Russian food metaphor as an object of ideographic lexicography
Authors:   Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, Yurina Elena A. ,   Tomsk State University, Baldova Anastasia V. ,   Tomsk State University
Published: September 2024

The article presents the stages of the development of domestic ideographic lexicography associated with the emergence of dictionaries of different types, organized in accordance with the semantic connections and thematic commonality of interpreted units. The dictionary description of figurative words and expressions of the Russian language, motivated by names of objects and phenomena in the sphere “Food”, is based on the existing experience of an ideographic representation of the material, taking into account its conceptual relevance and discursive nature. Dictionaries compiled under the guidance of Dr. Elena Yurina demonstrate two approaches to the ideographic description of the figurative lexical and phraseological field “Food”. The three-volume Dictionary of Russian Food Metaphor (Tomsk, 2015-2019) is built according to the nesting principle: the arrangement of dictionary entries reflects the structural and semantic connections of linguistic units and the semantic unity of the original motivating images; the distribution of lexical-phraseological nests corresponds to the logical-conceptual division of the sphere “Food” into the thematic areas “Dishes and Products”, “Gastronomic Activities”, “Properties of Food”, “Subject of Gastronomic Activities”, “Kitchen and Kitchen Utensils”, “Routine and Organization of Nutrition”. The macrostructure of the World in the Mirror of Food Metaphor dictionary is built on an ideographic principle: the names of sections and subsections into which dictionary entries are grouped designate the spheres of extra-linguistic reality whose objects and phenomena are figuratively characterized through food metaphor. The formation of the classification scheme of the ideographic dictionary was carried out by an inductive method through a semantic and cognitive analysis of figurative words and expressions included in the dictionary; denotative areas of application of metaphorical names were determined. The synoptic scheme of the dictionary includes five sections, within which subsections are distinguished: (1) Person: Appearance, Gender and Age Characteristics, Organism, Physical Actions, Psyche, Thinking, Character and Behavior, Speech, Social Status, Professional Activity; (2) Society: Politics and Armed Conflicts, Economy, Culture, Interpersonal Relations, Social Activities, Life Experience, Social Communication; (3) Material World: Living Nature, Natural Facts, Artifacts, Physical Phenomena and Processes, Properties of Material Objects, Sound, Smell and Taste; (4) Abstract Concepts: Space, Time, Measure, Value, Existence; (5) Communicatemes. The order of the sections in the dictionary is determined by the quantitative criterion. Most of the figurative units characterize phenomena in the spheres of “Person” (40%) and “Society” (37%); the remaining categories are represented by a smaller number of figurative nominations: “Material World” (14%), “Abstract Concepts” (7%), “Communicatemes” (2%). A distinctive feature of the dictionaries discussed in the article is the explanation of figurative representations typical for Russian linguistic culture, demonstrating analogies between certain phenomena of reality and various culinary objects realized in a complex of figurative words and expressions. Such formulations are placed in a separate dictionary area, which completes the presentation of each word family of the thematic dictionary and each subsection of the ideographic dictionary. The interpretation of a typical figurative representation in the ideographic dictionary includes the name of the object of figurative signification, the name of the gastronomic phenomenon associated with it, the basis of metaphorical assimilation, as well as examples of figurative units expressing this representation. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.