Axiology of power in the Russian language and culture

Abstract

The relevance of linguocultural modeling of power is due to the high importance of this phenomenon in institutional and personal communication and the multidimensionality of its evaluative characteristics. The aim of the study is to identify and describe linguistically relevant norms of behavior encoded in the concept of “power”. The data from dictionaries and reference books, examples from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, poetic and prose texts in Russian were used as material for the analysis. Methods of semantic, contextual, interpretative and associative analysis were applied. It has been established that power in the conceptual plane represents coercion and includes: (1) the condition (force, authority, tradition or law); (2) struggle for getting and keeping power; (3) manifestation of power (persons or organizations vested with power, the sphere of power application and the degree of coercion); (4) power assessment (fair/unfair, cruel/merciful, effective/ineffective). In figurative terms, the situational characteristics of power manifestation, verbalized in texts and reactions of the informants, were highlighted. The conceptualization of power is discursively specific. The authors revealed that the most vivid situational characteristics of power implementation in relation to its representatives are noted in journalistic texts. In fiction texts (mainly in poetry), power is shown as an irresistible force. In evaluative terms, it is possible to identify norms of behavior associated with the understanding of power - its acceptance as the most important condition of social order and condemnation of excessive striving for power and its abuse. These norms expressed in proverbs, jokes and aphorisms largely coincide, differing in that proverbs recommend to stay away from power, jokes sharply criticize corruption in power, aphorisms give a holistic picture of the proper behavior of the power holders and their subordinates. Prospects for the study consist in defining linguistically relevant personal typological evaluations of power.