ETHNOLINGUISTIC PECULIARITIES OF INVESTIGATING LANGUAGE UNITS: MEANS OF VERBALIZING THE CONCEPT OF “RATIONALISM”
Abstract
This article examines the effectiveness
of describing the concept of “rationalism” in journalistic
texts. Modern journalism allows changes in the collective
consciousness of its readership (and its surrounding society)
as reflected in a text to be followed quickly, as well as
the characteristics accompanying the formation of new
trends in the development of concepts based on their means
of verbalization to be identified.
Despite attempts to distinguish ethnolinguistic methods for
describing and analyzing material, ethnolinguistics primarily
uses modern methods developed in other disciplines related to
the study of semantic fields, frames, metaphors, and concepts.
Accordingly, uncovering new approaches to the study
of concepts from an ethnolinguistic perspective has evolved
into a promising area of research at present, supplying both
the purpose and objectives of this contribution.
Taking into consideration the field approach to the study
of the components of verbalization, according to which lexical
units, which belong to different parts of speech are united
by a common conceptual field, 12 means of verbalization
relating to the concept of “rationalism” such as nouns,
adjectives, and adverbs were selected from lexicographical
sources: nouns – Rationalismus, Rationalist, Rationalistin,
Vernunftmensch; adjectives – rational, rationalistisch,
sinnvoll, vernünftig; adverbs – rational, rationalistisch,
sinnvoll, vernünftig.
Within the investigated sample all of the above-mentioned
lexical units were recorded in combination with other
components (568 examples) and the indicators of frequency
of the means of verbalization were identified. The analysis
of newspaper articles shows that the highest quantity of word
uses was recorded for adjectives – 357 examples (62,8%),
followed by adverbs – 136 lexical units (24%) and the lowest
quantity of examples was found for nouns – 75 word uses
(13,2%).
As shown by quantitative indicators of “rationalism’s”
verbalization as a concept, which to date, has not been
sufficiently explored, modern journalism is dominated by
adjectives, which carry a significative aspect of meaning,
among which those most frequent encountered are the following
combinations: rationales Verhalten, rationale Handeln,
and rationale Entscheidungen.