THE ANTITHESIS OF «WOMAN AND WAR» IN THE MOVIE ...THE DAWNS HERE ARE QUIET: LANGUAGE MEANS OF EXPRESSION

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the verbal actualizations of the concepts WOMAN and WAR in the movie text. WAR and WOMAN are the key concepts of any culture; each of them takes an important place in the human mental world, and a lot of works devoted to each of them in the Russian linguistics. We are primarily interested in their interaction and language expression. The purpose of the article is to find out the kind of relations of the corresponding concepts to each other, to find and analyze their linguistic expression. The plot of the movie ...The Dawns Here Are Quiet takes place during the early years of the Great Patriotic War. The story introduces us to the main characters, among them a veteran military officer - Sergeant Vaskov, and five young women, each with a different story, but they all have one thing in common - they are all soldiers now. In this unusual role for women, the old truths about women and war stand out brightly and in a new way. Collected linguistic material allows us to analyze the linguistic expression of the concepts WOMAN and WAR at different levels and to show the relationship between them. The contraposition of women and war is not uniform; it includes two contrapositions: «woman» / «man»; «peace» / «war». These auxiliary oppositions can be seen in grammar, in categories of gender and time. At the lexicon level, the antithesis «woman» vs «war» is manifested by comparing the thematic groups «woman» (95 words) and «war» (164 words). The zone of intersection of these thematic groups is very small and includes literally seven words belonging to two nominative classes: names of persons: a female soldier (m.), an anti-aircraft gunner (f.), a soldier-wife, a widow of a hero, an interpreter (f.); and the names of items: linen, beliishko ‘little linen’. At the level of grammar, the asymmetry of the male and female genders in the designation of persons is actualized. In Russian, words of the feminine gender usually denote females, and masculine words denote a person outside his sex differences. Therefore, the nomination of female workers by name is associated with the emphasis on their gender, and the designation of a military rank or military post ignores their female identity. The protagonist of the film, Sergeant Vaskov, expresses this particular trait of military service in a retort: Netu , netu zdes’ zhenshchin. Yest’ boytsy , yest’ komandiry. Voyna idet! I pokuda ona ne konchitsya , vse v srednem rode khodit' budem ‘No, there are no women here. There are soldiers, there are commanders. The war is on! And before it is over, everybody will be genderless’.