Linguistic phenomena similar to lexical homonymy
Homonymy as linguistic phenomenon observed not only in vocabulary. In the broad sense of the word, homonyms sometimes refer to different linguistic units (in terms of content, structure, levels of belonging) that coincide in sound (that is, in terms of expression). Unlike actual lexical (or absolute) homonyms, all other consonances and various kinds coincidences are sometimes called relative homonyms. Although it would be more correct to talk not about homonymy in the broad sense of the word, and not even about relative homonymy, but about the homonymic use in speech of various types of homophones, which, as V.V. Vinogradov points out, include “all types of unity of sound or consonance - both in entire constructions, and in combinations of words or their parts, in individual segments of speech, in individual morphemes, even in adjacent sound combinations." Consequently, the broad concept of homophony covers the consonance of a wide variety of linguistic units. For example, homophony phenomena include
coincidence of the pronunciation of words, the so-called homophones themselves, or phonetic homonyms: flu - mushroom, labor - tinder;
coincidence of a word and a phrase: dumb - not mine, skid - by the nose - a type of homophony;
coincidence separate forms words, so-called homoforms, or grammatical homonyms: saw (noun) - saw (verb in the past tense), I fly (from fly) - I fly (from treat).
Homographs are often also classified as homonymy, that is, words that have the same spelling but differ in pronunciation, in particular, stress. This clearly distinguishes them from both homophones and lexical homonyms. Modern researchers include over a thousand pairs of words among such words, such as iris (candy) - iris (a type of thread), while considering different types of homographs:
lexical - atlas and atlas,
lexico-grammatical - village (verb) and village (noun), run (verb) and run (noun),
grammatical - houses and houses;
stylistic - compass (lit.) and compass (nautical).
IN modern research, manuals, and dictionaries, a tendency has become established to use double names for those phenomena that are built on various kinds of coincidences and consonances. For example: homophones are phonetic homonyms, homoforms are grammatical homonyms, homomorphemes are morphological homonyms (or derivational homonyms). Sometimes the following terms are used: homosyntagmas - syntactic homonyms, omostylems - stylistic homonyms. It seems that, despite the critical attitude of researchers towards this kind of double terminology, especially towards terms and phrases like “syntactic homonymy”, its use does not cause confusion, but, on the contrary, allows one to more clearly define this or that linguistic phenomenon. And the point here is not what to call the phenomenon, but what kind of understanding is put into the name, what is hidden behind it.
So, lexical homonymy itself (full and partial) cannot be confused or even brought together with homophony in the broad sense of the word, that is, with all the consonances and similar sounds that occur in speech. From actual lexical homonymy and from different types Homophony should clearly delimit the phenomena of purely graphic coincidence, that is, homography.
Irina Aleksandrovna Karaseva Russian language lesson in 11th grade Municipal gymnasium of Yartsev, Smolensk region.
Linguistic phenomena in the genre of anecdote.
Russian language lesson
teacher of Russian language and literature municipal gymnasium Yartseva, Smolensk region.Goals: 1. repeat linguistic information about linguistic levels, linguistic phenomena; improve the skill of linguistic text analysis;
2. to develop the ability to see linguistic phenomena in linguistic material, to identify comic techniques in the text;
3. cultivate interest and attention to the word.
Tasks:
analyze the linguistic phenomena underlying the creation of a comic effect in the genre of anecdote;
get acquainted with the variety of linguistic ways of creating comic devices;
stage a joke, expressively conveying the comic.
Materials for the lesson:
Cards with tasks for groups; poster diagram “Language levels and phenomena”
Organization of work in the lesson: class works in groups
Lesson plan:
Definition of the genre of the joke, clarification of the concept of “linguistic” joke.
Linguistic phenomena are the basis for creating a comic effect - working with cards.
Rhetorical pause: dramatizing jokes.
Rethinking phraseological units, aphorisms as a comic device - working with cards.
Determining phenomena at different language levels is an individual work.
Conclusions.
Description of the lesson.
Set the mood for the topic. Target setting.
Professor, what is a period?
A point is a straight line if you look at its end.
In our lessons, the object of attention is the Russian language, we seriously and closely consider it with different points vision. And today our angle of view will be unusual, as in this joke. What do you think today's lesson will be about?
Define the genre of anecdote.
Try to formulate its features.
JOKE(from the Greek anekdotos - “unpublished”), short story about a fictional event of topical everyday or socio-political content, with a humorous or satirical overtones and an unexpected witty ending. In the second half of the 18th and 19th centuries. the word “anecdote” had a different meaning: a short, often moralizing story about an unusual real (or pretended to be real) event, an incident in the life of a historical person or time. The joke now is very short story with funny, funny content and an unexpected poignant ending. The cast of characters in jokes changes over time. For example, from the beginning of perestroika, in the late 80s - 90s of the 20th century. new heroes of jokes appear: “new Russians”, blondes, Estonians, drug addicts. There are also jokes without characters. This is most often jokes-riddles having question and answer form. An anecdote often has structure consisting of 2 parts, - a plot, a story about some event or incident, dialogue between characters, and then an unexpected denouement that creates the “salt” of the anecdote.
From the point of view of obtaining a comic effect, we can distinguish two types of jokes:
jokes that play up the absurdity of a situation, the discrepancy between our ideas about the world and the behavior of the characters.
jokes in which some linguistic phenomenon is played out (so-called “linguistic” jokes) - polysemy, homonymy, etc.
Often the comic effect is created due to linguistic phenomena. Examples of currently popular jokes provide such material. It is “linguistic” jokes that are the focus of our attention today. Our main question for today's lesson:
? What language means play a leading role in creating the comic effect in jokes?
Working with joke texts, analyzing linguistic phenomena underlying the comic effect. Work in groups.
Let us recall the language levels (see poster diagram) and phenomena at various levels:
Phonetic (voicing, voicing...)
Lexical (homonymy, synonymy, polysemy, figurative meaning...)
Morphemic, word-formative...
Syntactic…
Our task is to find out what linguistic phenomena are often used in jokes to create a comic effect.
A. Group assignments:
Cards
Card No. 1
Analyze the highlighted words. Determine what linguistic phenomenon underlies the comic effect in these jokes?
If there is homemade housewives, which means there must be somewhere wild.
Remember, the boss thinks faster than you! And while you're just thinking about it good he already makes a decision bad
Previously the DISTRICT and DISTRICT executive committee, but now it’s entirely the ADMINISTRATION.
Linguistic phenomena in jokes.
Card No. 2
Analyze the highlighted words. Determine what linguistic phenomenon underlies the comic effect in these jokes?
Yesterday I went out onto the balcony, I wanted underwearhang , then changed his mind... shot him!
IN New Year All is coming true. Even that all year sell couldn't
What table, so is chair.
Linguistic phenomena in jokes.
Card No. 3
Analyze the highlighted words. Determine what linguistic phenomenon underlies the comic effect in these jokes?
- Dad, how to write correctly: “In winter, people in coat or in poltah?»
- Write, son, better about summer.
Advertisement in the newspaper: “An intelligent family will sell five Polt, one piano and two pianos. Get in the way collidore.»
Linguistic phenomena in jokes.
Card No. 4
Analyze the highlighted words. Determine what linguistic phenomenon underlies the comic effect in these jokes?
In the store: “Tell me, do you haveplain Do you have a coat? “No, there are 70, 80, maximum 100 kg”
In the store: “You havecolored are there TVs? Give me red"
People want good life, but they are always satisfied cheerful.
Groups report on their observations:
Antonymous pairs are played out, for example, a comic effect is achieved through antonyms wild - domestic etc.;
Are being played out ambiguous words, For example, hang - 1) place in a hanging position, 2) execute by hanging; etc.
The meanings of synonyms and homonyms are played on, for example, the use of contextual synonyms color – red; use of homonyms plain (from: one ton) – plain (from: painted in one tone, color);
Playing up a grammatical error is a favorite technique in jokes about children, foreigners, and illiterate people: indeclinable noun coat, gender category of a noun piano, etc.
? So, list the main linguistic techniques for creating comedy in “linguistic” jokes. Frequent appointments:
distortion of grammatical forms,
polysemy of words,
synonymy,
homonymy,
antonymy.
B. Rhetorical pause. Let's take a break for physical warm-up. Each group must act out the joke with their faces. Half a minute to discuss the skit. After watching, all viewers must answer the question: what linguistic phenomenon underlies the comic effect in this joke?
Jokes for acting out:
Card No. 1
In a restaurant, a visitor asks the waiter:
- Tell me, please, do you have wild duck on the menu?
- No, but for you we can anger the family.
Card No. 2
Conversation between father and son in the evening:
- Vovochka, son, show me the diary! Have you corrected your bad mark?
The son brings a diary with a deuce.
- Who corrects this! Give me the diary, I'll fix it myself.
Card No. 3
Dialogue in a cafe.
Client1: “One coffee and one bun.”
Client2: “One coffee and one bun.”
A linguist visitor to himself: “People don’t know Russian at all. “One coffee!”
Client 3: “One coffee...”
The linguist visitor beams with happiness: “Finally! At least one literate person!”
Client 3 continues: "And one bun"
Card No. 4
After the broadcast, the TV presenter is asked:
- How did you manage to get on television with such manners and such diction?! Blat, perhaps?
- What kind of cronyism? Sestla.
? So, name the main linguistic techniques for creating the comic in these “linguistic” jokes.
The answers are the same, see paragraph A.
B. Group assignments. Rethinking phraseological units, aphorisms as a comic device - working with cards. The next group of anecdotes is united on a different basis: often in jokes well-known expressions are reinterpreted (phraseologisms, proverbs, aphorisms, cliches of business speech, children's poems). For example, Admiral Nelson and Kutuzov once got together and remembered the old. The proverb is played out Whoever remembers the old, look out. Both Field Marshal Kutuzov and Admiral Nelson were missing one eye.
? Determine which famous expressions played out in these jokes? Name these expressions.
Card No. 1
Madam! Now I’ll finish my drink and I’ll be at your feet.
Recipe “Beef in English”: “Take a piece of beef from the refrigerator at a party and leave without saying goodbye”
Rethinking famous expressions in jokes.
Card No. 2
Often, jokes reinterpret well-known sayings and set expressions. DetermineWhat expressions are used in these jokes? Name these expressions.
No - salaries in envelopes. Yes - salary in parcels.
The one who gets up early bothers everyone!
Reinterpreting famous expressions in jokes.
Card No. 3
Often, jokes reinterpret well-known sayings and set expressions. DetermineWhat expressions are used in these jokes? Name these expressions.
Russia is great, thought Kutuzov, but there is nowhere to retreat, behind Moscow, traffic jams...
There are two troubles in Russia: roads and fools, when they come together – it’s tourism.
Reinterpreting famous expressions in jokes.
Card No. 4
Often, jokes reinterpret well-known sayings and set expressions. DetermineWhat expressions are used in these jokes? Name these expressions.
We shared an orange. Many of us died
Here's a fluffy rope and fragrant soap for you…
- The comic effect is achieved through transformation set expressions I'm at your feet And leave in English;
The cliche of business speech is played out ( salary in envelope) And
proverb ( who gets up early, God bless him);
The comic effect is achieved through rethinking famous sayings;
The comic effect is achieved through the transformation of well-known children's poems.
So, we found out that the comic effect in jokes is often based on transformation
stable expressions (phraseologisms),
catchphrases,
famous sayings,
children's poems,
proverbs,
cliches of business speech.
B. Group assignments.
There are much more linguistic techniques for creating a comic effect in jokes than we have considered. To make sure of this, I offer each group two more texts in which they need to determine the means of the comic.
Card No. 2
Phenomena at the phonetic level. In jokes, consonant words are played out. Explain what their consonance is based on.
- We bought Dove soap.
- Are you already unable to squeeze out soap without a soap dispenser?
Russian language lesson in a foreign school: - Children, the Russian language is very difficult language! For example, Nastya is a girl, and bad weather is bad weather!
Phenomena of different language levels in jokes.
Card No. 2
Phenomena of the lexical level. Determinewhat layer of vocabulary is played out in these jokes?
In addition to the motherboard, there is also a father's board. This is alimony
The brain consists of 80% fluid, and not only is it slow, but many people don’t get enough of it.
Phenomena of different language levels in jokes.
Card No. 3
Phenomena at the morphemic level. DetermineWhat ways of forming words are played out in these jokes?
Alice, after she got into Through the Looking Glass, visited Zashkafiye, Zadverye, Zatumbochye and Married.
Basics of poking, manicuring and keyboarding.
Phenomena of different language levels in jokes.
Card No. 4
Phenomena at the syntactic level. Determine what features of sentence structures these jokes are based on?
There are three reasons for not showing up for work: forgot, drank or scored.
News. Following chicken flu, cockroach runny nose, rat hemorrhoids and mosquito diarrhea were discovered.
Groups report on their observations and draw conclusions.
- Consonant words (with the same root) are played out floor) and orthoepic features of speech with an accent; Special vocabulary and terminology, including computer ones, are used; The ways of forming words are played out; The comic effect is built on the same type of constructions - the same type of phrases, the same type of predicates.
- Summing up, conclusions, reflection.
Our task was to find out what linguistic phenomena are often used in jokes to create a comic effect. Remember and name them by language level:
Phenomena at the phonetic level: consonance, various orthoepic features.
Phenomena of the lexical level: homonymy, synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, rethinking of terminology, well-known expressions.
Phenomena at the syntactic level: uniformity of syntactic constructions, syntactic parallelism.
Phenomena of morphemics: methods of word formation, meaning of morphemes.
Grammar phenomena: typical grammatical errors.
The most productive in creating a comic effect are the following linguistic phenomena: polysemy of words, synonymy, homonymy, antonymy, distortion of grammatical forms, jargon, rethinking and transformation of set expressions, the use of word formation techniques. An important feature is that in the text “from the author” the narrator mainly uses the present tense.
? How do you think this analysis of anecdotes is useful? What new things have you learned today?
Such an analysis of jokes will undoubtedly help you analyze the text more deeply, see what the “salt” of the joke is, and teach you to be more witty.
Homework: choose a joke whose comic effect is based on a linguistic phenomenon, explain this phenomenon. Try to find a new language technique that we did not consider today. For example, playing with jargon, dialectisms, using an oxymoron, changing the meaning using punctuation marks, etc.
A collection of anecdotes about language.../ Design Bureau of Verbal Communications “Punctuation Marks”
Homonymy as a linguistic phenomenon is observed not only in vocabulary. In the broad sense of the word, homonyms sometimes refer to different linguistic units that have the same sound. In contrast to actual lexical (or absolute) homonyms, all other consonances and various types of coincidences are called relative, although here it would be more correct to talk not about homonymy in the broad sense of the word, and not even about relative homonymy, but about the homonymic use of various types in speech homophones, which, as V.V. points out, include Vinogadov, includes “all types of unity of sound or consonance - in whole constructions, and in combinations of words or their parts, in individual segments of speech, in individual morphemes, even in adjacent sound combinations.”
Scientists such as Rosenthal D.E., Shmelev D., Vinogradov V.V. are of the opinion that homoforms, homographs and homophones are phenomena related to homonymy, since they relate to the grammatical, phonetic and graphic levels of language.
Rosenthal D.E. believes that “strict differentiation of linguistic phenomena requires limiting actual lexical homonymy from homoforms, homophones, homographs.”_
Homoforms are words that coincide only in one grammatical form (less often in several).
three 1 - numbers. in I. p. (three friends)
three 2 - verb in command. incl., units h., 2 l. (three carrots on a grater)
The grammatical forms of words of the same part of speech can also be homonymous.
Adjective forms big, young may indicate:
I.p., units, m.r. (great success, young specialist)
R.p., units, w.r. (big career, young woman)
D.p., unit, w.r. (To big career, to a young woman)
T.p., units, l.r. (With great career, with a young woman)
The basis for recognizing these forms in different forms, although they coincide in sound, is that they agree with nouns appearing in different cases (and the same adjectives with nouns m.r. and w.r. here have various shapes - big village, big sat down, big village).
Homoforms, by their nature, go beyond the scope of vocabulary, since they belong to a different level of language and should be studied in the morphology section.
Homophones are words that sound alike but are spelled differently.
meadow - bow, hammer - young, lead - carry
These words coincide in pronunciation due to the deafening of voiced consonants at the end of the word and before voiceless consonants. Changing vowels in an unstressed position leads to consonance of words rinse - caress, lick - climb, sharp - island, take - brother. Consequently, the appearance of homophones is associated with the operation of phonetic laws.
Homophones are the subject of study not of lexicology, but of phonetics, since they manifest themselves at a different linguistic level - phonetic.
Homographs- words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently. they usually have stress on different syllables:
mugs - mugs, fell asleep - fell asleep
There are more than a thousand pairs of homographs in modern Russian. Homography has direct relation to the graphical system of the language.
Fomina M.I. offers a broad concept of homophony (Greek homos - identical, phone - voice, sound), which covers the consonance of a wide variety of linguistic units:
coincidence of the pronunciation of words (the so-called homophones themselves, or phonetic homonyms)
flu - mushroom, doc - dog, labor - tinder
coincidence of words and phrases (a type of homophony)
dumb - not mine, skidded - by the nose, for days - with ducks
coincidence of individual forms of a word (the so-called homoforms, or grammatical homonyms)
saw(noun) - saw(Ch. in right time) , I'm flying(from fly) - I'm flying(I'm flying away) ,
young man - caring for a young mother
the same spelling of words, but a difference in pronunciation, in particular stress (homographs):
lexical: atlas - atlas
lexico-grammatical: village(verb) - village(noun)
grammatical: addresses - addresses
stylistic: compass(lit.) - compass(marine)
But Fomina M.I. agrees with V.V. Vinogradov that lexical homonymy itself (full or partial) “cannot be confused or even brought together” with homophony in the broad sense of the word, that is, with all consonances and similar sounds that occur in speech.
And linguist L.I. Rakhmanova considers homophones and homoforms to be types of homonyms, but admits that not all scientists classify homographs as homonyms, since main feature--different sound contradicts general definition homonyms.
Rakhmanova L.I. highlights special group Homoforms are those words that have passed from one part of speech to another.
directly (adverb) - directly(reinforced particle)
The words of this group are distinguished from other homoforms by the fact that when they are declined as singular. h., and in plural. in all case forms have the corresponding homoform - adjective.
Popov R.N. notes that “one of the closest phenomena to homonymy is considered to be paronymy. But it must be taken into account that paronymy occurs only in oral speech and has nothing to do with the lexical system of the language.”
Paronyms are words that are close, but not identical in sound, different in meaning and mistakenly used in speech one instead of the other.
Fact- “a real, non-fictional event, phenomenon.”
Factor - « driving force, the cause of a process or phenomenon that determines its characteristic features.”
Phonetically, paronyms differ from each other in that they have different pronunciations or the beginning of the word ( president - resident), or end( set - complex).
Among paronyms, nouns occupy a significant place. Paronyms expressed by other parts of speech are less common ( single - ordinary; grind - grind).
In grammatical literature lately so-called functional homonyms are distinguished. These are similar sounding, etymologically related words related to different parts speech.
Kolkhoz fieldsmooth . (cr. adjective)
The letters are writtensmooth . (adverb)
I'll comesmooth at five.(particle)
Functional homonyms are words used in speech as a result of the transition of one part of speech to another. In such cases, behind a single sound complex are hidden several words belonging to different parts of speech.
The formation and existence of functional homonyms allows for cases of double, triple (sometimes more) use of the same sound complex.
The formation of functional homonyms is carried out under certain syntactic conditions, which should be understood as a change in the syntactic function of a word, the order of words in a sentence, compatibility with other words, the nature of the connection between members of the sentence, the ellipsis of the word being defined.
In modern research, a tendency has become established to use double names for those phenomena that are built on various kinds of coincidences and consonances. For example: homophones are phonetic homonyms, homoforms are grammatical homonyms, homomorphemes are morphological homonyms (or derivational homonyms). Sometimes the following terms are used: homosyntagmas - syntactic homonyms, omostylems - stylistic homonyms. It seems that, despite the critical attitude of researchers to this kind of double terminology, especially to terms and phrases like “syntactic homonymy” and the like, its use does not cause confusion, but, on the contrary, allows one to more clearly define this or that linguistic phenomenon.
The Russian language is a complex, vibrant, extremely diverse phenomenon. This applies to all its levels. Especially interesting phenomena it can be observed at the level of phonetics, vocabulary and grammar. These layers are primarily the most full form will tell us about the changes that occur verbally and over time, under the influence of events taking place in society. If archaeologists obtain information about “things that happened long ago” days gone by”, dealing with artifacts, then linguists do the same work, studying the life of the word.
Lexical inversions
Vocabulary is perhaps the most mobile layer of language. More than other branches of philology, it is directly connected with speakers, with live communication. That is why the lexical composition of the Russian language is so rich, multifaceted, and diverse. In addition to traditional synonymous and antonymic groups that enter into complex correlative relationships with each other, linguists have identified another broad community of words called homonyms. It is extremely heterogeneous; its lexical units themselves form several separate branches. These, in addition to homonyms themselves, are homophones and homographs, examples of which we have to look at.
Definition of the concept
The term came to us from and literally translates as “spelled the same way” or “I write the same way.” What does it mean? And the fact that homographs are examples of words that have a similar graphic design, but are pronounced differently and do not coincide in their lexical meaning. The difference in pronunciation is mainly due to the mismatch of stress positions or phonetic and grammatical laws. The most famous homographs, examples of which clearly demonstrate this difference, are the words za"mok and zamo"k, and "tlas and atla"s and others.
Explaining to children
Vocabulary is studied in detail at school in the 5th grade, and then children purposefully do not return to the material covered until the final exams, when they need to remember and systematize all their knowledge. The same cannot be said about other language sections. Therefore, it is important that schoolchildren initially understand well and easily classify different types. When explaining in class what homographs are, the teacher should analyze their examples in detail, following the principle “from simple to complex.” That is, first he explains it himself, then asks his students to do the same. It is very important to give words a lexical interpretation while going through the topic. Only then will the assimilation of the material be strong and the memorization conscious.
Contextual environment
Therefore, when understanding the theory, from a methodological point of view, it would be more correct to give more than single homographs - examples of phrases with explanatory words will be much more clear. If the teacher writes on the board the phrases “ancient castle, medieval castle, stone castle, castle with high towers, royal castle", it will be absolutely clear to children that we are talking about architectural structure, residential building, etc. Next, you can write down 1-2 suitable sentences with homographs yourself. Examples: “A formidable medieval castle towered on a high hill. It was surrounded by an impregnable stone wall." And now the homograph: ingenious castle, padlock, broken lock, zip lock. Children will immediately recognize that these examples refer to a mechanism for closing something. And they will be able to continue the series themselves: “Dad put a new reliable lock on the door. Now we don’t have to worry about the safety of our apartment.” If the teacher returns to this material from time to time during classes in subsequent grades, this will have a beneficial effect on the language practice of schoolchildren.
Close, but not identical
Naturally, it is difficult for a child to retain in his memory all the information he received during his apprenticeship and convey it in its original form for exams. The first thing he begins to get confused with when the material on lexicology loses its relevance is what homographs and homophones are (synonyms and antonyms, homonyms are remembered more firmly, because their differentiated features are more clearly expressed). The phenomenon of homophony is based on sound proximity (“background” - sound).
Yes, these words are often also spelled the same (not always!) But their stress is the same, while homographs do not. Homophones are: onion - plant and onion - weapon, braid - hair and braid - agricultural implements, flu - disease and mushroom (different graphical shell with the same phonetic design!) - plant.
Systematization of homographs
Linguists began to seriously study the problem of homography of the Russian language in our 21st century. Until this time, this linguistic phenomenon was considered very superficially. In modern philology, in addition to graphic homographs (i.e., in pure form), stand out:
- words that are spelled the same way and belong to the same part of speech, for example, flour" and mu"ka;
- comparable words with different part-speech affiliations: zvonok and zvonok;
- situational homographs: in Ko "li - if".
A variety of tasks with an entertaining twist will help schoolchildren penetrate deeper into the mysteries of Russian vocabulary and understand its features. And you definitely need to teach them to use dictionaries, including a dictionary of homographs!
Each language reflects the phenomena and processes occurring in the world, as well as specific objects and processes that exist among each people in the territory of their residence. Although the vision of the world is the same for all peoples, nevertheless, in the culture of each people there are concepts, phenomena, objects that are unique only to this people, associated with its historical, geographical, socio-political, and other conditions of existence. When studying the national and cultural content of the language, features social order, customs, art, science, literature, everyday life, epic, many scientists attached special importance to realities. Questions of the relationship between culture in the broadest sense of the word and information embedded, stored and communicated in words as elements of language have long attracted not only linguists, but also representatives of other sciences. All the features of the life of the people and their state, such as natural conditions, geographical location, course historical development, social structure, trends in social thought, science, art are necessarily reflected in the language of a given people. Therefore, we can assert that language is a reflection of the culture of a nation; it carries within itself the national cultural code of a particular people. Every language contains words whose meaning reflects the connection between language and culture, called the cultural component of the semantics of a language unit. These words include, first of all, real words.
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The concept of “realities” as a linguistic phenomenon
In translation theory, the term “reality” is used in two senses. On the one hand, it refers to any facts characteristic of a given people. These facts include cultural and everyday objects, historical events, geographical names, as well as proper names. On the other hand, realities are words and phrases denoting these facts. Despite the duality of the use of the same term in relation to the objects of reality and to the linguistic signs denoting these objects, the term “reality” in the meaning of “reality-word” has firmly entered translation studies and at the same time retained its substantive meaning. Perhaps the main reason for its use is the inconvenience of the too long phrase “linguistic unit denoting reality.”
As a linguistic phenomenon, realia belongs to the category of non-equivalent vocabulary. The term “word equivalent” was created by L.V. Shcherba. He emphasized that such a group of words denotes one concept and is a potential equivalent of a word.
Scientist L.S. Barkhudarov noted that all types of semantic correspondence between lexical units of two languages can be reduced to three main ones: complete correspondence, partial correspondence, lack of correspondence. In cases where the correspondence of a particular lexical unit of one language in the vocabulary of another language is completely absent, it is customary to speak of non-equivalent vocabulary. This term was introduced by E.M. Vereshchagin and V.G. Kostomarov. They considered non-equivalent vocabulary to be “words that serve to express concepts that are absent in another culture and in another language, words related to private cultural elements, i.e. to cultural elements that are characteristic only of culture A and absent in culture B, as well as words that have no translation into another language, in a word, have no equivalents outside the language to which they belong. It is noted that characteristic feature non-equivalent words is their untranslatability into other languages using constant correspondence, their inconsistency with some word of another language.
In linguistics, there are several definitions of realities. According to definition O.S. Akhmanova , realia are “various factors studied by external linguistics, such as government structure countries, history and culture of a given people, language contacts of native speakers of a given language, etc. from the point of view of their reflection in a given language.”
HELL. Schweitzer gave following definition realities: “units national language, denoting unique referents characteristic of a given linguistic culture and absent in the compared linguistic and cultural community.”
S. Vlahov and S. Florin considered as realities words and phrases that name objects characteristic of the life (everyday life, culture, social and historical development) of one people and alien to another, being carriers of national and / or historical flavor, they, as a rule, do not have exact correspondences (equivalents) in other languages, and, therefore, cannot be translated on a general basis, requiring a special approach.
The very word “reality” -Latin adjectiveneuter, plural(realis, -e, pl. realia - “real”, “real”), which turned into a noun under the influence of similar lexical categories feminine. In philology, the concept of reality is understood as an object, a thing that materially exists or existed, often connecting in meaning with the concept of “life”; for example, “the realities of European (social) life.” According to dictionary definitions, this is “any subject of material culture”, “in classical grammar there are various factors... such as the government structure of a given country, the history and culture of a given people, language contacts of speakers of a given language, etc. from the point of view of their reflection in a given language” , “objects of material culture that serve as the basis for the nominative meaning of a word.”
The reality-subject, even within the framework of regional studies, has a broad meaning, which does not always fit into the framework of the reality-word, being an element of extra-linguistic reality; reality-word as an element of the vocabulary of a given language is a sign with the help of which such objects - their referents - can receive their linguistic appearance. Apparently, in order to clarify this issue, some authors try to clarify the concept by using, along with the term “reality” and “reality-word”.
Concept “Reality” should be distinguished from the concept of “term”.Realities are characteristic of the sublanguage fiction and funds mass media, are inextricably linked with the culture of a particular people, are commonly used in the language of this people and alien to other languages. The terms are devoid of any national coloring, relate mainly to the field of science, are created artificially, exclusively for the name of an object or phenomenon, with the spread of which they receive wide application. First of all, the similarity between reality and the term is striking. Unlike most lexical units, terms denote precisely defined concepts, objects, phenomena; as an ideal, these are unambiguous words (and phrases) devoid of synonyms, often of foreign origin; among them there are those whose meanings are limited historically. All this can be said about realities. Moreover, at the junction of these two categories there are a number of units that are difficult to define as a term or as a reality, and there are many that can be “on legally» to be considered both terms and realities at the same time. A.D. Schweitzer even has the concept of “term-reality”.
A term usually spreads with the spread of the thing of which it is the name. As if to his home, he enters the language of every people, which in one way or another becomes acquainted with its referent. One cannot demand “nationality” from a term: regardless of its origin, it is the property of all humanity, which uses it as its legitimate “property”. Reality always belongs to the people in whose language it was born. Unlike terms, it penetrates into other languages in general regardless of the familiarity of the corresponding people with the object it denotes, most often from literature or through media channels. Having appeared in the vocabulary of another language, it can stay in it for some time and then disappear, or it can gain a foothold and turn into a borrowed word, thereby enriching or clogging the language. Moreover, there are realities that, without being terms, have an international distribution and are used almost as widely as terms. But here, too, they are distinguished from the latter by the scope of their application, as well as the presence of a national or historical connotation.
The terms differ from reality and in origin. Many are created artificially to name certain objects (as building material Latin and Greek languages) or through conscious rethinking of already existing words, while realities always arise through natural word creation. And this is quite understandable: realities are folk words, closely related to the life and worldview of the people who create them. An important feature of realities, which G.V. Chernov pointed out back in 1958, is, in contrast to terms, their common use, popularity, “familiarity” with all or most native speakers of the source language and, conversely, “foreignness” (V.P . Berkov)native speakers of their target language.
Some realities also have the characteristics of proper names, others stand on the border between both categories, and it would be no less correct to say that many of the proper names can also be realities. In fact, the close features of many realities and proper names in some cases make their delimitation almost impossible. Often the boundary has to be drawn based only on spelling: with capital letter the proper name is written, with lowercase - reality; and regarding German language, where they are written with capitals and common nouns, even this sign loses its significance. Vinogradov V.S. believes that a proper name is always a reality. In speech, it always names a really existing or fictitious object of thought, a person or place, one of a kind and inimitable. Each such name usually contains information about the local and national affiliation of the object it designates. S. Florin and S. Vlahov consider proper names as an independent class of non-equivalent vocabulary, “which has its own characteristics and methods of transmission during translation, which, of course, often coincide with the methods of “translating” realities.” For the most part, they are related to reality by a bright connotative meaning, which determines the ability to convey national and historical flavor. Nevertheless, we are forced to agree with the scientist Vinogradov that proper names are realities, since they name objects of reality that are unique in their kind. For example, such proper names as Father Frost, the Frog Princess, Koschey the Immortal are indeed objects known in Russian culture and absent in the cultures of other countries, and therefore have every right to be called realities.
Realities can be ethnic, everyday, cultural, and historical. They can also be a deviation from the literary norm, these include, for example, dialectisms, elements of reduced style (colloquial speech), jargon. But no matter how different the realities are, recreating them in the target language is quite difficult and problematic. The process of translating realia is ambiguous in many respects, since in the source text these ethnic components are not explained by the author and exist as something natural and taken for granted. Realia are nothing more than carriers of the historical and cultural linguistic component and translators should not forget about this. These are extremely specific concepts and definitions, characteristic exclusively of one, separately considered, people, language group, ethnic minority. The realities of one people are usually not found in the language of another and are unique in their own way in a different linguistic form. The category of realities includes many proverbs, sayings, idiomatic expressions, phraseological units, words and phrases that denote individual national features, phenomena, and objects that are not found among other ethnic groups. Provided that a linguistic unit is a small world that reflects a certain real fragment or an idea about this fragment of reality, then the concept of reality, in ethnocultural terms, stands much higher than the meaning of an ordinary linguistic structural component! It is in the process of a translator’s activity that different linguistic systems, as well as completely dissimilar civilizations and cultural communities, collide and become closely united. Against this background, the process of translating realities stands out especially clearly. As has already been mentioned by many theoretical researchers in the field of translation studies, the reality is the “impossibility of translation in translation.” In this case, it is impossible to do without footnotes and comments, but, unfortunately, they will not be a solution to the problem. In many cases, even commonly used language components may become part of cultural terminology or may not belong to this category at all. Translation of realities is impossible without the translator having extensive knowledge of not only language, but also background knowledge.
Thus, realia represent a very interesting and unusual layer of language vocabulary. The semantization of these words is extremely important for students foreign language, because they usually cause difficulties in understanding. According to N.I. Parozskaya, the study of words - realities is also of interest in connection with the interpretation of texts. The category of realities is not simple and ambiguous; it requires a special approach to their classification and translation.
So, reality is different from the termin that it is characteristic of the sublanguage of fiction and the media, is inextricably linked with the culture of a particular people, is commonly used in the language of this people and is alien to other languages. The term is devoid of any national connotation, relates mainly to the field of science, is created artificially, solely to name an object or phenomenon, with the spread of which it becomes widely used.
In light of the above, wewe accept the definition of reality given by scientists S. Vlakhov and S. Florin. In our opinion, their concept of this type of lexical units is the most complete and detailed. Scientists gave this definition taking into account the translation of real words, which is of great interest to us.
