System organization of means denoting change of speed in Russian railway jargon

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the mechanisms of representation of changes in the speed of the railway rolling stock – locomotives and trains – in the Russian professional slang of railway workers. The aim of the work is to identify the totality of these lexical means, their systematization, analysis of the semantics and motives of the nomination. The author used the method of semantic analysis, as well as component and descriptive methods. The sources of the actual material are the dictionary of Russian railway slang by D. Zinoviev and railway Internet forums and chats. On the basis of a continuous sample verbs and verb combinations indicated a change in the speed of movement of rolling stock were identified; two groups of these jargon agents, which are in the opposition in relation to each other on the basis of the semantics of increasing-decreasing the speed, are determined and characterized. Additional semantic components were found and described in the meaning of the language tools under consideration, such as the reasons why the train speed changes (deliberately or forced, emergency); methods and means of changing the speed (with what devices and what manipulations with them are the train driver regulates the speed); external signs indicating an increase or decrease in the speed of the train from the side. Thusly, the analysis showed that the semantic group under consideration is a system inside which synonymous, antonymic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations are found. The results of this study can be applied to further study of Russian railway jargon, as well as for analyzing systemic relations in the lexicon of the language as a whole.

Keywords

• professional substandard sublanguage
• professional jargon
• russian railway jargon
• travel speed
• speed change
• semantics
• semantic system
• lexico-semantic groups