UDIVLENIE ‘WONDER’ AS A LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC CONCEPT OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

Abstract

The article is devoted to udivlenie ‘wonder’ as a language-specific word in order to show its specific conceptual configuration in the Russian language consciousness. According to the National Russian Corpus, wonder is explicated, in its explanatory expressions, as a cause and as a consequence in regard to related feelings and experiences, as well as situations in which it is being experienced. As many examples have shown, people are always surprised when something exceeds expectations contrary to usual opinion or attitude. In this way, wonder is not only an emotional but also a mental state as a cause (stimulus) of a corresponding emotional reaction. According to available data, udivlenie ‘wonder’ may be ordinary or extraordinary by statement; deep , strong or easy by intensity; unperceived , vague or inexplicable by the degree of awareness; genuine , sincere , cast , false or ostentatious by authenticity; calm , reserved , timid , insane or silent by external manifestation; pleasant , unpleasant , painful or heavy by physical sensations; painful , cold , arrogant or chilly by emotional and psychological experiences; innocent , naive , stupid or idiotic by the criterion of moral evaluation. In its most manifestations, udivlenie ‘wonder’ is related to different concepts like bewilderment , curiosity , admiration as well as disbelief , frustration , annoyance , outrage , condemnation , anxiety , fright and fear that refer to some typical wonder -situations in which they occur as a possible reaction to a subject of wonder: cf. wonder → joy ( frustration , outrage , etc.). The propositional model, built on the National Corpus, relies on information which includes predicates associated to udivlenie ‘wonder’ varying according to their position in the syntactic structure of a proposition. As a semantic object, wonder is compatible with the verbs test , cause , initiate , express , show , depict , obscure ; as a semantic subject, it is compatible with emerge , exude , spread , cover , borrow , erode , pass , etc.