Authors

Darina Stoyanov¹;  ¹ Odesa National University, Ukraine

Discussion

The paper examines the linguistic representation of the concept of woman in manuscript 1/154 in Odessa National Academic Library. The manuscript is a copy of the so-called Zhenski Sbornik by monk Josif Bradati that contains edifying sermons condemning women magicians, fortune-tellers, and sorcerers and offering models of pious behavior of women. The Christian notions about the woman through whom the curse and salvation came to mankind were reflected in the opposition of two main subconcepts, the evil woman and the good woman. The linguistic representations revealing the semantic structure of the subconcept “evil woman” include designations of practices forbidden by Church, of their performers and requisite; further, lexemes characterizing women magicians as thoughtless, spiritually blind and deaf, dedicated to the devil and unable to repent; and also stylistic figures revealing the relations participant – agent in the ritual; God – the evil woman – Satan. The subconcept of the good woman is represented by nouns and verbs denoting pious life, by the cognitive metaphors of spiritual virtues, the best decoration of a woman. In the sermons studied, such archetypal and universal semantic components of the concept of a woman, as «life», «birth», «mother», «fertility», are poorly represented. In Josif Bradati’s texts, the semantic dominants in the concept of woman are disobedience and obedience and this attitude reflects the spiritual searches of the monk living in a society in which magic was practiced.