Semantic dynamics of the lexeme ‘pensioner’ in Russian linguistic culture

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Introduction

Language keeps cultural values and always reflects the smallest changes in the society. N.M. Dmitriyeva, N.L. Chulkina rightly note that “the view on the world of the modern generation depends primarily on the ability to understand the deep conceptual meanings embedded in the words of our language, primarily in the words verbalizing the basic ethical concepts of the Russian mentality” (Dmitriyeva, Chulkina, 2022: 65). Undoubtedly, modeling Russian linguistic-cultural concepts – identifying conceptual, figurative, and value attributes – becomes the most important task of modern linguistics, since it allows not only to go deep in the semantic space of language, but also to reveal the cultural and moral dominants of society. According to V.I. Karasik, the cultural dominants of Russian speakers' behavior are based on “linguistic-cultural values”, which can be classified as follows (Karasik, 2022: 14‒16):

• defining the conditions of the biological state of a person, or basic values of physical existence;
• characterizing benefits and harms for individuals, or utilitarian values;
• revealing the nature of duty and responsibility, or moral values;
• explaining the essence of spiritual existence and the meaning of life, or terminal values.

The value approach is actively developed within the framework of the linguistic-cultural approach, which involves modeling the national conceptosphere on the basis of linguistic material: lexical units verbalizing the concept, phraseological units, proverbs, sayings reflecting national-cultural images (Vorkachev, 2016; Karasik, 2022). Outstanding representatives of the linguistic-cultural approach in Russian linguistics are also E.Yu. Prokhorov (2009), G.G. Slyshkin (2004), V.M. Shaklein (Shaklein et al., 2021) and others.

Undoubtedly, changes in the political system, socio-economic factors have influenced the basic values of Russian linguistic culture of the XXI century, which could not but affect their perception and comprehension by modern speakers of the Russian language and culture. Thus, various aspects of the conceptual representation of the reality are presented in the works of A. Wierzbicka (2022), S.V. Ivanova, S.N. Medvedeva (2023), A.A. Grigoryan, E.N. Strelchuk (2021), M. Lacková (2021), Sun Yunuo, M.A. Rybakov, M.V. Lysyakova (2022) and others. Therefore, one of the most important directions in cultural linguistics should be interdisciplinary research aimed at modeling the dynamics of linguistic-cultural concepts representing the basic values of Russian culture.

The aim of our study is to model the image of a pensioner in Russian linguistic culture by identifying the dynamics of the concepts pension and old age, which represent the basic ethical value “attitude to people of the older age”.

We should note that in Russian linguistics there is a small number of scientific works describing the above-mentioned concepts and revealing their value, figurative and conceptual features: the concept of pension (Denisenko et al., 2022), the concept of aging (Blinova, 2009; Burnaeva, 2011; Kudryashova, 2018; Valiyeva, 2010; Safaralieva, 2021). Under the influence of socio-economic factors, reforming the pension system of the Russian Federation, the perception of old age by the speakers of Russian linguistic culture has changed: old age is now perceived not so much as the final period of a person's life, but rather as the period of life during the old-age pension. Thus, the description of the value “attitude to the elderly people” in Russian culture, represented by the value attributes of the concept old age, will be incomplete without modeling the concept pension.

Methods and materials

The reconstruction of the image of the XXI century pensioner in Russian linguistic culture included the interpretation of definitions of lexemes pension, pensioner, in explanatory, encyclopedic, associative dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms, word combinability, as well as the data from National Russian Language Corpus, associative experiments. We should note that the associative experiment with the stimuli pension and pensioner was first conducted at the Faculty of Philology of RUDN University. To write 3 first reactions to the stimuli pension and pensioner were asked 99 respondents ‒ native Russian speakers. As a result, the stimulus pension elicited 135 reactions with 98 were single reactions; the stimulus pensioner elicited 153 reactions with 113 were single reactions.

Continuous sampling, descriptive and comparative method, free associative experiment, statistical method were used.

Results

The change of the pensioner's status in modern society has firstly led to a change in its perception by native Russian speakers. The complex method of analyzing the lexeme pensioner, taking into account both the conceptual meaning of the word and the data obtained in the associative experiment, statistical analysis of the material of the National Russian Language Corpus, reflected significant changes in the semantics of this lexeme and also reconstructed the image of the pensioner of the XXI century.

The authors found that the semantic components pupil and artist in the lexeme pensioner were completely lost in the XXI century. This is confirmed during the associative experiment with the stimulus pensioner. In addition, the semantics of the word under study is enriched with semes poor, lonely, which is primarily due to extra-linguistic factors, namely: socio-economic transformations of Russian society and 2019 pension reform.

The free associative experiment with the stimulus pensioner allowed us to describe the actual image and value attributes of the concept pensioner. Thus, for young speakers of Russian linguistic culture, a pensioner appears as a lonely, poor, infirm, and sick old man who receives payment in the form of a pension and has the social status of a grandfather or grandmother. According to the respondents, a pensioner should be helped physically due to his/her helplessness and also financially, since the state financial support of the elderly is insufficient to ensure a decent lifestyle.

Discussion

In recent decades, thanks to the achievements of the modern health care system, improvement of the social support system for vulnerable segments of the population, and the growth of economic support measures, not only the average life expectancy but also the life quality of citizens of the Russian Federation has been increasing, which, accordingly, causes an increase in people over 60 years. Thus, the share of the able-bodied population is gradually decreasing in proportion to the increase in the share of the aging population, which causes an additional burden on the country's economy and requires redistribution of funds for social payments. To address this socio-economic problem, the Russian Federation has decided to gradually raise the retirement age in order to increase the share of the able-bodied population. It should be noted that the understanding of old age as a process of biological withering, physical weakening of the human organism is universal, nevertheless, the age of social old age or old age pension differs in many countries depending on the specific socio-economic situation in a particular country. Let us consider how the pension system and the status of a pensioner were formed in the Russian Federation. For the first time in Russia (the USSR), the age of old age retirement was legislatively approved in 1932: women could retire at 55, men – at 60. It is worth noting that “this indicator was the lowest in the world and remained unchanged until recently” (Uryupina, 2018: 29). But by the mid-1980s, the economic crisis, growing inflation, and an increase in the share of elderly citizens in the USSR led to a significant decrease in the amount of pension payments and an increase in the number of elderly citizens below the poverty line.

In 1990, the Federal Law “On State Pensions in the Russian Federation” approved a new pension system (Uryupina, 2018: 31) based on the principles of social insurance and initiated the creation of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation – a new state structure that accumulates pension contributions. As the new system failed in the context of the Pension Fund's budget deficit and the growing number of disabled citizens, a law¹ on raising the retirement age was adopted in 2018, which received a great public response.

The relevance of the pension reform for citizens of working and older age and the subsequent socio-economic transformations of the Russian society contributed to the increase in the frequency of use of the lexemes pension, pensioner. “According to the data of the newspaper corpus of the National Russian Language Corpus², the word pensioner in the period from 2014 to 2017 occurs 14,837 times in media texts, from 2018 to 2021 – 16,236 times” (Denisenko et al., 2022: 118). The statistics of the use of the word pensioner in the newspaper corpus is presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Statistics of the use of the word pensioner in the texts of the newspaper corpus
Source: compiled by the authors using Microsoft Excel tools.

The analysis of the above data confirms the increase in the frequency of the word pensioner in the first two decades of the 21st century due to the reform of the pension system of the Russian Federation. The peak of the lexeme pensioner falls on the periods of economic and social reforms in the Russian society. The lexeme pensioner at the peaks reveals such combinations as non-working pensioner (2019), single pensioners (2019), working pensioner (2016), pensioner's living wage (2016), it is impossible to support a pensioner (2016), demonstrations of pensioners (2007), disgruntled pensioners (2007).

The analysis of the peaks of the lexeme pensioner in the newspaper corpus from 1983 to 2021 leads to the following conclusions: the 2019 reform exposed an acute problem specifically for non-working and single pensioners. The word combinations lonely and non-working pensioner reveal the highest frequency of use. The combination of pre-reform peaks – 2007 and 2016 – indicates the extreme financial situation of pensioners and the protest mood of the population.

In the main corpus of the National Corpus of the Russian Language, the word pensioner occurs 4089 times. The regular combination of the word pensioner is presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Compatibility of the word pensioner according to the main body
Source: compiled by the authors.

At the same time, it should be noted that the word combination personal pensioner was actively used in the XX century texts, while combinations of the word pensioner with the words future, working, non-working, military are more frequent in the texts of the XXI century:

“Ganchuk was pointing out that he was a personal pensioner, that he was eighty-six and could die every moment, and the gatekeeper was yelling in a hoarse, angry voice that he also was a human being and wanted to come home on time” (Yuri Trifonov. The House on the Embankment (1976))³.

The sporadic use of the phrase personal pensioner in the texts of the XXI century is explained by the fact that this type of pension existed before the collapse of the USSR; in the Russian Federation, this type of pension is not assigned. In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, we find the following definition of the concept of personal pension: “In the USSR, [it is] a periodic monetary support paid to citizens of the USSR for special merits in the field of revolutionary, state, public, economic, military and cultural activities”⁴. V.N. Mamyachenkov notes that “the main advantage of personal pensions was not in money, but in the ‘social package’ attached to them, which provided a whole range of benefits: from the preferention in specialized medical care, food orders and buying scarce goods in stores closed for the population” (Mamyachenkov, 2018: 401). At present, the Russian Federation distinguishes the following types of pensions:

• old-age pension (or for the length of service);
• for disability (or illness);
• in case of loss (of breadwinner or ability to work).

The first two types of pensions – old-age or disability insurance pensions – represent the most common types of pensions in Russia⁵.

Semantics of the word pensioner in the XX century

At the next stage of our research, we turned to dictionary definitions of the word pensioner.

In the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language, we find:

“PENSIONER, -a, m. A person who receives a pension. Single pensioner. II Feminine Pensioner, -i. II adjective pensioner, -aya, -oe”⁶.

The Dictionary of the Russian Language says:

“PENSIONER, -a, m. One who receives a pension. Personal pensioner. – Conscientious pensioners, served their time, received a well-deserved vacation, and still help how they can. B. Polevoy, Sayan records”⁷.

The Online Explanatory Dictionary gives the following interpretation of the word pensioner:

“PENSIONER, m.

1) One who receives a pension.

2) An artist who received monetary support from the Academy of Arts to travel abroad (in the Russian state before 1917)”⁸.

The Demographic Encyclopedic Dictionary gives the following interpretation of the word pensioner:

“PENSIONER, a person receiving a pension. Depending on the reasons for the pension, there are pensioners of old-age, disability, survivor’s one, P. receiving a pension for length of service. Pensioners are also divided into working and non-working ones”⁹.

In the dictionaries of synonyms, we find the following synonymic series:

‒ pensioner – “a student, elderly, senile, old man”¹⁰;

‒ pensioner – “grandfather, pense, elderly, old man, old geezer, old codgee, apprentice, artist”¹¹.

On the basis of dictionary definitions, we made component analysis and selected the following semantic components of words pensioner, in the dictionaries of the XX century:

‒ the beneficiary of the pension;

‒ old man;

‒ student;

‒ artist or person of the creative profession.

It should be noted that the seme artist was updated, mainly in the first half of the 20th century.

The semantics of the word pensioner in the XXI century

The lexeme pensioner, revealing the above-mentioned semes, can verbalize the conceptual features of several concepts: old age, pension and others, because “...in a word, as in language, there are two forms – external and internal, there are two contents – objective and subjective. Obviously, one of them is linguistic, supported by sound associations, and the other is thought” (Denisenko et al., 2016: 104).

To verify this position, an associative experiment was conducted with 99 students of the Philological Faculty of RUDN University. The “conducting a free associative experiment makes it possible to model an associative field from the verbal reactions of respondents to a certain word-stimulus. Such a field is a linguistic material that realizes linguistic consciousness, and its analysis allows us to identify specific features of the national linguistic consciousness” (Isajeva, Vasilijeva, 2021: 242).

Thus, the words old age, pension, pensioner were proposed as stimulus words. Associative experiments with the stimuli pensioner and pension were conducted for the first time: there are no above-mentioned stimuli in the associative dictionaries of the 20th century. Since associative-verbal networks of the words old age and pension were described in detail in our studies (Safaralieva, 2021; Denisenko et al., 2022), we will present the main results of the study.

There were 273 reactions to the stimulus old age, where 66 were single reactions. The most frequent reactions are presented in Figure 3.

“New reactions, previously recorded as singular, characterizing old age as a period associated with illness and malaise were revealed: sickness (3), disease (3), morbidity (1). New frequent reactions to the stimulus "old age" were also receiving pension, the period of rest and entertainment, wrinkles, which previously were not recorded in associative dictionaries of the XX century” (Safaralieva, 2021: 13).

The stimulus pension got 135 reactions from respondents – native Russian speakers. There are no stimuli pension and pensioner in the associative dictionaries of the Russian language. The most frequent reactions to the stimulus pension is presented in Figure 4.

Figure 3. The most frequent reactions to the stimulus old age
Source: compiled by the authors.

Figure 4. The most frequent reactions to stimulus pension
Source: compiled by the authors.

Thus, in the minds of young representatives of Russian linguistic culture, pension is “a sum of money (small, little) assigned to an elderly citizen (old age, age) who has gone on a ‘deserved rest’ (rest), but it does not allow him/her to be financially prosperous (poverty)” (Denisenko et al., 2022: 120).

The analysis of frequent reactions reveals a stable connection between the concepts of old age and pension, which has not been yet recorded in the associative dictionaries of the Russian language.

At the next stage of our research, we reconstructed actual attributes of the image of a pensioner among native speakers of the Russian language. As a result of the free associative experiment, 153 reactions were obtained, of which 113 were single reactions:

Pensioner

Old age 16; pension, elderly 12; old man 10; grandmother, age 9; unemployed, home 6; poor, grandfather, money, loneliness 5; poverty 4; benefits, single, allowance, family, old, respect, person 3; helpless, veteran, sadness, grandfather, kindness, bench, wrinkles, man, vegetable garden, rest, glasses, help, work, freedom, work experience, old people, theater, labor, household, khrushchevka 2; bus, aggression, activity, active, pharmacy, poor, eat without salt, defenseless, free travel, helplessness, illness, ex-employee, aged, cheerful, grandchildren, military, opportunity, volunteer, nagging, pay, seniority, newspaper, hero, hungry, state, rudeness, risk group, dacha, Victory Day, village, cheap food, softie, flabby, Europe, pathetic, pity, cheerful, life, merit, honored, immigration, disability, history, qualification, cap, books, end, crutch, jacket, drugs, little mobility, manipulation, place, lots of free time, wise, martyr, cash, tension, discontent, German, injustice, unhappy, beggar, needy, limitation, alone, lake, October, experience, experienced, vacationer, passport, rest, hospital, decent, loss, post office, elderly, privilege, travel, worker, indifference, relatives, fishing, market, self-sufficient, gray hair, orphan, bench, scandal, Nordic walking, weakness, weak, word, old purse, old man, pills, television, wasting time, cane, difficulties, fading, smile, smarts, wise, tired, tiredness, to get tired, morning, pinch, dialogues for hours, economy, apples 1.

The obtained reactions can be divided into the following thematic groups based on the semantic proximity of the associates:

• physical condition;
• assessment of cognitive abilities, character of the pensioner;
• pensioner's appearance;
• moral state of the pensioner, attitude towards the pensioner;
• age, periodization of a person's life, nomination of a person;
• attributes of a pensioner;
• socio-economic status of the pensioner;
• other reactions.

Quantitatively distinguished frequent reactions are presented in Figure 5.

The analysis of the most frequent reactions revealed that for modern representatives of Russian linguistic culture the pensioner appears as an old person (old age (16), elderly (12), old man (10), grandmother (9), age (9)), receiving payments in the form of a pension (pension (12), unemployed (6)).

The physical condition of a pensioner is characterized mainly by reactions with pejorative connotation (10): a pensioner is a weak, tired, sick person. Only 2 respondents noted that a pensioner can be active (activity (1), active (1)).

Figure 5. The most frequent reactions to the stimulus pensioner
Source: compiled by the authors.

Most of the respondents characterize the cognitive abilities of a pensioner and his character positively (11 out of 15): a pensioner is a kind, wise, experienced person. Only a small part of respondents sees a pensioner as a dissatisfied, aggressive person.

Out of 27 reactions characterizing the pensioner's moral and ethical state and the attitude of society towards him/her, 19 have negative connotations. For most respondents, a pensioner is a lonely (9), helpless (3) person in need of outside help (4), causing pity (2). Only a small group of respondents associates the image of a pensioner with respect (3) and a period of rest (3), certain freedom (2).

First of all, a pensioner is a person who has reached a certain age. The associations old age (16), elderly (12), old man (10) indicate the stable connection between the concepts pension and oldness, verbalized by the lexeme pensioner. Among the reactions denoting age, periodization of a person's life, the reaction veteran (2) stands out, reflecting a stable associative connection with the events of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 in the Russian linguistic picture of the world. The external features of a pensioner are wrinkles, gray hair, and a smile.

The socio-economic status of the pensioner is reconstructed in the most detail. On the one hand, a pensioner is a person who is in certain economic relations with the state as a recipient of monetary payments (pension (12), money (5), allowance (3), payment (1), state (1)). At the same time, the connection of the received economic support with the certain length of service is revealed: a pensioner is a person who has reached old age and stopped working (unemployed (6), work (2), length of service (2), labor (2), etc.). In the mind of the representatives of Russian linguistic culture, a pensioner appears as a poor citizen (poor (5), poverty (4), a poor person (1), beggar (1), forced to save money. Very important for a pensioner are family and support, help from relatives: family (3), grandchildren (1), relatives (1). According to the representatives of Russian linguistic culture, pensioners spend a lot of time in the country, farming: vegetable garden (2), household (2), dacha (1).

The analysis of individual reactions allows us to reconstruct the everyday life of a pensioner: visiting various institutions (pharmacy (1), hospital (1), post office (1), market (1)), walking and communicating with people (bench (3), Nordic walking (1), dialogues for hours (1)). The image of a pensioner in the consciousness of modern representatives of Russian linguistic culture is often associated with the image of a veteran of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. Besides the previously mentioned reaction veteran (2), such associations as: military man (1), hero (1), Victory Day (1), Europe (1), history (1), German (1) are recorded. That is, in Russian linguistic culture a pensioner is often a participant of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.

Our research singles out the following topical attributes of the image of a pensioner:

• pension recipient;
• old man:
• lonely;
• poor.

Thus, the perception of the pensioner in Russian linguistic culture has undergone certain changes: for modern Russian language speakers the pensioner is no longer associated with an artist or a student, i.e. the above-mentioned semes are no longer relevant, but the semes lonely and poor are now relevant (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Dynamics of the semantics of the pensioner lexeme in Russian linguistic culture
Source: compiled by the authors.

Conclusion

The contrastive analysis of the concepts old age, pension and pensioner allowed us to combine the linguistic material from lexicographic sources and extralinguistic data obtained by analyzing the potential associates of the named concepts, which most fully reflected the transformation of the semantics of the word pensioner. The analysis of the associates of the named concepts made it possible to recreate the image of a pensioner in the minds of Russian language speakers and to conclude that over the last 20 years not only the semantic volume of the lexeme pensioner has changed, but also its perception and reflection have transformed in Russian linguistic culture. The proposed model of analyzing words as potential associates of concepts includes the identification and description of conceptual, figurative and value attributes of the latter, taking into account linguistic and extralinguistic data. The prospect of future research is seen in the application of this algorithm to representing and comprehending the current state of the Russian linguistic picture of the world. The obtained empirical material can become a basis for compiling lexicographic sources, including associative dictionaries of the Russian language.

 

_{¹ Federal Law of October, 3 2018 no. 350-FZ. (In Russ.) Retrieved March 2, 2023, from http://www.kremlin.ru/acts/bank/43614}

_{² National Russian Language Corpus. (In Russ.) Retrieved March 20, 2023, from https://ruscorpora.ru}

_{³ National Russian Language Corpus. (In Russ.) Retrieved March 24, 2023, from http://ruscorpora.ru}

_{⁴ Vavilov, S.I. (Ed.). (1955). The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (vol. 32, p. 530) (2nd ed.). Moscow: Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya Publ. (In Russ.)}

_{⁵ Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. (In Russ.) Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://pfr.gov.ru/grazhdanam/pensions/strah_pens}

_{⁶ Ozhegov, S.I. (2008‒2017). Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language: Online version. (In Russ.) Retrieved March 20, 2023, from https://slovarozhegova.ru/word.php?wordid=30422}

_{⁷ Efremova, T.F. (2000). New dictionary of the Russian language. Explanatory and
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_{⁹ Valentey, D.I. (1985). Demographic encyclopaedic dictionary. Мoscow: Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya Publ. (In Russ.) Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://rus-demography-dict.slovaronline.com/}

_{¹⁰ Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. (In Russ.) Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://sin.slovaronline.com/54902-PENSIONER}

_{¹¹ Electronic dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language of ASIS system. (In Russ.) Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/dic_synonims/114171/%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%80?ysclid=lfxyjv0rqr102442467}

About the authors

Vladimir N. Denisenko

RUDN University

Email: denisenko-vn@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6021-4068
SPIN-code: 4635-8342

PhD in Philology, Professor, Head of the Department of General and Russian Linguistics, Faculty of Philology

6 Miklukho-Maklaya St, Moscow, 117198, Russian Federation

Lyubov A. Safaralieva

RUDN University

Author for correspondence.
Email: kuznetsova-la@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6960-9426
SPIN-code: 1089-5456

PhD in Philology, Assistant Professor at the Department of General and Russian Linguistics, Faculty of Philology

6 Miklukho-Maklaya St, Moscow, 117198, Russian Federation

Natalia V. Perfilyeva

RUDN University

Email: perfilyeva-nv@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1018-809X
SPIN-code: 5097-4564

PhD in Philology, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor at the Department of General and Russian Linguistics, Faculty of Philology

6 Miklukho-Maklaya St, Moscow, 117198, Russian Federation

References

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