Scientific journal
European Student Scientific Journal
ISSN 2310-3094

SPECIFICITY OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE CONCEPT “MEDIEVAL FOOD” IN A SOCIO-CULTURAL TEXTUAL MODEL (BASED ON THE NOVEL “THE GREATEST KNIGHT” BY E. CHADWICK)

Vorobeva A.I. 1
1 Belgorod National Research University
This article deals with the specificity of the architectonics of socio-cultural textual model of the literary concept “Medieval Food”. The parameters of the nominative field’s structure of the literary concept’s socio-cultural textual model as one of the basic literary concepts in the researched architectonics of the novel’s conceptual sphere are determined. The results of the cognitive-hermeneutic analysis of the nominative field`s structure of the literary concept “Medieval food” are represented in the concept-sphere of the novel “The Greatest Knight” by E. Chadwick. High frequency of gluttonymes in the nominative field of the researched concept is identified. Single component and multi-component representatives of the concept “Medieval food” are defined among the linguo-culturemes. Single component nominees with zero attributes are identified and included into one group. It is determined that among nominees there are mostly single component ones with a kernel represented as a noun, and attributes characterized quality and material of food.
Text
literary text
concept
literary concept
linguo-cultural concept
concept-sphere
socio-cultural model
nominative field
linguo-cultureme
gluttonymes

Text has been researched by many Russian and foreign scientists. The most accurate description of text among Russian researched, in our opinion, is given by I.R. Galperin, who says that a text is “a product of the re-querification process that is completed <…>, consists of a name and a row of special units that are united by different types of lexical, grammatical, logical, stylistic connection. It has a certain purposefulness and pragmatic setting” [2, p.18]. We understand text as a certain purposeful and informative message, having semantic integrity and oriented with an address.

We determine a literary text as a concept-sphere that is presented as a totality of nominative fields of literary concepts. According to E.S. Kubryakova, a concept is “an operational unit of memory, mental lexicon, conceptual system and the brain language, the whole picture of the world, quantum of knowledge” [4, p. 90], while M.V. Pimenova, in our opinion, gives a more extended term, where a concept is “some image of a fragment of the world or part of this fragment that has an extended structure. It is expressed by different groups of features that are realizable by different language methods” [8, с.10]. It is known that a concept do not have a form as it is an inner form of a word. In our research, we refer to a literary concept, which I.A. Tarasova describes as “a unit of individual consciousness, author’s concept-sphere verbalized in a whole text of a writer’s work” [10, p.77]. Many researches also distinguish other types of concepts. One of them is linguo-cultural concept. According to V.I. Karasik, linguo-cultural concept is “a conventional mental unit that is focused on complex study of a language, consciousness, and culture” [3, p.76]. As the research shows, linguo-culturemes show high frequency in a nominative field of a linguo-cultural concept-sphere.

A totality of literary concepts forms a socio-cultural model. Following E.A. Ogneva, we also understand socio-cultural textual model as “a research construct as a totality of nominees-linguo-culturemes, which represent culturological specificity of life of representatives of different segments of society that represent characters of a literary text” [6, p.44]. It is interesting to consider in details the socio-cultural model as a totality of nominative fields, which takes part in a model of literary concepts. As it is known, the term “nominative field of a concept” was first mentioned by Z.D. Popova and I.A. Sternin. They consider it as “a totality of language facilities which objectify <…> a concept in a certain period of the development of the society” [9, p.47]. According to E.A. Ogneva, nominative field of a concept, particularly of a literary concept, is a totality of the following types of units: “(1) neutral units, (2) commutatively colored units, (3) culturologically colored units – linguo-culturemes” [6, p.43]. In this article, we consider in detail linguo-culturemes.

The term “linguo-cultureme” was first described by V.V. Vorobyev and means “an integrated inter-layer unit of a description of a linguo-culturological field, described as dialectical unity of linguistic and extralinguistic content. If the word sphere is limited by language, the linguo-cultureme sphere is extended to the objective world” [11, p.44]. There are different types of linguo-culturemes, among which we consider gluttonymes. According to A.N. Afonina, gluttonymes are “semantic units ascending to meals” [1, p.23]. Food took a big part of medieval people’s life. It is proved by high frequency of food nominees in the concept-sphere of the novel «The Greatest Knight» by E. Chadwick. We analyse the following ones:

Example 1: Wheaten bread still hot from the oven and glistening with melted butter and sweet clover honey [12, p.9].

The cognitive-hermeneutic analysis has showed us one single component nominee melted butter with the kelner butter, represented as a noun; two multi-component nominees wheaten bread still hot from the oven with the kelner bread, represented as a noun, sweet clover honey with a noun honey as the kelner.

In the multi-component nominee wheaten bread still hot from the oven there are:

(1) a parameter of base stock for bread – attribute wheaten as an adjective;

(2) a parameter of the quality of bread still hot from the oven in which there is representation of the traditional medieval way of making bread from the oven. The proxeme from the oven characterizes the place where the bread was made. L.L. Nelubin describes proxeme as “a unit of space that has physical features corresponding to the nature of communication which communicants keep around themselves as some working volume of the communicating act” [5, p.169]. Besides, the linguo-cultureme the oven characterizes medieval way of life. Furthermore, there is a chroneme still, that shows the unity of past and present. Following E.A. Ogneva, we also agree that chroneme is “a language unit that verbalizes temporal marker in a narrative text loop that represents time as a component of the non-verbal code of communication” [7, p.141].

In the second multi-component linguo-cultureme sweet clover honey the same parameters are represented:

(1) a parameter of base stock for honey – attribute clover as an adjective;

(2) a parameter of the quality – attribute sweet as an adjective.

In the single component nominee melted butter the attribute representing quality is a participle II. The multi-component nominee wheaten bread still hot from the oven and the single component nominee melted butter are closely related with the collocation glistening with.

To sum up, in this example there are attributes that verbalise quality (hot, sweet, melted), and the base stock (wheaten, clover).

All the attributes represent a whole meal. According to the components (bread, butter, honey), we can believe that the meal is breakfast. It is true as the text of the novel proves it: : «Still grinning, Willliam licked the last drips of buttery honey off the side of his hand and went to the door <…> and looking out on the fine morning with pleasure». The chroneme morning proves that this meal is breakfast.

Example 2: The squabs in wine sauce and the fragrant, steaming frumenty and apples seethed in almond milk <…> the sweet, potent ice-wine <…> [12, p.15].

According to the analysis, in the example there are one multi-component nominee the fragrant, steaming frumenty with the kernel frumenty; two nominees with zero attributes the squabs with the kernel squabs, apples with the kernel apples; five single component nominees wine sauce with the kernel sauce, the squabs in wine sauce with the kernel sauce, almond milk with the kernel milk, apples seethed in almond milk apples with the kernel apples, the sweet, potent ice-wine with the kernel ice-wine. All the kernels are nouns.

We describe the nominees with zero attributes as a separate group as, in our opinion, a nominee itself is a kernel here.

In the multi-component nominee the fragrant, steaming frumenty there are:

(1) a parameter of taste – attribute fragrant as an adjective;

(2) a parameter of temperature – attribute steaming as a participle I.

In the single component nominee wine sauce the attribute that represents the base stock for making the sauce is an adjective. In the single component nominee almond milk the attribute is an adjective that represents the base stock for making the almond milk. In the single component nominee the sweet, potent ice-wine there are two attributes that represent taste and are adjectives.

The two single component nominees the squabs and apples have zero attributes.

Moreover, the single component the squabs in wine sauce consists of two food items: the squabs and wine sauce, which verbalises one dish. The kernel is a noun the squabs, the attribute is the collocation wine sauce. These two nominees are connected with the preposition in.

The single component nominee apples seethed in almond milk also consists of two food items and characterises one dish. The nominee kernel is a noun apples, the attribute as a collocation almond milk. Both nominees are connected with a collocation seethed in.

In conclusion, the example consists of attributes, which characterise taste (fragrant, sweet, potent), temperature (steaming), base stock of a food item (almond, wine).

In this example, we have a deal with interesting dishes of medieval times. For example, the dish frumenty is thick wheat porridge, usually served with venison. It was cooked in meat broth or almond milk. It dependent on if the day was meatless or not. In this context, there is a nominee, which represents a dish that consists of frumenty with apples in almond milk, without meat. Yet there is also a dish that consists of squabs in wine sauce. Based on this, we can make a conclusion that the day was not meatless.

The analysis has showed that these nominees, which represent dishes, are connected to dinner: «That night the Sire de Tancarville held a feast to celebrate a victory…». The chroneme that night points out that it is dinner.

Example 3: Spiced chicken and saffron stew served with fresh wheaten bread and <…> a satisfying quantity of mead [12, p.33].

Our research has showed one multi-component nominee fresh wheaten bread with the kernel bread, saffron stew with the kernel stew, satisfying quantity of mead with the kernel mead. All these kernels are nouns.

In the multi-component nominee fresh wheaten bread there are:

(1) a parameter of quality – attribute fresh as an adjective;

(2) a parameter of base stock for making bread – attribute wheaten as an adjective.

In the single component nominee spiced chicken, the attribute that characterizes quality as a participle II. In the single component nominee saffron stew the attribute is an adjective that represents base stock.

In the single component nominee a satisfying quantity of mead the attribute consists of two lexemes that characterize quality.

It is also interesting to point out that all four nominees are closely related with each other: spiced chicken and saffron stew with the conjunction and, saffron stew and fresh wheaten bread with the collocation served with, fresh wheaten bread and a satisfying quantity of mead with the conjunction and.

In conclusion, in this example there are attributes that verbalize quality (spiced, fresh), base stock for making a food item (wheaten, saffron), quantity (a satisfying quantity).

In this example, we cannot say for sure what meal it is. We only can make an assumption, based on the food items, that it may be dinner, as such quantity of food was usually served in the evening.

To sum up, the research of the novel «The Greatest Knight» by E. Chadwick, specifically the nominative field of the concept “medieval food”, that is a part of the socio-cultural model, showed high frequency of linguo-culteremes, among which there are mostly single component nominees. Kernels of all these examples are nouns. Besides, there is a high frequency of the attributes, which characterises quality and base stock of food items.