Abstract:
Among the archetypical binary oppositions, the opposition
of our/own – strange/another's occupies a special place. In the
field of its coverage may be included space, subject, idea etc. In
relation to society, it reflects the connections between people at
various levels, among which are: family relationships, ethnic,
language, confessional, social etc. Proceeding from the research
tasks, the author distinguished the cognithems of the proverbial
fund within the framework of the archetypical binary opposition
our/own – strange/another's (their number was 36). As an
example in this article the "Strange/another's is much better and
more profitable than our/own" is presented in detail. The list of
cognithems was composed in such a way as to show the range of awareness of the qualities of
"our/own" an "strange/another's" before accepting the "strange"/"another": from comparing
of these categories, comprehending their positive and negative sides, through conflict – to
indifference, and then to gratitude, kindness to stranges/others, after which the way to
understanding and accepting their features is already opened. To identify which ethnocultural
characteristics/ markers of their and others are distinguished in these cognithems, they were,
first of all, grouped into four groups.
In this article, ethnocultural markers of our/own – strange/another's are presented in
detail through the prism of cultural codes reflected in the third group's cognithems:
"Evaluation of our/own – strange/another's (better/worse)". If we start from all the seven cognithems included in this group, we can distinguish a number of markers / characteristics,
which, for the sake of order, have been tabulated. These markers were identified and examined
through the prism of cultural codes. Analyzing these verbal concepts in his work, the author
turned first of all to the ethnocultural specificity of the language consciousness reflecting these
relations, while he is fully aware that the presented analysis does not give an absolutely
complete picture from this point of view and does not pretend to have exhaustive judgments
about peculiarities of the reflection of this opposition in the respective cultures.
