| Abstract [eng] |
Concept of a Woman in Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Languages and Cultures This paper analyses the concept of a woman in Lithuanian, Polish and Russian languages and cultures. This is the analysis of ethnolinguistics area based on the method of Lublin cognitive ethnolinguistics. The aim of the paper is to analyse the image of a woman in three (Lithuanian, Polish, Russian) languages and cultures as well as to carry out comparative analysis. In order to achieve this, the research material of three types (system-questionnaire-texts) has been analysed and its results have been presented in the cognitive definition form. The point of the cognitive definition is to show what is being activated in speaker‘s consciousness in a particular linguistic situation. Therefore, the attention is paid to how people understand the subject, not what the subjects means. Meanwhile, the notion of the concept means the linguistic and cultural reality of the fragment, object or phenomenon image, comprising cognitive and pragmatic knowledge resulting from the individual and social experiences. It was possible to reveal various women‘s features thanks to the different types of research material. Analysis of the systematic data showed the essential woman‘s qualities captured in the dictionaries and corpora of different periods and types. Investigation of proverbs and sayings allowed to identify primordial Lithuanian, Polish and Russian people‘s worldview, values and way of thinking, recorded in oral folk culture. Questionnaires presented the modern woman‘s concept. Analysis of a woman‘s concept showed that women of all three nations have a lot of common characteristics and cultural similarities. However, diferrences in major psychological, social and psychosocial aspects were also observed. Psychological, psychosocial, social, physical and biological aspects were the most relevant and filled for all the cultures. Such researches are very important in multicultural environment. Language is a cultural work and a source of knowledge about the culture at the same time. Acquaintance with the culture of other nations facilitates communication and promotes understanding. Language and culture are changing mechanisms, so some cultural differences appear not only when traveling from one country to another, but vary in the same nation depending on historical circumstances. It has to be noted, that due to the limited master thesis scope and abundant amount of research material associated with three (Lithuanian, Polish, Russian) languages and cultures, the decision not to investigate some of the discourse material in this paper has been made. This paper did not look at what experts of different fields write about women. Also, when analyzing text data the work has been limited to proverbs, which revealed the traditional folk women envisioning. Detailed analysis of discourse that has not been discussed would reveal more characteristics of Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian women. |
