Linguoaxiological Analysis of Kalmyk Proverbs and Sayings with Food-Related Components: A Perspective from European Paremiological Contexts

Introduction. The article presents an analysis of Kalmyk food-related proverbs and sayings — comparing the latter to paremiological units of European languages from an axiological perspective. Goals. The study attempts a linguoaxiological analysis of Kalmyk proverbs with gastronomic components and compares them to Russian and French paremiological units. Materials and methods. The paper focuses on a database of paroemias selected via continuous sampling from a variety of dictionaries. The author’s database contains a total of 1,500 paroemias, 260 units have been used in a detailed linguoaxiological analysis, and the article publishes ca. 60 most representative examples. The work employs a complex methodology which includes the steps as follows: to compile an individual cluster of paroemias with gastronomic components for each language; calculate a frequency of gastronomic components and semantically relate the latter to values; characterize emotional and evaluative language means instrumental in correlating gastronomic images with the axiological meaning of a paroemia; analyze Kalmyk paroemias against Russian and French ones via the comparative method. Results. The analysis of paroemias with food components of the three not that closely related languages has showed their high axiological potential. The most frequent components tend to reflect peculiarities of lifestyles and traditions once adopted by the investigated ethnic groups. The material of the three languages is indicative of some correlations within the following values (value dyads): life, knowledge, faith and religion, wealth – poverty. Despite the evident typological differences, the means of expressing evaluativity and their role in creating axiological meanings of paroemias in the three languages have a number of similarities. Conclusions. Such insights into the culturally significant food component in paroemias of Asian and European languages are indicative enough when it comes to investigate the functioning of ethnic value systems, including in terms of their cultural orientations, such as actual degrees of trends towards sociocentrism, primary orientations towards spiritual or material values.

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