A Cognitive Linguistic Study of Comparative Set Phrases in Russian and Swedish

Cover Page

Cite item

Full Text

Abstract

This paper examines the linguistic-cognitive potential of comparative set phrases based on the material of two languages. The originality of the study lies in the consideration of two groups of phraseological units (fixed comparisons and paremias that explicitly or implicitly verbalize comparisons) and the identification of similarities and differences both between these groups in each language and individually between Russian and Swedish. The object of study was Russian and Swedish fixed comparisons characterizing a smart and stupid person, as well as comparative paremia, expressing the opposition ‘intelligencestupidity’. The aim of the study was to identify common and culturally conditioned mental attitudes and standards of comparison. The sources of material for study included dictionaries of Russian fixed comparisons, Vladimir Dal’s collection of proverbs, a phraseological dictionary of the Swedish language and dictionaries of Swedish proverbs. A thematic classification is offered of the standards of fixed comparisons with the bases ‘stupid’ and ‘smart’ in both languages. Structural models of the paremias of the thematic group ‘intelligence-stupidity’, expressing a comparison in both languages, are highlighted; mental attitudes verbalized by these units are described. The study found that the Russian language has a closer relationship between units within set comparisons and comparative paremias than in Swedish. In both languages, zoonyms are the predominant thematic group of standards. The differences include the presence in the Russian units of standards related to the household sphere and mythologems. Swedish comparative paremias are structurally different from Russian ones. While Russian paremias express the ideas that an excessively direct and simple person is stupid; a stupid person is like a child; and it is useless to teach a person stupid by nature, Swedish units offer a logical and philosophical comparison of intelligence and stupidity. The culture-specific components of Russian paremias include a large body of household vocabulary while words denoting old measures of weight serve the same function in Swedish.

About the authors

Alexey S. Alyoshin

The Bonch-Bruevich Saint-Petersburg State University of Telecommunications

Author for correspondence.
Email: alexis001@mail.ru
SPIN-code: 4983-8447

Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities

prospect Bolshevikov, 22, bld. 1, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, 193232

Elena I. Zinovieva

St. Petersburg State University

Email: e.i.zinovieva@spbu.ru
SPIN-code: 9059-2243

Doctor of Philology, Professor, Department of Russian as a Foreign Language and Methodology of its Teaching

11, University Embankment, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, 199034

References

  1. Soloduho, E.M. (1989). Theory of phraseological convergence: a study of sources from the languages of the Slavic, Germanic and Romance groups. Kazan. (In Russ.).
  2. Ogoltsev, V.M. (2001). Dictionary of steady comparisons of the Russian language. Moscow: AST, Astrel, Russian Dictionaries. (In Russ.).
  3. Mokienko, V.M. (2003). Dictionary of comparisons of the Russian language. St. Petersburg: Norint. (In Russ.).
  4. Telia, V.N. (1996). Russian phraseology. Semantic, pragmatic and linguocultural aspects. Moscow. (In Russ.).
  5. Sköldberg, E. (2010). Bland nötkärnor, fyrbåkar och skållade råttor. Om konventionaliserade liknelser i svenskan In Meijerbergs arkiv för svensk ordforskning. Festskrift till Bo Ralph. Göteborg. pp. 363—371. (In Swedish).
  6. Lebedeva, L.A. (2003). Introduction In Sustainable comparisons of the Russian language: A brief thematic dictionary. Krasnodar. pp. 3—11. (In Russ.).
  7. Rusova, N.I. (2004). From allegory to iamb: a terminological dictionary of thesaurus on literary criticism. Moscow. (In Russ.).
  8. Mokienko, V.M. (1980). Slavic phraseology. Moscow. (In Russ.).
  9. Zhukov, V.P. (1986). Russian phraseology. Moscow. (In Russ.).
  10. Mokienko, V.M. (2015). Aspects of the study of Slavic paremiology In Paremiology in discourse. General and applied issues of paremiology. The proverb in discourse and in text. The proverb and language picture of the world, O.V. Lomakina (Ed.). Moscow. pp. 4—25. (In Russ.).
  11. Bredis, M.A., Lomakina, O.V. & Mokienko, V.M. (2019). The proverb in modern linguistics: definition, status, functioning, Bulletin of Moscow University. Series 19. Linguistics and intercultural communication, 3, 34—41. (In Russ.).
  12. Baranov, A.N. & Dobrovolsky, D.O. (2008). Aspects of the theory of phraseology. Moscow. (In Russ.).
  13. Bredis, M.A. (2019). Man and money: Essays on Russian proverbs and more. St Petersburg. (In Russ.).
  14. Mokienko, V.M., Nikitina, T.G. & Nikolaeva, E.K. (2010). A large dictionary of Russian proverbs. Moscow. (In Russ.).
  15. Aleshin, A.S. & Zinovieva, E.I. (2019). The concept of comparison and its verbalization in paremias: a study of the Russian and Swedish languages). In Slavic linguistic cultures in the spatial and temporal continuum: a collection of academic articles. Gomel. pp. 107—110. (In Russ.).
  16. Sköldberg, E. (2011). Arvet efter Grubb. Om struktur och innehåll i svenska ordspråkssamlingar genom tiderna In Aspekter på ordspråk. Föredrag vid ett symposium i Uppsala 27—28 april 2011. Uppsala. pp. 121—145. (In Swedish).
  17. Andersson, D. (2014). Dagens ordspråksforskning — och framtiden. En diskussion med utgångspunkt i Proverbium 2007—2011 In Aspekter på ordspråk. Föredrag vid ett symposium i Uppsala 27—28 april 2011. Uppsala. pp. 33—45. (In Swedish).
  18. Hakamies, P. (2014). Ordspråk som strukturerad kunskap. Ett kognitivt perspektiv In Aspekter på ordspråk. Föredrag vid ett symposium i Uppsala 27—28 april 2011. Uppsala. pp. 69—79. (In Swedish).
  19. Haraldsson, H. (2014). Ordspråk, andre idiomer och bevingede ord. Ordspråkskategoriernes flytende grenser In Aspekter på ordspråk. Föredrag vid ett symposium i Uppsala 27—28 april 2011. Uppsala. pp. 79—87. (In Swedish).
  20. Zhukov, K. (2014). Ryska och svenska ordspråk som språkliga enheter och som representanter för kultur In Aspekter på ordspråk. Föredrag vid ett symposium i Uppsala 27—28 april 2011. Uppsala. pp. 145—151. (In Swedish).
  21. Balonkina, O.V. (2017). Linguocultural significance of the name of the primordial element ‘water’ as part of Russian and English phraseological units, Tomsk State University Journal, 423, 5—14. DOI: 10.17223 / 15617793/423/1. (In Russ.).
  22. Diaz Ferrero, A.M. & Kero Hervilla, E.F. (2018). Analysis of paremias expressing a negative assessment of women in Russian and Portuguese, Tomsk State University Journal. Philology, 54, 42—58. (In Russ.).
  23. Kuznetsova, I.V. (2012). Biblical phraseology and the language game, Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 57 (1), 127—141. DOI: 10.1556 / SSlav.57.2012.1.7. (In Russ.).
  24. Kuznetsova, I.V. (2016). Characters Books of books in comparisons of Belarusians and Ukrainians: a study ackground of other languages, Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 61(2), 345—361. DOI: 10.1556 / 060.2016.61.2.7. (In Russ.).
  25. Kulik, A.E. (2012). Cultural specifics of Russian and Korean fixed comparisons, Russian Language Abroad, 5, 58—64. (In Russ.).
  26. Kovzele, O. & Korolova, J. (2017). Comparisons with the component designating human profession and occupation: a case study of Latvian and Russian In The 4th International multidisciplinary scientific conference on social sciences and arts SGEM 2018. 24—30 August. Albena. pp. 645—643.
  27. Bredis, M.A. (2016). Frugality and Covetousness in Proverbs (based on Russian, Latvian, German, English and Tadjik), RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics, 7(1), 131—138. (In Russ.).
  28. Lomakina, O.V. & Mokienko, V.M. (2016). The cognitive potential of Ruthenian paremias in the Ukrainian and Russian languages, Rusin, 3(45), 119—128. DOI: 10.17223 / 18572685/45/9. (In Russ.).
  29. Lomakina, O.V. & Mokienko, V.M. (2018). Value constants of Ruthenian paremiology: a comparative study of Russian and Ukrainian, Rusin, 4 (54), 303—317. DOI 7223/15617793/447/7. (In Russ.).
  30. Ma, Xiangfei. (2017). Verbalization of stereotypical ideas about rain in Russian and Chinese: a case study of set phrases, Ivzestia of the Volgograd State PedagogicalUniversity, 4, 128— 135. (In Russ.).
  31. Nelyubova, N.I. (2019). Family as a universal value in the French and Russian proverbial picture of the world, Philological Sciences, 6, 50—59. DOI: 10.20339 / PhS.6 - 19/050. (In Russ.).
  32. Nikolaeva, E.I. & Seliverstova, E.I. (2016). The idea of good sleep in Slavic languages: a case study of fixed comparisons // Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 61(2), 325—343. doi: 10.1556/060.2016.61.2.6. (In Russ.).
  33. Kubryakova, E.S. (2004). On the precepts of cognitive science and current issues in cognitive linguistics, Issues of Cognitive Linguistics, 1, 6—17. (In Russ.).
  34. Dal, V.I. (1984). Proverbs of the Russian people, in two volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow. (In Russ.).
  35. Svenskt språkbruk. (2003). Ordbok över konstruktioner och fraser. Stockholm: Norstedts. (In Swedish).
  36. Holm, P. (1971). Ordspråk och talesätt med förklaringar. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag. (In Swedish).
  37. Åberg, G. (1997). Ordspråk, ordstäv och talesätt. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag. (In Swedish).

Copyright (c) 2020 Alyoshin A.S., Zinovieva E.I.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This website uses cookies

You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website.

About Cookies