Etnografia Polska (Dec 2015)
THE RELATION BETWEEN THE SYMBOL AND THE WORLD: THE STUDY OF SOME CULTURAL CONTEXTS OF BURYAT LANGUAGE USE
Abstract
The article considers some cultural contexts of Buryat language use in the light of the referential theory. The idea of language as distinct from the world it designates was strange to the Buryat thought, and thus the referential relation did not form in the way it did in the West. For this reason, the Buryat language has many elements of the pre-referential word-to-world relation, which have further implications on the use and functioning of language. The obtained data can be useful for further research on Buryat-Russian bilingualism and culture contacts.
