THE CONCEPT ‘УСПЕХ / SUCCESS’: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF
THE ANALYSIS
Ерниязова Дана Сакеновна
Евразийский Национальный Университет им. Л.Н.Гумилева, г. Астана dana_erniyazova@mail.ru
As a result of globalization, intercultural communication has become a very relevant issue to discuss. Recent studies, devoted to this topic highlight the relationship between the man and the world around him, the connection between the man, his mentality and sociocultural factors. The experience of international communication in different languages indicates the presence of common mental constructions and their specific design. Understanding peculiarities and the uniqueness of a national culture and its elements is becoming one of the main problems [1].
Our research work is devoted to the problems of relations between language and culture. They play an important role in improvement of forms and effectiveness of intercultural communication and in teaching foreign languages as well.
In this study world perception refers to a certain system of the relations between the man and the world, a complex of knowledge about reality formed as a result of active cognitive activity. Conceptual world perception is defined as a set of concepts that form the information field, which provides a structured, systematic way of how humans perceive a reality [2]. One lexical unit can express different meanings in various languages. These meanings are formed in the depth of every culture. Every language contains the so-called key- words or concepts. Concept is a general idea or notion that corresponds to some class of entities and that consists of essential features of the class [3]. A set of concepts forms a concept sphere. The analysis of the conceptual sphere of different cultures can help to identify the features of the development of national consciousness of a specific nation.
Basic concepts take a special place among all the concepts. They occupy a central place in the worldview of many national language communities as they form the basis, the foundation of world perception. There is no doubt that the concept ‘успех’ in the Russian language and the corresponding concept ‘success’ in the English are some of these basic concepts.
The objective of the study is to reveal universal and national features of the concept ‘успех / success’ in the linguistic world perception of languages with different structures (English and Russian). The material for the study was compiled from various lexicographical sources (monolingual and phraseological dictionaries) in Russian and English; the conclusions about the psycholinguistic experiment with native speakers of the Russian and English languages involved were made. During our analysis about 20 English language teachers were asked and all of them are approximately of the same age.
The following methods were used in the research:
1) concept-oriented selection of lexical and phraseological material;
2) descriptive and comparative methods to identify cultural identity of the English phraseological units in relation to the Russian language;
3) direct association experiment which allows to determine functioning of the concept ‘успех / success’ in the world perception of Russian and English native speakers.
Let us analyze the lexicographic interpretation of the given concept. The dictionary of the Russian language, edited by S. Ozhegov, distinguishes three meanings of the word “success”: 1. Удача в достижении чего-либо, добиться успеха; 2. общественное признание; 3. хорошие результаты в работе, учебе [4]. The thesaurus by D. Ushakov adds one more meaning: success in courtship, flirting [5]. English dictionary offers the following interpretation: 1.the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors; 2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors; 3. a successful performance or achievement [6].
Thus, after analyzing the meanings given in the dictionaries, we may conclude that the common meaning of the concept ‘успех/success’ for these two languages is “favorable or prosperous”. The specific meanings are of interest as well: in Russian – public recognition and success in flirting, in English – wealth, honors. In order to reveal this concept better, we turned to the dictionary of idioms [7, 8]. By the semantic analysis of lexical units we may notice that such semantic components as “achievement”, “fortune”, “merit”, “social acceptance” are common to both languages and constitute the semantic core of the concept ‘успех / success’. Typical is the difference in language representation of the concept ‘успех / success’ in the Russian and English languages through reality of specific events, for example: “if you are afraid of the wolves, do not go into the forest” (Russian) and “if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen” (English). The given idioms mean that risk is always noble and if you do not risk, you will not win and will not succeed.
Considering our analysis on understanding of the given concept that was held among native speakers, we may conclude the following: the concept ‘успех / success’ is defined as happiness, wealth and a positive result. It is interpreted more specifically by the Russian native speakers, who reveal its different emotional or physical nuances like goal achievement, self-fulfillment, pleasure, healthy family, freedom to travel, be respected, power, well-being, harmony of thought and action, do something better than others, victory. The English recipients involved into our experiment perceive the considered concept due to subjective assessments as getting a PhD degree, college, money, beauty, talented, celebrity. The reactions in this analysis by the speakers of the two languages were different: the reaction – explanations among the Russian native speakers and personal associations from the Englishmen who show а rather different way of thinking between ethnic groups, at least in the strategies of association.
According to the results of the analysis it can be stated that both for the native speakers of the Russian and English languages a complete success means social recognition and fame. In the Russian linguistic world perception it is associated with a victory in a battle, advance in knowledge and conquest sympathies, while it is associated with promotion, career, wealth and fame in the English one.
References:
1. Казахстан: образование в условиях полиязычия // Педагогика. – М., 2008. – 124-125 с.
2. Блох Я.М. Язык и культура Фразеологизм и слово в национально- культурном дискурсе (лингвистический и лингвометодический аспекты). – М.: Элпис, 2008. – С. 50-51.
3. Попова З.Д., Стернин И.А. Понятие «концепт» в лингвистических исследованиях. – Воронеж, 2000. – 134 с.
4. Ожегов С.И. Толковый словарь русского языка / Под ред. С.И. Ожегова совместно с Н.Ю. Шведовой // http:www.ozhegov.org/
5. Ушаков Д.Н. Толковый словарь русского языка / Под ред. Д.Н.Ушакова – М.: ООО «Издательство Астрель», 2000. – 848 с.
6. Интернет ресурс — English Dictionary http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/success
7. Интернет ресурс — Русский словарь фразеологизмов
http://frazbook.ru/category/russkie-frazeologizmy/
8. Интернет ресурс — English idioms relating to success – failure // http.//www.learn-english-today.com/idioms.htm