Metalanguage macroparameter in the study of neology of the second half of the 19th century (based on letters of Russian writers)

Abstract

The epistolary works of Russian writers (L.N. Tolstoy, I.S. Turgenev, A.P. Chekhov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I.A. Goncharov, A.I. Herzen, N.S. Leskov, F.M. Dostoevsky, V.M. Garshin, V.G. Korolenko) contain rich linguistic material. The letters comprehended innovations in language and speech that appeared in the second half of the 19th century under the influence of extralinguistic factors, as well as internal laws of the development of the language system: actualization of certain word-formation types, semantic derivational models; tendencies to fill gaps in the word-formation and lexical system; the law of analogy, etc. As a result of this understanding, reflexive metalanguage contexts appeared in the letters, in which a native speaker evaluates a particular linguistic or speech fact. Traditionally, there are such criteria for determining the neological status of a unit and its analysis as chronological, local, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, functional, statistical, lexicographic. The presence of metalanguage reflection is also an important criterion for judging the novelty of a word or a meaning. The metalanguage contexts of the 19th century as a neological source have not been studied enough, there are no special studies of them in epistolary discourse. At the same time, they can provide valuable information for the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 19th century, which is compiled at the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg). The material for the study was 101 “reflexives”, extracted by the method of a complete sample from the letters of Russian writers. The methods of component, layerbased and contextual analysis were used. The article develops the content of the term metalanguage macroparameter of the diachronic study of neology, which means a set of particular criteria used to establish the neological status of a language/speech unit and its properties on the basis of metalanguage data available in reflexives of the second half of the 19th century. The chronological criterion makes it possible to evaluate the information contained in the reflexive about the time of the appearance of a neological unit, to determine the period within which it retained the effect of novelty, lack of development by the language system. The pragmatic criterion makes it possible to determine how a new word (meaning) was evaluated by native speakers: in terms of its compliance with the laws of the Russian language, social labeling, stylistic connotation, etc. The semantic criterion presupposes the identification in reflexives of data on changes in the semantic structure of a word (metaphorization of meaning, its terminologization or determinologization), on the use of a word in an occasional meaning, on the formation of a shade of meaning in speech. The derivational criterion is aimed at obtaining data on the word-formation structure and meaning of new units that were used in colloquial speech or were individually authored.