Reflecting national identity in universal concepts

• Published in: SHS web of conferences 2021, Vol.127, p.2013
• Main Authors: Aleshina, Larisa Nikolaevna, Zaytseva, Irina Aleksandrovna, Smakhtin, Evgeniy Sergeevich, Gilovaya, Elena Anatolyevna, Lapshina, Svetlana Sergeevna
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: conceptual sphere; intercultural communication; linguistic worldview; mentality
• ISSN: 2261-2424; 2261-2424
• DOI: 10.1051/shsconf/202112702013

The issue of reflecting national mentality in the linguistic worldview continues to be relevant as each people has its own specific mindset and common mood related to moral and ethical features of its formation. The article describes a national concept as a complete combination of thought, religions, cultural traditions, folklore that form a conceptual sphere of a language. Therefore, studying the reflection of national identity in the concepts seems to be essential, as the concept itself is a key category in linguistic research of viewing the world through language. The main purpose of this study is to perform a comparative analysis of conceptual spheres of the Russian and English languages. To achieve this purpose we set several tasks: to characterize peculiarities of expressing the key concepts sovest’/conscience, dobro/good, pravda/truth, krasota/beauty in speech; to identify extralinguistic factors fostering common understanding of the conceptual spheres being analyzed in the Russian and English linguistic worldviews. The article uses a complex research methodology, which combines descriptive and analytical methods, as well as the opposition technique and structural and semantic analysis of a word. The paper concludes that only those connotations of the concepts that become a symbol referring to a certain perspective of national mentality are ethnoculturally essential. In the conceptual spheres of English and Russian, key notions defining value systems of these cultures play a significant role. Evolution of material and spiritual culture is reflected in a concept as a single linguistic unit.