Lexical-Semantic Field of «Patriotism» in the Ukrainian, English and Polish Languages.

Abstract

The thesis focuses on the contrastive study of the lexical-semantic fields «патріотизм» in Ukrainian, «patriotism» in English (American variant) and «patriotyzm» in Polish languages. In this paper, the lexical-semantic field is defined as a collection of semantically related lexemes, united by integral components of meaning. The field reflects a piece of information about a specific phenomenon or an object of the surrounding world. The elements of the field reveal systematic semantic relations and form an ordered hierarchy of lexemes and semes.

It is established that the contemporary meaning of lexemes патріотизм, patriotism and patriotyzm receives its current form during the French Revolution in the late 18th century. This is why in all three languages the words naming the patriotic feelings originated from French, although they came to the Ukrainian and Polish through German. The words патріотизм, patriotism and patriotyzm are equivalents, as they have the same meaning of love for and devotion to one’s own country and people.

The primary method of the study is the componential analysis, that is, the method of decomposing word meanings on the smallest components called semes, and organizing all the lexemes and semes in the form of a semantic matrix. According to the results of the componential analysis, the matrixes of lexical-semantic fields were constructed, and the fields were divided into four zones: core, semi-core, semi-periphery, and periphery. The study of the central-peripheral structure of the fields shows that their core components are mostly equivalent. It proves the universality of the notion of patriotism and the ways of its verbalization in related and distantly related languages. At the same time, it is discovered that the semantic components correlated with enthusiasm, excitement, passion, aspiration, and fervor are actively functioning at the core zone of the Ukrainian lexical-semantic field «патріотизм», but they are less frequent in Polish and English fields. The national specific trait of Polish lexical-semantic field «patriotyzm» is the frequency of components denoting honor, pride, and dignity. The origins of the American patriotism caused its relationship with religion. While creating the US nation, millions of multiethnic immigrants became connected around shared ideals, values, principles of life and religion, instead of the shared genes, cultures or languages as Europeans used to do. Moreover, religion is the role model for a real patriotism based on faith, unconditional love, and devotion.

The essential characteristics of patriotism were embodied in semantic microfields of the lexical-semantic fields «патріотизм», «patriotyzm» and «patriotism». There are nine equivalent microfields in each language. The analysis showed that Ukrainians, Poles, and Americans have similar ideas about patriotism. The lexical units of the microfields «любов», «miłość», «love» refer to the love, tenderness, passion, and interest to someone’s nation and homeland. The obligatory elements of the concept of patriotism are devotion to its ideals and principles (manifested through the microfields «відданість», «poświęcenie», «devotion»), respect for your country, its history, traditions, culture (highlighted through the elements of the microfields «повага», «szacunek», «respect»), benevolence, the desire to care, to help and to support the homeland (revealed in the semantics of the microfields «прихильність», «sympatia», «sympathy»). Patriotism may cause the rise of excitement, enthusiasm, intense feelings, unrestrained passions and aspirations as it is indicated in the microfields «піднесення», «podniecenie», «enthusiasm» and «бажання», «chęć», «desire». The microfields «пиха», «honor», «pride» show the tight connections between patriotism and the feeling of national honor, pride and dignity. It is established, that the real patriot has to be prepared to protect his nation and homeland, their independence and well-being, language and culture, values and principles of life. The elements of microfields «сміливість», «odwaga», «courage» serve as evidence for such a conclusion. Besides, the microfields «націоналізм», «nacjonalizm», «nationalism» reflect the semantic relations of the lexical-semantic fields of patriotism with the lexical-semantic fields of the concept of nationalism.

Despite the closeness of the ideas of patriotism in all three languages, it is defined that the semantic components indicating intensity, irregularity, the turbulence of feelings, reactions, and actions are more frequent in Ukrainian and English microfields. The equivalent semes of Polish microfields show the lower frequency. English speakers associate love, respect, and devotion to religious experiences. The corresponding semantic components are less active in Polish microfields but still occur quite often, whereas in Ukrainian microfields only a few indications of religiousness, faith, God are discovered.

The scientific novelty of the proposed dissertation lies in the following: the work for the first time in Ukrainian linguistics investigates the structure and the semantics of the lexical-semantic fields «патріотизм» in Ukrainian, «patriotyzm» in Polish and «patriotism» in American English in comparison. Moreover, three generalized matrixes of lexical-semantic fields and 27 matrices of microfields were constructed with the use of Microsoft Excel, which creates the basis for further research on lexical semantics, typology, ethnolinguistics.

The practical meaning of this thesis lies in the possibility of using the results of the study while compiling defining, translatory and ideographic dictionaries, thesauri, dictionaries of synonyms or creating automatic translation systems. The ideas and results of this research may be integrated into the university courses in comparative and general linguistics, lexicology of Ukrainian, English and Polish languages, linguistic typology.

Prospects for the further study of the lexical-semantic fields «патріотизм» in Ukrainian, «patriotyzm» in Polish and «patriotism» in English lie in a more detailed analysis of the organization and semantics of microfields, which will open up possibilities for deeper comparison. It will be productive to use the contextual analysis to trace the implementation of semantic components fixed in dictionaries to the texts, as well as to show some additional semantic components, that are relevant to the nation but are not included into the lexicographic works. The method of association experiment may reveal the most recent meanings of lexemes патріотизм, patriotism and patriotyzm. The examination of other lexical-semantic fields of Ukrainian, Polish and English languages with the use of the methodology, described in this dissertation, will make them more comparable so that it would be easier to find vocabulary similarities and differences.