UNDERSTANDING WAR AND PEACE IN THE PAROEMIOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF THE RUSSIAN, ENGLISH AND JAPANESE LANGUAGES

Abstract. In the history of linguistics and world culture, the social phenomena war and peace occupy a special place among other universal oppositions in the linguistic worldview of the native Russian, English and Japanese speakers: loyalty – betrayal; good – evil; life – death; love – hate. Linguistic consciousness consists of directly opposite concepts of oppositions that exist in real life. The unity of all oppositions is formed in the linguistic consciousness, where it exists in the form of dichotomous pairs. So, “good” is good and “evil” is denial and harm to this good. “Life” is an absolute reality of consciousness and being, and “death” is the end of the existence of being. “Light” is a symbol of a person’s consciousness, the essence of his/her life, and “darkness” is the extinction of consciousness and life. The social phenomena war and peace are abstract nouns that are distinguished by heterogeneity and versatility and indicate cultural originality in the linguistic consciousness of the native Russian, English and Japanese speakers. In addition, war and peace is a set of special social and political phenomena that exist, function according to their own rules and occupy an exceptional place in the life of any society and individual. The reflection of the social phenomena war and peace in the Russian, English and Japanese linguistic worldview has a long history, so they are largely identical within the framework of paroemiology. This can be explained by the general subject of the study – the social character and the eternal struggle for life and peace took place in the past of all three peoples.

The purpose of this work is to study the social phenomenon war and its correlation with the opposite phenomenon peace as a basis for a unified study of their sociolinguistic features in the paroemiological system of three linguistic cultures: Western, Eastern and Eurasian. The aim of the work is to interpret and represent the social phenomena war and peace in paroemias through a definitional analysis and a comparative method aimed primarily at identifying the distinctive characteristics of each linguistic culture separately.

Thus, the paroemias existing in the linguistic consciousness of the native Russian, English and Japanese speakers should be considered as a single linguistic and cultural unity, verbalized in the form of social phenomena category, where the concept war comes out in the first place in terms of brightness of meanings and frequency compared to the more veiled concept peace. In further research, the analysis of the paroemias interpretation about the social phenomena war and peace as a complex social phenomenon can help to identify their national and ethnic differences and similarities in the Russian, English and Japanese linguistic worldview, as well as their social character and the idea of the struggle for life in modern society.

Keywords: social phenomenon, linguistic worldview, paroemia, war and peace, linguistic consciousness