Edification Dictums in the Language Consciousness of the Kazakh Ethnos

Abstract

Introduction. Objective: linguacultural analysis of the edification words, collected in a free associative experiment (FAE) and published in the “Kazakh Associative Dictionary”. Materials & Methods. Set of associations of instructive character singled out by the continuous sampling method into a separate fragment of the world paremiological image is a unique representative research material included into the Kazakh Associative Dictionary, in the 23 655 associative reactions of the students of different universities in Shymkent city for112 stimulus words, 272 sayings – edifications recorded in 200 questionnaires. Archetypal layers of the ethnic linguistic consciousness represented in the edifying paremias reflect the Kazakh spiritual and moral values. The content of the FAE and Kazakh Associative Dictionary reflects the indicative feature of the study, i.e. introduction of the gender factor differentiating the men and women associations; it provided for revealing and presentation of the reliable characteristics of the gender determined linguistic consciousness of the informants. The content of the sayings-edification mainly relates to the moral life of the nation, they enshrine the generally accepted ethical norms. Results. Gender irrelevant positions: evil and good are equally evaluated differently; respect for elders is clearly manifested. Gender marked positions: for men – duty to the homeland, responsibility for the family; desire to work together; for women – the desire to protect family values, to correspond to the accepted world order, androcentrism. Conclusions. The linguistic consciousness of the ethnos (in particular, its fragment as an actively demanded paremiological fund) reflects archetypal ideas about the ethnic spiritual and moral worldview values, on which stable elements of the modern Kazakh linguistic culture are formed and actively functioning; being vital for the ethnic integrity.

Keywords

• associative experiment, paremias, archetypes of consciousness, mentality, gender, ethno-cultural.