I. YAKOVLEV CHUVASH STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY BULLETIN

comparative construction, literary text, drum, tambourine, image, function

The article is devoted to the analysis of comparative constructions with components represented by the names of the musical instruments “drum” and “tambourine” in Russian linguistic consciousness. The relevance of the study is due, firstly, to the high frequency of such expressions in literary texts and, secondly, to the variety of signs and ideas verbalized by them and affecting the peculiarities of their perception by native speakers of the Russian language and culture. The usage of contextual and conceptual methods in the analysis of examples drawn from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, covering the period from the last third of the 20^th century to the present, shows that the drum and the tambourine as figurative standards in comparative constructions participate in the implementation of various features in discourse. This has provided the basis for their classification.

On the one hand, these are signs recorded in dictionaries (“round”, “percussion”, “sounding”, etc.). On the other hand, in a context containing comparisons, the features characterizing the sound (“loud”, “rhythmic”, “booming”), structure (“smoothness” and “skin tightness” of the drum, “internal emptiness”, “surface openness”), shape (“round”, “high”) become more relevant. These images may also be used to reflect the mental, physical and financial state of the character, to generate associations with the sphere of bodily, ritual, ethnic and other cultural codes. The contextual uses of the drum and tambourine images thus demonstrate a variety of occasional readings, the development of semantics important for revealing the author’s intention. Some of the emerging connotations – related, for example, to the symbolism of drumming – become clear only given the wide cultural context. Comparative constructions with components “drum” and “tambourine” serve as a means of expression, perform characterological and text-forming functions.

Seliverstova, Elena Ivanovna – Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Department of Russian Language for Faculties of Humanities and Natural Sciences, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2020-0061, e.seliverstova@spbu.ru

Bay Ge – Post-graduate Student, Faculty of Philology, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia, Bg1552991104@163.com