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LINGUO-CULTURAL INTERPRETATION OF METAMORPHOSIS IN THE NATIVE FOLKLORE OF OB-YENISEI AREA // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2016. Issue 2 (12). P. 73-80

This paper investigates linguistic and cultural aspects of metamorphosis of folklore characters of three peoples of Ob-Yenisei area: Ket, Selkup, and Khanty. This work focuses on variants of a single myth about the moon's origin shared by these three cultures. This myth revealed several metamorphoses, for example: man → man’s half without a heart → moon; man → swan → man’s half without a heart → moon, and the others. The structure of metamorphosis situations might include the following components: 1) who/what is transforming; 2) in whom/what subject is transforming; 3) initiator of transformation (if available); 4) what actions are accompanying and/or initiating the transformation. Thus the metamorphosis situation can be observed as a not elementary language unit, that is built by mutual penetration of composed components.

Keywords: folklore, Ob-Yenisei area, metamorphosis, lexical and grammatical means of realization

Conflict Situation in the Worldview of the Peoples of Siberia (Based on the Folklore of the Selkups And Khants) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2024. Issue 1 (43). P. 87-96

Folklore texts and ethnographic descriptions are the most important basis for modeling worldview, especially among non-literate and early literate peoples. An interdisciplinary situational approach is proposed as one of the modeling strategies, combining the methods and resources of different disciplines, e.g., linguistics, cultural anthropology, and folklore. The essence of the interdisciplinary situational approach is that folklore and ethnographic texts are analyzed for the presence of ethnolinguistic situations, the components of which are identified and interpreted using the methodological apparatus of different disciplines. Language contributes to the detailed interpretation of the meaning of the situation and helps to define boundaries. It is no coincidence that communication is one of the features of ethnolinguistic situations because language events and language situations are indeed part of them. The “ethno-” component is associated with the description of a particular ethnic group, but does not prevent typological comparisons. Every ethnolinguistic situation presupposes participants and is based on their activity, i.e. on a certain meaningful action. In folklore, the ethnolinguistic situation correlates with a motif, which is understood as a segmental event, a relatively independent, complete, and relatively elementary segment of the narrative. The motif functions as an organizing moment of the plot movement and brings its meaning to the content of the plot and is also a characteristic feature or dominant idea of a literary composition (Kim, 2015: 28). When we combine data from different disciplines to understand the ethnolinguistic situation, we obtain a special interdisciplinary unit that allows us to interpret folklore or ethnographic data as much as possible and model a picture of the world based on them. The study aims to test an interdisciplinary situational approach to the interpretation of a fragment of the worldview of the peoples of Siberia using the example of several conflict situations in the folklore of the Selkups and Khants. A folklore work is rarely complete without conflict situations. The situation is a unit of the folklore text. The ethnocultural analysis of the components of the situation makes it possible to identify details that are important for further typological research into the folklore of the Siberian region.

Keywords: conflict, interdisciplinary approach, ethnolinguistic situation, folklore of the Selkups and Khanty, worldview