‘Official Tears’: Signs of Sociocultural Type ‘Official’ According to the National Corpus of the Russian Language

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of one of the facets of the sociocultural type ‘official’, which is significant for the linguistic consciousness of native Russian speakers and corresponds to the character traits of a typical Russian official. Based on the analysis of compatibility of the adjective ‘official’ in the XIX-XXI century texts, included in the National Corpus of the Russian Language, the authors represent the prevailing perception of the Russian official rooted in the Russian linguistic consciousness, trace its transformations, as well as identify those components that have remained unchanged for the two centuries. In general, the results of analyzing the Russian adjective ‘official’ represent a very unsavoury image of a state official. The texts included in the NCRL allowed revealing essential character traits of the Russian official: indifference, ignorance, cowardice, arrogance, insincerity. These traits characterize the sociocultural type ‘official’, that is a generalized image formed in the linguistic consciousness of native Russian speakers for two centuries.