Hint in dialect linguocultural environment: Folklore genre and lexical representations of the notion

Abstract

The article discusses the pragmatic and semantic-motivational peculiarities of functioning of words that express the notion of hint in the linguistic and cultural environment of Russian folk dialects. Main attention is paid to the word navetka recorded by the members of the Toponymic Expedition of the Ural Federal University named after the First President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin in Kostroma and Vologda regions. On the one hand, the word navetka is a term of folk song culture: it denotes a folk genre: ditties "with a catch". On the other hand, the word navetka is functioning out of the folk context as the designation of a hint. This word has an uncertain primary motivation, the clarification of which allows to reveal the specifics of people's ideas about "indirect speech". The article completes the following tasks: determines the linguopragmatic features of the genre navetka in Russian dialectal environment; identifies the primary motivation (etymology) of the word navetka; characterises the main motivational features of the other dialect words denoting hint. A new etymological solution is suggested: the word navetka 'hint' derives from the word navet rather than from the word vedat 'to know', and thereby it is included into the word family of vet- with speech meanings. The authors pay special attention to the facts of the language system which share the same meaning 'hint' as the word navetka. The semantic and motivational analysis of Russian dialectal words with the meaning of hint showed a number of motivational models. For example, within the situation of moving in space the hinting subject appears to be moving towards its goal not directly, but in a circle, dodging, by curves, and hint actually is depicted as an object moving from the speaker to the listener. In addition, hint can be interpreted as a kind of a physical impact, typically with deforming or irritating properties. Ethno-cultural features of the studied vocabulary are commented, predetermined by the socio-regulative way of the village community. It is proved that the communicative tactics of hint is one of the fundamental features of traditional folk culture. This follows from the peculiarities of conceptualization of ideas of the ontological basis of hint in the inner form of dialect words that denote it, and from the communicative context, accompanying the performance of ditty called navetka. The ditty contest between rivals in love is a unique phenomenon, characteristic of peasant culture because of the circumstances of its organisation and ethno-cultural attitudes that underlie the appeals to the tactics of a hint. The performance of ditties of this kind makes sense only in a small community because the audience is expected to know the performers and their relations, to play the role of public arbitrators and witnesses, fixing the acts of preservation or redistribution of the roles of lovers in their age group. Disclosure of romantic relationships relies on the dialect speaker's ideas of the continuity of the connection between personal and communal and on the norm of calling to the public court, the involvement of the community in the regulation of personal relationships. To perform navetka means to shift some of expectations and requirements for behaviour of someone in the community, which is to force the defendant to the "right, moral" relations.