Pseudodisphemy of the judicial discourse of Medieval China in fiction
https://doi.org/10.18384/2310-712X-2022-3-104-112
Abstract
Aim. The research relies on Robert van Gulik's detective stories about Judge Dee based on real literary monuments of the Tang era, reflecting speech and behavioral stereotypes of judicial practice in medieval China. The ethno-cultural specificity of the concept of justice in the depicted communicative situations significantly differs from those accepted in European and American linguistic cultures.
Methodology. Random sampling from the empirical base of over 148 printed pages made it possible to extract lexemes with reduced stylistic connotation and negative pragmemes. The semantics of the evaluation of the studied units and their pragmatic task explicate the intention to dysphemize the verbal and nonverbal protocol of the official and unofficial register of communication. By methods of discursive, component, stylistic, quantitative analysis involving logical operations of analysis, synthesis, generalization and abstraction, 240 labeled units were identified and studied: 98 verbal representatives and 142 representatives of nonverbal behavior in the judicial discourse of medieval China.
Results. The identified and investigated linguistic facts and non-verbal stereotypes can have a negative communicative effect and provoke dissonance in intercultural communication. The reaction of rejection of foreign cultural specifics is caused by significant discrepancies in the discursive practice and axiological norms of the contacting cultures: the original Chinese and the host European.
Research implications. The analysis provides the basis for the thesis that pseudodysphemia may be considered as a kind of national transformation of the phenomenon of dysphemia (in its European and American understanding) within the framework of the linguistic and cultural specifics of China of the Tang era.
About the Authors
I. N. FilippovaRussian Federation
Irina N. Filippova – Dr. Sci. (Philology), Assoc. Prof., Prof., Department of the Translation Studies and Cognitive Linguistics
Very Voloshinoi ulitsa 24, Mytishchi 141014, Moscow Region
S. N. Vekovishcheva
Russian Federation
Svetlana N. Vekovishcheva – Cand. Sci. (Philology), Assoc. Prof., Departmental Head, Department of Eastern Languages
Very Voloshinoi ulitsa 24, Mytishchi 141014, Moscow Region
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