UDC

811.133.1:81’42

Authors

Natal’ya V. Mongileva
Baitursynov Kostanay State University;
ul. Baytursynova 47, Kostanay, 110000, Republic of Kazakhstan;
e-mail: natmong@rambler.ru

Abstract

This article aimed to study the semantic space of discourse about family, based on statements about family posted on French-language online forums. France’s geography as well as peculiarities of its historical and economic development formed a special mentality of the French, with a high level of individuality, an idea about a person’s inherent value, and confidence in their own uniqueness. For these reasons, the French see family as their personal territory with distinct, inviolable borders. The archetype of border introduces topological and demarcation motifs in the discourse about family relations. This hypothesis is proved by numerous examples of the use of lexemes with the seme “space” when describing family relations, metaphors of invasion when describing conflicts, negative connotations of metaphors about close presence, as well as emphasis on one’s personal and family boundaries with the help of grammatical means. Such priority of the demarcation model of reality is also proved by the analysis of semantic representation in a number of lexemes with the help of L. Talmy’s universal schemes of force dynamics. The article highlights that the word famille in the francophone discourse designates, first of all, relationships between parents and their children and is used to refer to various family groups set in opposition to each other: speaker’s family/spouse’s family, relatives in general/close circle, blood family/friends. It should be noted that famille does not include all the relatives in general as is the case with the Russian discourse. The author concludes that the francophone discourse about family can be called a discourse of borders.

Keywords

French mentality, francophone discourse, family discourse, discourse of borders

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