UDC

81’373:[811.161.1+811.111+811.134.2](82-84)

DOI

10.37482/2687-1505-V111

Authors

Vladislav S. Maslyakov
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0020-7100

Tat’yana A. Nagornaya
Tomsk State University; prosp. Lenina 36, korp. 2, Tomsk, 634050, Russian Federation; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7116-000X e-mail: stanya@list.ru

Abstract

This paper is written within the framework of cognitive linguistics and is part of a series of articles devoted to the cognitive attribute of justice in the context of studying the concepts PRAVDA, TRUTH and VERDAD in Russian, English and Spanish linguistic cultures. Based on proverbs and sayings containing the lexemes pravda in Russian, truth in English and verdad in Spanish, the authors had in earlier works considered the cognitive features of the idea of truth as justice and singled out the following groups of logemes (term by P.V. Chesnokov): 1) the need for truth/justice in the life of society; 2) the power of truth/justice; 3) disbelief in truth/justice. The purpose of this paper was to further reveal and describe new semantic aspects of the aforementioned concepts reflecting the idea of justice. As a result, the authors distinguished another common semantic group of logemes, defined as longing for the truth/justice. The authors note that paroemias containing the idea of longing for the truth form the final group of logemes of the cognitive attribute of justice. The semantic-cognitive analysis of paroemias revealed that only in Russian proverbs life without the truth is presented as unbearable, forcing a person to fight for the truth, sacrificing his/her life. English proverbs recognize the inaccessibility of the truth, pitiful and helpless truth, doomed to suffer from the human evil. In Spanish paroemias, one can trace the suffering of both the person and the truth itself from mutual misunderstanding. In all the linguistic cultures under consideration, the hope for justice does not die but, currently, its expectation is less painful for English-speaking nations than for the Russians and Spaniards. The results of this study can be useful for linguists and translators dealing with theoretical and practical issues of cognitive linguistics and, in particular, issues of intercultural communication in Russian, English and Spanish.

For citation: Maslyakov V.S., Nagornaya T.A. Longing for the Truth as One of the Semantic Sides of the TRUTH Concept Verbalized in the Lexemes pravda, truth and verdad (Based on Russian, English and Spanish Proverbs and Sayings). Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal’nogo universiteta. Ser.: Gumanitarnye i sotsial’nye nauki, 2021, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 76–86. DOI: 10.37482/2687-1505-V111

Keywords

concept TRUTH, cognitive attribute of justice, logeme, paroemia, Russian language, English language, Spanish language

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