Dictionary Definitions of Explanatory Dictionaries as a Source of Information about Soviet Everyday Life (On the Example of Clothes Vocabulary)
Authors:   Omsk State Technical University (Omsk, Russian Federation), Sedova Natalia A. 
Published: March 2021

The aim of this article is to explicate information about Soviet everyday life through a comparative analysis of the content of the dictionary definitions of the names of one piece of clothing in different explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language of the Soviet period. To achieve the aim, the following research methods were used: the lexicographic analysis of dictionary definitions of clothes names in explanatory dictionaries, the comparative analysis of the qualitative and quantitative content of dictionary definitions of names of one item of clothing in different explanatory dictionaries, and the interpretation of the results of the comparative analysis of dictionary definitions of clothing names. The material of the research was the explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language published in the Soviet period of Russian history: The Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language edited by D.N. Ushakov, The Dictionary of Modern Russian Standard Language in 17 Volumes, The Dictionary of the Russian Language in 4 Volumes, S.I. Ozhegov’s Dictionary of the Russian Language. 479 nominal lexemes, naming 160 items of clothing, were selected from theses dictionaries. Dictionary definitions of the names of one item of clothing from different dictionaries were compared by such typological features of clothing as “scope of use”, “subject wearing the item (by gender)”, “features of clothing style”. In the course of the comparative analysis, attention was paid to the qualitative and substantive content of the dictionary definitions of clothing names and the number of meaningful elements in their composition. As a result of the analysis, the authors have been identified dictionary definitions of clothing names whose content does not change in different dictionaries and dictionary definitions whose content transforms in terms of quality or quantity of its elements. The interpretation of the results of the comparative analysis of clothes vocabulary definitions allows reconstructing ideas about stable phenomena and dynamic processes in the zones of Soviet everyday life that are more closely related to the sphere of clothing. There are two such zones: (1) the style and way of life of Soviet people and (2) social interactions in Soviet society. The structuring of the information about Soviet everyday life, extracted from dictionary definitions, indicates the existence of a connection between the sphere of Soviet everyday life as a micro-level of human life with the macro-level –the life of the Soviet state. The lexicographic description of clothing items is a source of information not only about the costume as an element of national material culture, the traditions of wearing clothing, fashion trends in clothing, but also about the processes that are not directly related to the world of clothing, occurring in the social sphere, indicating the way of life and types of people’s activities, aesthetic and moral stereotypes, the emergence of new needs.