The specificity of the Ukrainian emotion concept бентега on the background of the German concepts angst and sehnsucht 

Abstract.

THE SPECIFICITY OF THE UKRAINIAN EMOTION CONCEPT БЕНТЕГА ON THE BACKGROUND OF THE GERMAN CONCEPTS ANGST AND SEHNSUCHT

Kostiantyn Mizin

Translation and Teaching Methodology Department, Hryhorii Skovoroda University in Pereiaslav, Pereiaslav, Ukraine.

Volodymyr Kononenko

Department of Romance and Germanic Philology, Poltava V.G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University, Poltava, Ukraine.

Abstract

Background: The phrase непозбувна бентега sparked a heated debate in the online community about the quality of translation and the use of unusual linguistic expressions in translation. The controversy surrounding this phrase focused attention on the emotion itself, which is denoted by the noun бентега. The specificity of this emotion is emphasised, because while representatives of different linguocultures may experience embarrassment, excitement, restlessness and anxiety, Ukrainians everywhere and always experience бентега. The etymological and lexicographical lacuna of the noun бентега directly correlates with the fact that the Ukrainian community does not fully understand the semantics of this noun, let alone the phrase непозбувна бентега. Ukrainians attribute both positive and negative meanings to the latter, which emphasises the mystery of the emotion expressed by this phrase.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to establish the specifics of the currently relevant Ukrainian-language EC бентега in comparison with the German ECs angst and sehnsucht.

Results: By processing data from representative corpora of the Ukrainian and German languages, it was found that the meaning structure of the EC бентега covers a whole range of emotional experiences, presented in the form of a complex and diffuse hierarchy of meaning clusters, which are organised according to the «centre – periphery» principle. The configuration of these clusters is dynamic, and their actualisation depends on the specific emotional situation. It has been established that one of the first positions in this hierarchy is occupied by a cluster formed by meanings of embarrassment that are related to the etymological origins of the EC бентега. In addition to embarrassment, the clusters that contain meanings of a number of closely intertwined negative, neutral and even positive emotions are fundamental to the analysed EC: negative fear, quite negative awkwardness, less negative and sometimes slightly positive concern, neutral interest, somewhat positive passion and arousal (sexual desire) and positive love (passionate desire). Therefore, the бентега belongs to ambivalent ECs, in which the negativity of the meaning structure can be offset by the positive meanings present in it, and vice versa. The ambivalence of this EC indicates that it represents a diffuse «bitter-sweet» emotion.

Discussion: A study of corpus data revealed that the «bitter» meaning content of the EC бентега is formed by clusters of deep anxiety and fear, which are usually subconscious and vague. With this «bitter» content, this concept is similar to the specific German EC angst, which expresses metaphysical fear (horror), anxiety and a vague foreboding. At the same time, with its «sweet» perspective, represented by «sweet and dreamy» meanings, the EC бентега shows similarities with the specific German EC sehnsucht, since the latter represents a «bitter-sweet» emotion in which «sweet» fantasies, hopes and dreams are closely intertwined with the «bitter» prospect of their impossibility. However, neither the EC angst nor the EC sehnsucht can be considered equivalent to the Ukrainian EC бентега, since each of them only partially overlaps with the meaning clusters of the latter.

Keywords: emotion concept, meaning structure, embarrassment, anxiety, semantics, linguoculture.

Vitae

Kostiantyn Mizin, DrSc. (Philology), Full Professor. His areas of research interests include contrastive linguistics, cognitive linguistics, translation studies, contrastive linguoculturology, and phraseology.

Correspondence: kostiantyn.mizin@gmail.com

Volodymyr Kononenko, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor. His scientific interests encompass the fields of comparative linguistics, linguistic and country studies, German-language media.

Correspondence: v.v.kononenko@ukr.net

Article.

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