scholarly journals Linguistic Harmony as a Means of Symbolization in Folklore and Poetic Texts

Slovene ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 322-346
Author(s):  
Alexander V. Gura

The article discusses the use of linguistic harmony in traditional culture as a means of symbolisation. In folklore texts, the phonetic similarity of the words heightens the semantic connections between them. This happens when homonyms, paronyms, and other similar-sounding words in the text along with anagrammatic coding of the meaning of the text (for example, riddles) merge, combining two words in one hybrid word paronymous with both of them; by means of phonetic strengthening, complex sound compilation of the text as a whole, as frequently seen in poetry, etc. Symbolic correlations based on verbal consonances usually occur in spells, conjurations, dream interpretations, superstitions, and rituals that have a magical function (prognostic, healing, etc.). In archaic elements of the poetry, the harmony of the words combines an aesthetic function with a magical one (merging more and more with the aesthetic one over time), which allows us to talk about their true syncretism and the magical origins of poetry. Sound and logical-conceptual methods of symbolisation often interact with each other. The symbolism generated by the harmony of words fits into a wide cultural context, revealing deep-semantic cultural parallels from different eras and communities, since the supraindividual memory operating in culture is able to store and bring to life the accumulated connotations. Symbolism arising from the consonances of words has the property of reviving the etymological memory of a word in cultural contexts. In some archaic Slavic zones, symbolism, based on consonant words, still retains its productivity. In the symbolic language of the culture, it also performs a structuring function, takes part in the formation of connections and relationships between the single elements of the traditional picture of the world setting up certain parameters for it, for example, it forms parallels in folk zoology in animal and bird codes, isolating single groups of characters.

Author(s):  
Alexandra Wilson

La bohème is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? Drawing on an extremely broad range of sources, Alexandra Wilson traces the opera’s rise to global fame. Although the work has been subjected to many hostile critiques, it swiftly achieved popular success through stage performances, recordings, and filmed versions. Wilson demonstrates how La bohème acquired even greater cultural influence as its music and dramatic themes began to be incorporated into pop songs, film soundtracks, musicals, and more. In this cultural history of Puccini’s opera, Wilson offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. La bohème was strikingly modern for the 1890s, she argues, in its approach to musical and dramatic realism and in flouting many of the conventions of the Italian operatic tradition. Considering the work within the context of the aesthetic, social, and political debates of its time, Wilson explores Puccini’s treatment of themes including gender, poverty, and nostalgia. She pays particular attention to La bohème’s representation of Paris, arguing that the opera was not only influenced by romantic mythologies surrounding the city but also helped shape them. Wilson concludes with a consideration of the many and varied approaches directors have taken to the staging of Puccini’s opera, including some that have reinvented the opera for a new age. This book is essential reading for anyone who has seen La bohème and wants to know more about its music, drama, and cultural contexts.


Spatium ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 20-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Stevanovic

On a broader scale, the aim of this paper is to examine theoretically the effects a cultural context has on the aesthetic experience of images existing in perceived reality. Minimalism in architecture, as direct subject of research, is a field of particularities in which we observe functioning of this correlation. Through the experiment with the similarity phenomenon, the paper follows specific manifestations of general formal principles and variability of meaning of minimalism in architecture in limited areas of cultural backgrounds of Serbia and Japan. The goal of the comparative analysis of the examples presented is to indicate the conditions that may lead to a possibly different aesthetic experience in two different cultural contexts. Attribution of different meanings to similar formal visual language of architecture raises questions concerning the system of values, which produces these meanings in their cultural and historical perspectives. The establishment of values can also be affected by preconceptions resulting from association of perceived similarities. Are the preconceptions in aesthetic reception of architecture conditionally affected by pragmatic needs, symbolic archetypes, cultural metaphors based on tradition or ideologically constructed dogmas? Confronting philosophical postulates of the Western and Eastern traditions with the transculturality theory of Wolfgang Welsch, the answers may become more available.


Author(s):  
Andrew Hui

When we think of ruins and literature, we usually think of Romanticism. The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature dislodges this critical commonplace by locating European literature’s fascination with architectural decay in the aesthetic culture from Petrarch to Spenser. The Renaissance was the Ruin-naissance, the birth of the ruin as category of discourse, one that inspired voluminous poetic production. The ruin thus became the material sign—the broken cipher—that marked the rupture between the world of the humanists and their idealized classical past. In the first full-length book to document this cultural phenomenon, Hui explains how the invention of the ruin propelled poets into creating works that were self-aware of their absorption of the past as well as their own survival in the future. To make this case, Hui embraces a philological method, a venerable tradition that has recently undergone a resurgence of interest. Philology is particularly appropriate to the study of ruins, since philology and ruins are both fundamentally about imagining the whole through its parts. Specifically, the book traces three words in three authors as semantic case studies: vestigia in Petrarch, cendre in Du Bellay, and moniment in Spenser. By starting from the smallest unit of linguistic speech—the word—and enlarging our view to its larger cultural context, The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature not only revises some of our most basic ideas about early modern texts and how they came to be, but also offers a new way for understanding the fundamental theme of survival in the classical tradition at large.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-202
Author(s):  
Jürg Gassmann ◽  
Samuel Gassmann

Abstract The non-lethal simulated training of lethal reality, whether it be single combat or war, was historically a question of life and death. We provide an analytical framework for evaluating historical precedents in fight simulations by focussing on two key questions: What was the philosophy guiding the conception of reality – in particular, did historical practitioners see reality as deterministic, and if not, how did they see it? And how did the simulations deal with the elements of quantity, quality, timing, and information? The analysis shows that our ancestors’ perception of the reality of fighting chan-ged over time, as their interpretations of reality for the world at large changed. Considerable intellectual effort and ingenuity were invested into attempts to understand reality and formulate corresponding realistic simulations, making these ludic artefacts reflective, sometimes iconic for, and occasionally ahead of their historical-cultural context. Seemingly irrational phenomena, such as the persistence of lethal duelling, had perfectly pragmatic elements.


Author(s):  
Синхуа Ван

Введение. Эпоха глобализации и расширения межкультурной коммуникации формирует новые вызовы и ставит их на разрешение ученым, осуществляющим свои изыскания в различных научных областях. Актуальной проблемой гуманитаристики является описание национальных картин мира посредством моделирования их фрагментов. В лингвистике особую значимость сегодня имеет изучение вербальных средств объективации концептуальных смыслов. В числе последних выделяются поэтические тексты. Их эстетическая направленность позволяет исследовать в качестве лингвокультурологических и когнитивных средств образы, присутствующие в этих текстах. Цель – исследовать роль образных символических средств в интерпретации фрагмента китайской картины мира, связанного с осмыслением образа бамбука в древних поэтических текстах. Материал и методы. Материалом исследования послужили поэтические тексты древних китайских авторов. В качестве единиц выступили языковые средства, воплощающие один из наиболее распространенных в китайской лингвокультуре образов ‒ образ бамбука. Основные методы исследования ‒ контекстологический и лексико-семантический. Результаты и обсуждение. Особенности биологического строения бамбука и разноаспектные возможности его применения в жизни носителей китайского языка определяют богатейший образный потенциал лексемы-номината. Включенность данной лексемы в широкий контекст значительно обогащает процесс смыслопорождения. Языковые средства, объективирующие толкование образа бамбука в китайской лингвокультуре, в текстовой перспективе получают возможность своей концептуальной интерпретации. Последняя развертывается на основании рассмотрения символических компонентов смысла, вписанных в национальную картину мира на уровне ее фрагментов. Направления символизации значения языковых единиц, номинирующих образ бамбука, выявляются путем рассмотрения речевой структуры древних поэтических текстов китайских авторов. Заключение. Ключевыми проявлениями символичного значения образа бамбука в китайской лингвокультуре можно назвать варианты интерпретации данного образа как символа высокой нравственности, чистоты, покоя, гармонии и умиротворенности. Такое символичное толкование не противоречит основным догмам китайской философии, в его основе лежит ассоциативная перекличка, возникающая в сознании носителей языка, как результат сопоставления свойств растения и характеристик человека. Introduction. The modern era of globalization and the expansion of intercultural communication creates new challenges and puts them to the solution of scientists carrying out their research in various scientific fields. The actual problem of the humanities is the description of national pictures of the world by modeling their fragments. In linguistics, the study of verbal means of objectifying conceptual meanings is of particular importance today. Among the latter, poetic texts stand out, the aesthetic orientation of which makes it possible to investigate the images present in these texts as linguoculturological and cognitive means. Aim and objectives. Explore the role of figurative symbolic means in the interpretation of a fragment of the Chinese picture of the world associated with the interpretation of the image of bamboo in ancient poetic texts. Material and methods. The material of the research is poetic texts of ancient Chinese authors. The units are linguistic means that embody one of the most common images in Chinese linguoculture – the image of a bamboo. The main research methods are contextological and lexical-semantic. Results and discussion. The peculiarities of the biological structure of bamboo and the diverse possibilities of its use in the life of native Chinese speakers determine the richest figurative potential of the nominated lexeme. The inclusion of this lexeme in a broad context significantly enriches the process of generating meaning. Linguistic means that objectify the interpretation of the image of bamboo in Chinese linguistic culture, in the textual perspective, get the possibility of their conceptual interpretation. The latter unfolds on the basis of considering the symbolic components of meaning inscribed in the national picture of the world at the level of its fragments. The directions of symbolizing the meaning of linguistic units nominating the image of a bamboo are revealed by considering the speech structure of ancient poetic texts of Chinese authors. Conclusion. The key manifestations of the symbolic meaning of the image of bamboo in Chinese linguistic culture, judging by the results obtained, can be called the options for interpreting the image of bamboo as a symbol of high morality, purity, peace, harmony and serenity. Such a symbolic interpretation does not contradict the basic dogmas of Chinese philosophy; it is based on an associative roll call that arises in the minds of native speakers as a result of a comparison of plant properties and human characteristics. Keywords: linguistic picture of the world, symbolic image, Chinese linguoculture, poetic text, bamboo image, lexical means, linguocultural analysis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 222
Author(s):  
Kritsadee Songkhai

The Chinese words on colors do not only indicate types of colors, but also implicit the elucidating socio-cultural context. Colors in the Chinese language represent good and bad terms. For example, the makeup color of the Chinese opera show assigns the character wearing red makeup as a symbol of loyalty, justice, power, wealth, or high rank. Red contains most of the excellent and positive definition. On the other hand, the character wearing white means a person who is dangerous, cunning, and dishonest. These are some examples of how Chinese people use colors to represent meaning. Moreover, Chinese vocabularies are also communicated through alphabets and created to new words that hide beliefs and culture of the use of color as well.This research aims to study the “Implicit Meaning of Chinese Vocabulary on Colors in Five Elements Elucidating Socio-cultural Context.” China is a fascinating country in culture and language. Besides, Chinese is a language used by many people as the top three in the world. This research studies 5 Chinese color words, which are red, black, white, green, and yellow. The methodology is to analyze words through the example vocabularies by describing and collecting from books, journals, and articles. For an instant, Red in Chinese culture is the color of fortune. Therefore, red words are used to create new words that relate to prosperity, such as 开门红(kāi mén hóng)means opening to welcome good things or 红红火火(hóng hóng huǒ huǒ)which is a wish for prosperity and, often used for business. As a result, it can be seen that the study of Chinese color terms is not only about colors, but these words also link to beliefs and cultures over time until many new words are created. It is the use of color words mixed into new vocabulary to reflect the ideas, beliefs, and cultures. We can study Chinese culture through color vocabulary very well.


2019 ◽  
pp. 86-95
Author(s):  
Iryna Ivanenko

The article analyzes models of metaphorical description of sounds that are relevant to M. Vinhranovsky’s individual poetic picture of the world. It is determined that the most productive type of audio metaphorization is related to the verbalization of associative sound-to-nature relationships. Its relevance is determined by the collective (secured by verbal tradition) and individual (author) experience of perceiving objects of national space, such as river, sky, water, forest, grove, trees, as well as related phenomena of nature (wind, storm, thunder, rain). and living things (birds, animals, insects). The persistence of associations in the poetic texts motivated by this experience has been consistently confirmed. The collective and individual experience of perception of the phenomena of the nature of rain, thunderstorm, rain, wind, water motivates the active use of «sound» verbs, which metaphorize the various actions and intensity of manifestation of these phenomena. The stylistic performance of common linguistic formulas with stylistically neutral verbs – carriers of the archives of ‘sounds of nature’ is traced. It is proved that an important fragment of the sound definition of the world in the national linguistic-poetic practice and in the idyllic style of M. Vinhranovsky as its symbolic fragment is the image of “silence”. Updating the “zero” manifestation of audio semantics, it creates a semantic opposition to images with the seven “sound”. The aesthetic unfolding of the image of silence in various structural metaphorical structures: verbal predicative, verbal object, oxymoronic, tautological is attested. Analyzed metaphors confirm that the aesthetized verbalization of sound impressions is one of the dominants of M. Vinhranovsky’s individual poetic phrase, in which the metaphors with the seven ‘sound’ are indisputable artistic dominants.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Beneitone ◽  
Edurne Bartolomé

The article addresses the issue of generic competences across different cultural contexts in the world. Using the Tuning projects data collected in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Russia, and focusing on graduates´ perspective, the authors aim to classify and compare the list of generic competences throughout all geographic regions covered by Tuning, analyse the importance and achievement given to the generic competences throughout different contexts, and also contrast the latent constructs obtained from the exploratory factor analysis, in order to observe how competences are classified and clustered across regions. The article shows and explains the main differences observed and stresses the relevance of taking into account the cultural context and the traditions of education systems, in order to properly understand the importance of generic competences in different regions, and also how, even though the competences are equivalent, they may articulate distinctive dimensions in each region.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-445
Author(s):  
Vladimir Ilich Rogachev ◽  
Elena Nikolaevna Vaganova ◽  
Liailia Ihsanovna Mingazova

One of the ways of categorization of reality through the vegetal code of culture is considered through the example of folklore of Mordva-Erzya and Moksha. The sacred nature of this code and the mechanism of its correlation with the worldview of man is of particular interest. The research reveals their close connection with the aesthetic associations developed by folk culture for many centuries and strengthened in the minds of Erzya and Moksha, and in general, the Finno-Ugric peoples as standards of beauty. The described fragment of the linguistic picture of the world is a complex system of images, which reflect the archaic structures of consciousness, the oldest archetypal and mythological representations. An extensive paradigm of images included in this ethnic culture is considered in the context of the system of traditional images of other peoples of the Volga region, inter-ethnic parallels are drawn. The reconstruction based on the materials of Mordovian folklore through the prism of the vegetal code of culture helps to recreate the features of perception and understanding of the phenomena of reality, to detect natural inter-ethnic similarities and differences.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lifshitz ◽  
T. M. Luhrmann

Abstract Culture shapes our basic sensory experience of the world. This is particularly striking in the study of religion and psychosis, where we and others have shown that cultural context determines both the structure and content of hallucination-like events. The cultural shaping of hallucinations may provide a rich case-study for linking cultural learning with emerging prediction-based models of perception.


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