Multilevel thematic marking as an ethnolinguistic tool of dialectal discourse representation in digital text corpora

Abstract

The elaboration of dialectal corpora is one of the up-to-date problems in modern dialectology, for digital resources allow to solve problems either in traditional dialectology or in cognitive and discourse linguistics. The most important tool to build up corpora is multilevel thematic marking. Its structure is determined by the conception of the corpora authors. Accordingly, the communicative parameters are set in Saratov corpus describing the dialectal system as a type of rural communication. Digital Kuban dialectal corpus is being elaborated on the basis of a linguocultural approach to represent dialectal discourse. The object described in the Corpus is a local tradition of the north-west of Kuban territory. This tradition is based on Ukrainian and Southern Russian cultures in immediate contact with Linear Cossacks (Eastern part of Kuban) among Russianspeaking population. Discourse is discussed as an explication unit of linguocultural concepts. The opposition discourse vs text is removed in the Corpus conception because discourse pieces recorded and represented graphically are structurally close to texts and are built up according to the scheme of the invariant which is a genre standard accepted in culture. The minimal unit of division is micro discourse (topos) or discourse segment based on a micro theme. The multilevel thematic marking mechanism allows to build up dialectal discourse as a linguocultural phenomenon. Also it helps to reveal latent communicative and cultural properties of the described system and represent these properties within the parameters correlated with various corpus modules. Cultural concept nominations are included in the parameters to form a new level of marking. Concept is represented by a special sign-a lexeme nominating the nuclear meaning of the concept. Segment marking of thematic discourse in sub-corpora is as follows: #Ritual culture#{Wedding rite} ∗mark∗ ∗four∗ ∗house∗ ∗time∗ ∗ bridesmen∗ ∗doer∗ ∗bridegroom∗ ∗Saturday∗Sunday∗ ∗symbolic number #Spiritual culture#{Mythology} ∗Family of a mythological character∗ Situation∗ ∗Man's act∗ ∗ ∗Speech act∗ ∗Physical action∗. In text marking the following sings are used: # (octothorpe) sub corpus, {} (curly braces) thematic discourse, < > (angle brackets) theme, ∗ (asterisk) micro theme (topos), concept, an element of a semiotic code.