Concepts in folktales – Manifestations of embodied worldviews

Abstract

The semantics of linguistic units is not an object of study, but in some cases purely linguistic information is used to support the conclusions of semiotic, textual and intertextual analyses. The term “semantics” is not used in this work in a narrow sense (study of the meanings of linguistic units), but in a more global sense (study of the structure of the meaning of the work as a whole). Thus, the semiotic structure and the textual organization of literary tales, as well as the structure of the links of these works with other texts, are considered to be characteristics of their deep semantic structure. The tale has been studied from different angles. The formation and sources of the fairy tale genre have been studied (Propp 2000), E. Meletinsky (1977, 1995, 2000), folklorists have collected and classified the patterns and types of fairy tales (Aarne, Thompson 1964 ; Delarue, Hold 1957-1977). The historical and anthropological significance of fairy tales was first seriously studied by V. propp (2000) and K. Levi-Strauss (Levi-Strauss, 1973). This theme is developed in the works of N. Belmont (Belmont, 2002), J. Calame-Griaule (Calame-Griaule, 1984), M. Carrin (2002). Fairy tales also attracted the attention of psychologists who studied them from the point of view of psychoanalysis (B. Bettelheim 1960, M. Schneider 1980). The structural and semantic study of the fairy tale in the semiotic aspect was first undertaken by V. propp, laying the foundations of modern narratology (V. propp, 1998). In the 1970s, French philology tended to consider semiotics as a science of meanings: thus, the structural and semantic approach to the literary text involved the isolation of units of meaning at different levels and their analysis. Research in this area was conducted by both domestic (Meletinsky, Novik, Putilov, etc.) and foreign (Greymas, Kurtes, Coquet, Fontanius) scientists. Currently, the discursive study of the fairy tale, which takes into account both the structural (textual) aspect of the fairy tale and its connections with other texts and with the socio-discursive context, is also relevant. However, only a folk story has been so thoroughly studied, while the literary tale has been studied only from the point of view of literature (Kovtun 1999, Lipovetsky 1992, Bakhtin 1979). In recent years, some literary tales have been studied from the linguistic point of view of the text (Adam, Heidmann). The genre of the literary fairy tale, due to the vagueness of its borders, as well as a strong dependence on the individual style of the writer, has not been studied as thoroughly as the tale of folk fairies. Thus, the relevance of the work is determined by the need to study the French literary tale of the twentieth century as a genre, highlighting its inherent structural and semantic characteristics in relation to the folk (popular) tale. The study of specific tales by French writers as unique works is also important and promising.