historical, ethnographic, cultural and cognitive-onomasiological. Only such a reconstruction can contribute to the achievement of a cognitively accurate interpretation of the semantic structure of ethnocultural stereotypes as linguistic formations in dynamics.

The aim of the study is to show the effectiveness of the interaction of comparative historical diachronic research and cognitive-onomasiological analysis by comparing the results of both procedures for examining ethnocultural stereotypes.

The analysis of semantics in different dimensions shows the prospects of integrating the reconstruction methods of cognitive-oriented research and comparative studies as an initial stage, the results of which receive a cognitive interpretation, and most importantly, in our opinion, the verification significance of such a combination or correlation of results. The results obtained by applying the methods and techniques of analysis from various scientific paradigms should give a more comprehensive picture of the studied language formations [1].

Literature Review. The cognitive approach as a component of the interdisciplinary (or currently trying to present it as a synergistic) linguistic paradigm is connected, among other things, with the study of linguistic stereotypes (which were considered in the first chapter as the ontological basis of their broader understanding - iethnocultural stereotypes) - objects of archaic linguistic world view, which are ways of structuring and categorizing fragments of reality [2, p. 79].

Researchers (E. Bartminskiy, O. Berezovich, V. Krasnykh, O. Levchenko, O. Tyshchenko, etc.) are unanimous in the fact that the stereotypical representations of specific ethno-communities are best reflected in the phraseological systems of languages that record the collective reactions to natural phenomena, social life and history. So, really, starting from linguistic data, a language researcher can find out what the reaction of the collective “I”, that is, how the collective consciousness perceives a certain object. Here it is worth quoting the opinions of J. Lakoff and M. Johnson regarding the interpretation of meanings, who note that the definitions of meanings do not provide answers to the questions of what exactly objects, phenomena, objects, etc. are, but reflect human attitudes and ideas about them, in particular, how they are perceived by linguistic communities and what they are intended for. In other words, phraseological systems accumulate ethnostereotypical representations of language communities.

Given this understanding by researchers of the actual semiotic and linguosemiotic nature of ethnocultural stereotypes, we will try to find out which methodological procedures are important for their analysis as signs of culture (material and spiritual) and as signs of language.

Nowadays, it remains necessary to develop special methods for the study of stable value orientations, attitudes, ideas (true or distorted) about the ethnic community and the psychology of its representatives, since there are still no universal methods that would allow identifying all the components of the ethnic stereotype, all its characteristics. Each of the available methods already has both advantages and disadvantages.

Psychosemantic methods of stereotype analysis are still recognized as the most popular, the most famous of which is the method of semantic differential.

Numerous studies carried out within the framework of the semantic scaling methodology have proven the cross-cultural and inter-individual stability of the structure of connotative values [3, 4, 5].

As for the methods of analyzing ethnic stereotypes, as a rule, they are studied on the basis of the comparative method, when the images of different peoples chosen for study are differentiated according to a certain number of factors. Such a comparative analysis makes it possible to present ethnostereotypes at the image level.

Despite the considerable amount of actual material analyzed, the following fundamental questions remain unresolved from a methodological point of view: 1) the truthfulness / falsity of stereotypes, 2) the relationship between stereotype and prejudice, stereotype and behaviour.

Results and discussion

Cognitively oriented linguistics proceeds from the assumption that the language structure is not arbitrary, but is motivated by the cognitive structure that is displayed in natural languages. Established on the achievements of functionalism and semantics (structuralism and semiotics), cognitive linguistics, and more broadly, anthropocentric, has shifted the focus of scientific interests of linguists to the depth of search [1] The functional approach to the reconstruction of ethnocultural phraseological formulas is based on such principles as iconism, the principle of economy, the principle of motivation and the diachronic method of interpretation.

The diachronic aspect of the representation of the language formula of ethnocultural phrase formulas, historical reconstruction is what will unite cognitive-oriented linguistics and modern linguo-comparativistics, the methodology and methodology of which have been tested for more than one century. ethnocultural society lexeme

The specification of the internal form of the word, the types of primary motivation in the semantic-conceptual field of ethno-cultural stereotypes, necessary for cognitive interpretation (identifying the influence of cognitive factors on the possibilities of semantic development), without referring to internal reconstruction, the relative chronology of linguistic facts, without correlation with a certain historical and cultural situation, will not be objective.

One of the first approach to the reconstruction of the internal form of the word was proposed by K. Kavelin, who studied the features of the Russian way of life. Namely, he reconstructed the literal meaning of relations between people - their rituals and customs. As a result of his study, Kavelin demanded the search for a literal, direct meaning or internal form of a word as a necessary requirement for the method of such analysis [6].

The literal meaning can be in the phenomena of culture, verbalized both in words and not indicated verbally (for example, in stereotypical human customs). The term literal meaning is a synonym for the term internal form, which A. Potebnya understood as a way on the basis of which the former word is represented in the existing word, from which the given one comes [7].

Kavelin's method has become widespread in cultural semiotics. Thus, with the help of this method, V. Propp investigated the historical origins of a fairy tale and convinced that fairy tales should be compared with the social institutions of the past, exploring their roots there. In this method, an important role belongs to ethnographers, historians and representatives of spiritual culture, each of which performs his own functions.

The ethnographer reconstructs the deep layer that exists in the current state of culture in a latent hidden form as the collective unconscious. And the representative of the spiritual culture follows the ethnographer, applying the same method. The path of the historian is to show the history of the cultural concepts as the inheritance of concepts. This means that concepts should be studied from data that once existed and was transmitted from generation to generation.

Such a methodological procedure seems to be quite productive for the reconstruction of ethno-cultural stereotypical phrases as cultural artifacts and as mental formations.

Among the modern methodological guidelines in the study of mental formations of cultural content, it is fundamental to consider them as structures of consciousness that mentally exist in the minds of individuals as some collective property of the whole society. This means that such formations were stereotyped in the minds of the speakers of a particular language, so they should be analyzed, first of all, from the social side.

Modern linguosemiotics increasingly demonstrates a tendency towards its interaction with comparative linguoculturalism, through the prism of which it seems possible to reveal the nationally motivated specificity of language signs of one culture against the background of another. And if we speak about semiotics in general, then its representatives (K. Levi-Strauss) claim that “[...] a certain sign system can be seen only from the standpoint of another sign system.” Based on this postulate, it is worth commenting once again on the ethnolinguistic ideas of E. Sapir and B. Whorf (hypothesis of linguistic relativity), according to which each language has its own ways and means of conceptualizing and categorizing the world, and therefore each people, each nation has its own formed ideas about this world, about people as representatives of their culture, and about other ethnic groups. Based on these ideas, so-called stereotypes are created in various societies - both in relation to their behaviour and traditions, and in relation to other cultural spaces.

Stereotypes are based on the interaction of the cognitive mechanism of world perception and their linguistic fixation [8, p. 31], which ensures their performance of three functions: 1) orientational (related to the cognitive representation of the world), and 2) informational (which conveys relatively reliable generalized information) and 3) the function of influencing the creation of reality (which contributes to distinguishing one's own and another's groups to protect the interests of their group).

In his work “Ethnos and ethnography”, Yu. Bromley, considering stereotypes of behaviour as signs of culture, expresses the following assumptions: 1) stereotypes of behavior (as well as behavior in general) primarily belong to social phenomena, and therefore the behavior of a person in society is determined by the peculiarities of social organizations, sociocultural mechanisms; 2) behaviour is variable both in diachrony and in synchrony (that is, in historical and ethnic spaces); 3) standards of behaviour correlate with the stratification of society at a certain stage of its development. Therefore, each social, gender, age, ethnic, religious, professional, etc. group and subculture is characterized by its own stereotypes of behaviour [9].

At the same time, it is worth noting that these three general provisions are specified in the case of involving the ethnocultural approach to the analysis of behavior stereotypes, and then the understanding and interpretation of stereotypes is narrowed to the concept of ethnocultural stereotypes.

With this in mind, ethnocultural stereotypes should be analyzed in three aspects: 1) as signs of culture in general, 2) as signs of a specific culture, and 3) as signs of a certain language. The first aspect concerns the empirically observed fragment of the products of traditional household culture (A. Baiburin), the second is aimed at studying them as artifacts rooted in the everyday consciousness of speakers of a specific language, that is, they are products (structures) of conceptual consciousness (T. Tolcheeva ), and the third is related to considering them as products of linguistic consciousness of representatives of their ethnic group (O. Berezovich). As constructs of traditional everyday culture and at the same time as artifacts of conceptual and linguistic consciousness, ethnocultural stereotypes of behavior have become the object of study in ethnolinguistics from the standpoint of a cognitive approach (E. Bartminskii). However, for a comprehensive disclosure of their linguosemiotic nature, it is necessary to involve the procedure of reconstruction of the internal (onomasiological analysis) and external (semasiological analysis) form, which will make it possible to reveal the motivational basis of this symbolism.

Such a methodological approach is fundamental, because it involves consideration of ethnocultural stereotypes of behaviour as signs realized in the specific behavior of speakers, representatives of their culture, and as structures of consciousness (frames, concepts, behaviour scenarios - static and dynamic), verbalized in language signs - primarily, phraseological.

Actually, the semiotic nature of ethnocultural stereotypes, realized in specific forms of behaviour, is related to the issue of the formation of behavioral stereotypes in a specific society, both individual and collective. The individual behaviour of a person is variable and diverse, while it is collective, that is, the behaviour of a person in society is typified, subject to the norms accepted in society, and therefore in many cases it is considered standard. In fact, collective typed behavior is fixed in the minds of speakers as a certain construct that has its own verbal expression, giving the semiotic nature of ethnocultural stereotypes a language covering.

Considering ethnocultural stereotypes in the first aspect, that is, first of all, as signs of culture in general, it should be said that their basis in this case is mythopoetic and religious ideas. Ethnocultural stereotyped formulas of wishes for happiness, luck, health (There is luck in odd numbers, Much good may it do you, To wish one all the luck in the world, The ball of fortune is at one's feet, The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places) they are obviously relic fragments of an ancient magical ritual, and therefore are considered universal culturally significant phenomena, which in modern society are marked by distinct archaism. For the study of such archaic forms of culture, they are of interest, because they provide an opportunity to study not only the specifics of the verbal expression of a wish for good by speakers of different languages, but also to reconstruct the very ritual of its utterance, i.e., here it is about the semiotization of a behavioural situation.

As for the directly given examples of ethnocultural stereotypes of the English in wishing happiness and luck we attribute them, on the one hand, to phraseological stable formulas of speech etiquette, and from the other - to magical texts that in a certain way regulate relationships between people.

Continuing to discuss the cultural-semiotic character of behavioural stereotypes, it should be said that real human behaviour is always a synthesis of several programs. As E. Bern notes, each person in his behavior implements more than one program of action, but constantly makes a choice, actualizing one of the strategies from a large set of possibilities [10].

How does stereotyping, and thus cultural semiotization of human behaviour, occur? Each society, in the process of interaction with the external environment, accumulates certain experience, which it transmits to the next generation. Information is transmitted in two ways: genetic and non-genetic. Non-hereditary information is transmitted in the process of socialization and is entirely based on learning. The storage, accumulation and transfer of social information involves, firstly, its arrangement and, secondly, the selection of the most significant fragments. These functions are provided by the mechanism of stereotyping, with the help of which the accumulated information becomes not just knowledge, but an organized experience, which, due to the presence of a structure, is transmitted over time. That is, such information is fixed in our consciousness in the form of various structures of knowledge, frames, concepts, scenarios, among which are ethnocultural stereotyped scenarios of behavior. This is already the second aspect of the analysis of ethnocultural stereotypes as products of conceptual consciousness, where their national marking and social determinism, which have a regulatory nature, are expressed.

The regulatory nature of ethnocultural stereotypes brings them closer to the concept of social norms. We will not consider the concept of the norm in details, we will only comment on its relationship with stereotypes of behaviour.

If behaviour in any sphere of human activity is subject to stereotyping, then the social norm regulates only the social behaviour of people. Comparing the standards of behavior with the norm, researchers significantly expand its meaning. Norms can be considered historically formed rules of behaviour, and then they are synonymous with standards of behaviour, but the concept of a norm always has an evaluative content. In this case, the norm acts as an expression of external assessment according to which any act can be characterized as right / wrong. A natural correlate of the norm in this sense will be a violation (and unfree behavior as in cases with stereotypes). Moreover, the norm exists only against the background of violations. Meanwhile, stereotypes of behaviour exist not only for the expression of the norm, its observance, but also for its violations. This is indicated by a wide range of phenomena inherent in each ethnic culture.

Ethnic features are expressed both in the deep and in the surface structures of behavioural stereotypes. But if the identification of the general and special stereotype on the outside does not cause any particular difficulties, then similar procedures in relation to the internal, meaningful side of the stereotype are quite difficult, since this sphere is not limited to pragmatic content or motivation and, as a rule, is complicated by habitual ethical, religious and other representations [11, p. 12-13].

As we can see, the reconstruction of ethnocultural stereotypes as signs of traditional culture, as signs of conceptual (ethnic culture) and as signs of linguistic consciousness makes it possible to reveal both the common and distinct archetypal basis of collective and individual behaviour of representatives of different societies.

One clarification should be made here. The results of research on the identification of universal and ethno-unique behaviour in stereotypes depend not only on the immanent properties of various cultural traditions, but also on the position of the researcher.

The configuration of the ethnolinguistic comparison of stereotypes of behaviour depends on the specific goals of the research, according to which universal and unique are interpreted 1) from the standpoint of comparative- historical linguistics (linguistic-comparative) as genetically common and different (for each ethnic group) motives that condition verbally expressed behaviour as collective, as well as variable and 2) contrastive-typological as well as synchronistic-comparative linguistics - as spatially common and distinct motives of behaviour that determine the culturally marked (traditional and ethnic) behaviour of each community.

Therefore, it is worth distinguishing between stereotypes (models, including language models) of behaviour and the behaviour itself, that is, specific actions and deeds that are the realization of a stereotype (cf. the distinction between the concepts of “language” and “speech” in linguistics; “code” and “message” in semiotics; “closed” and “open” behaviour in psychology). From this methodological position, the ethnocultural stereotype fulfills the role of a behaviour program, which is implemented in a behavioral text (in the semiotic sense of this term), which includes the following stereotyped forms of behaviour: rites, customs, etiquette, work skills and techniques, games, fashion, rest, holidays, punishment, wishes, idiomatic formulas for evaluating human actions, manifestations of human emotions, gestural somatics, etc.

Conclusions

Summing up, it should be said that the methodological procedure for the reconstruction of ethnocultural stereotypes includes the study of their history, etymology (primary motivation) and modern meaning for native speakers. At the same time, when analyzing them, such a concept as a conceptual model of stereotype formation is important - a way of representing a semantic structure. The modeling procedure involves identifying the basic components of the semantics of stereotyping, as well as determining the totality of stable relationships between these components.

Hence, the procedure for the reconstruction of a stereotyped formation is, first of all, the identification of its elements and the genetic links between them. While creating an onomasiological model of stereotype formation, it is important to analyze all the lexemes that verbalize it. The key methodological basis is a new understanding of reconstruction, which, although based on the methods of comparative historical linguistics, has broader tasks than the actual restoration of the archetype, in particular, the search for its motivational basis.

Overall, reconstructing ethnocultural stereotypes in linguistics requires a careful and systematic analysis of linguistic markers and patterns in order to reveal the cultural attitudes and beliefs that underpin these stereotypes. This process is essential for developing a deeper understanding of the ways in which language shapes and reflects cultural identity and diversity.

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