ZOOMETAPHORS IN RUSSIAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE RELATED TO TOPOS OF DIRT AND GARBAGE

Abstract

The article describes the range of representatives of the animal world, identified on the basis of associative adjacency with topos of dirt and garbage. The habitat, habits or behavior of animals are associated with the world of impure existence. The bestiary demonstrates the dehumanization of the political world by attributing zoomorphic traits to politicians. Zoometaphors are combined within the framework of semantics characterizing the moral aspects of political existence. The analyzed bestiary includes five groups: wild animals (jackals and hyenas), domestic animals (pig), small rodent animals (mice, rats), birds (crow), insects (fly, cockroach, louse, flea, bedbug). It is revealed that the constitutive feature of zoosemantics is the axiological component. Zoomorphic names-characteristics are aimed at discrediting state power, a sharp decline in the image of a politician and have a bright pejorative coloring. Bestial moments of immoral behavior of politicians based on direct associations with dirt (for example, the metaphorical image of a pig) are not always the main ones in the semiotics of the presented zoworld. Thus, in the convergence of the scale of the world of insects and politicians, the insignificance and insignificance of party activity, which devalues political life, is conceptualized.

Extended abstract:

The metaphor of dirt, the basic feature of which is a cognitive deviation from the norm, is an important linguistic means of expressing the ethical evaluation of political activity. The research hypothesis is that the initial image of dirt is the basis for the clustering of other figurative means associated with the basic conceptual model of the politics is dirt. One of the clusters identified on the basis of associative contiguity with the topos of dirt and garbage is the world of representatives of the animal world. It is in direct conceptual-semantic continuity with the base metaphor. The habitat, habits or behavior of animals are connected with the world of impure existence. The bestiary demonstrates the dehumanization of the political world by attributing zoomorphic traits to politicians. Zoometaphors are united within the semantics that characterize the moral and ethical aspects of political existence.

There used the method of complex linguistic analysis of the material, including methods of observation, classification and linguo-axiological interpretation of linguistic facts, the method of conceptual and metaphorical analysis. The scientific novelty of the work is in the fact that within the framework of the linguo-axiological approach, the conceptual-semantic and axiological continuity of the metaphor politics is dirt is consistently and purposefully considered. In the course of the research, a range of zoometaphors that negatively characterize political activity is described.

The analyzed bestiary includes five groups: wild animals (jackals and hyenas), domestic animals (pig), small rodent animals (mice, rats), and birds (crow), insects (fly, cockroach, louse, flea, and bug). It is revealed that the constitutive feature of zoosemantics is the axiological component. Zoomorphic names-characteristics are aimed at discrediting state power, a sharp decline in the image of a politician and have a bright pejorative coloring.

Bestiary moments of the immoral behavior of politicians are revealed on the basis of direct associations with dirt, for example, in the metaphorical image of a pig. The motive of dirt is fundamental, associated with the loss of moral guidelines where spiritual kinship with pigs demonstrates the bestial insides and the human failure of politicians. One of the ways to express a negative evaluation of immoral behavior is the predicative function of a zoonym: a politician is a pig. The word pig in a syntactically conditioned (in the position of the predicative center), qualifying-evaluative meaning is often used as an insult, since a statement that includes a noun with a bright evaluative meaning as a predicate emphasizes the categorical nature of the expressed evaluation.

A crow acts as the personification of various vices; to characterize the immoral behavior of politicians, individual features of the bird which have a semiotic burden are taken. A crow is a bird with an ominous cry, which is considered an unkind sign and prophesies misfortune. This bird of prey associated with evil spirits. Isolation of negative signs ‘impurity, evil, death’ becomes the basis for the metaphorical transfer of the image of a bird to the field of politics. The analysis of the material shows that representatives of the political world are more often presented in the form of a collective noun of the neuter with the suffix -j- voronje. The metaphorical voronje characterizes politicians as an association of people based on common negative qualities – avidity, self-interest, greed.

Direct associations with dirt and evil are significantly complemented by other negative manifestations. Thus, in bringing together the scales of the world of small rodents (mouse, rat), insects (fly, cockroach, flea, louse, and bug) and politicians, the negligibility and insignificance of party activity which devalues political life is conceptualized.

Metaphorization is based on a wide range of objective analogies of the actions and characteristics of political actors, habits and behavior of animals.