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Perspectives of cultural conceptual linguistics (a study of the belarusian concept narod)
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Perspectives of cultural conceptual linguistics (a study of the belarusian concept narod)
Annotation
PII
S294939000028977-3-1
DOI
10.18254/S294939000028977-3
Publication type
Article
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Published
Authors
Valentina Maslova 
Affiliation: Educational Institute “Vitebsk State University named after P.M. Masherov”
Address: Vitebsk, Belarus
Tatsiana Nikitsenka
Affiliation: Belarusian State University
Address: Minsk, Belarus
Edition
Issue 2 (2)
Abstract

Since the end of the 20th century, intense studies have been conducted in the realms of cognitive linguistics and cultural linguistics. One of the features peculiar to the development of these realms in the East Slavic countries is their integration. As a result, a new field of study emerged – cultural conceptual linguistics. This field has gained the greatest popularity in the region since then. This popularity didn’t come out of thin air. Firstly, cognitive linguistics and cultural linguistics began to progress almost simultaneously in the post-Soviet era. Secondly, much of the credit goes to the local well-established research schools which contributed a lot to language semantics. The article analyses the focus and novel approaches of cultural conceptual research. Different definitions to “concept” are provided. The concept is a mental unit that can be represented by a word, phrase, sentence, or even a whole text. The cultural linguistic concept differs from other mental units due to its evaluative component. The core of a concept always contains values.

In most Belarusian research at the turn of the 20th – beginning 21st cc. key linguistic issues revolved around more traditional topics – in the paradigm of structural and functional linguistics. However, some ideas proposed by cultural and cognitive linguists in recent decades were known long before that, as Belarusian linguistics has always recognized the fact that language and cognitive processes are closely related.

The article addresses one of the focal concepts of Belarusian cultural conceptualizations that is the concept narod ‘folk; people; nation’ by employing the prototypical approach which is an effective way to determine the concept structure and its specific character.

Keywords
cognitive linguistics; cultural linguistics; cultural conceptual linguistics; concept; worldview; folk / nation
Received
08.12.2023
Date of publication
08.12.2023
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1

1. Introduction
2 In the second half of the 20th century the synthesis of various research branches within the field of humanities led to analyzing a language through a prism of culture, history, literature, psychology, philosophy, religion, sociology, etc. Thus, it gave rise to novel disciplines, such as cultural linguistics (other terms found as linguoculture, linguaculture, languaculture), cognitive linguistics, political linguistics, legal linguistics, theological linguistics, computational linguistics and many others. These disciplines, apart from being interdisciplinary projects, have one more feature to share – a usage-based view of language with the focus on the speaker. From the 1990s through the 2010s, the linguistics of the East Slavic area witnessed an increasing and widespread interest in cognitive and linguacultural research which resulted in numerous publications, including monographs, textbooks, articles, PhD theses, various conferences devoted to cognitive and linguacultural topics. It is not possible to list all the publications and events that happened within this period.
3 In most Belarusian research, key linguistic issues have always revolved around more traditional topics that are mainly studied in the paradigm of structural and functional linguistics. The research in Belarus which has been carried out from a cognitive or linguacultural perspective (to name but a few works [Maslova, 1997; Maslova, 2001; Maslova, 2004; Scherbin, 2009; Ljashchynskaja, 2015]) is still relatively scarce if compared with a number of works accomplished by scholars from Russia. It should be mentioned, though, that some ideas proposed by cultural and cognitive linguists in recent decades were known in the East Slavic countries, including Belarus, long before that (e.g. Belarusian linguistics has always recognized the fact that language and cognitive processes are closely related).
4

2. The development of cultural linguistics and cognitive linguistics: a brief overview
5 Cultural linguistics as a research programme in the East Slavic countries emerged in the 1990s and at first it was best-known for the scholar Veronika N. Teliia [Teliia, 1996] and her associates and successors (e.g. [Kovshova, 2016]). For some scholars, though, the linguacultural approach to language is still debatable (see [Földes, 2019; Pavlova, 2013]).
6 This approach focuses not only on the relationship between language and culture but it takes into account what is known about the speakers and their comprehension, how they perceive the world, what kind of community they live in. In other words, cultural linguistics views language, conceptualization and culture as closely connected.
7 Cultural linguistics is multifaceted and synthetic. It can integrate the achievements of a number of interdisciplinary studies, with the main objective being both the speaker and culture in its various manifestations.
8 Cultural linguistics is an integrative discipline, which is obvious from the method it employs: knowledge gained in other fields (psychology, psycholinguistics, ethnography, etc.), is not ignored, on the contrary, it is widely used in discussing actual linguistic issues. Furthermore, the integrative nature finds its evidence in the extension of the research perspective which is determined by the versatility of the central phenomena (language and culture) and the multidimensionality of their ties.
9 Cognitive linguistics focuses on the relationship between language, speech process and world awareness, that signifies the necessity to study linguistic issues considering speech processes and the speaker’s general cognitive abilities. In other words, the focal topics of cognitive linguistics are the way the speaker acquires knowledge as well as the issues regarding “types of knowledge and its forms , the way this knowledge is represented in a person’s mind, the way a speaker comes to knowledge and how they use it” [The concise dictionary of cognitive terms, 1996: 58].
10 Cognitive approach to language reveals the mechanisms through which speakers interpret the world and identify the place they occupy in this world.
11 Cognitive linguistics is fundamentally integrative, the essential task of which “is the description and explanation of language ability and / or language knowledge as an internal cognitive structure as well as a speaker-listener interaction dynamic process that basically means processing information and consists of a finite number of independent modules” [The concise dictionary of cognitive terms, 1996: 53].
12 When studying a linguistic object from the cognitive perspective, Valeriǐ Z. Dem’iankov draws attentions to the following points: 1) not only actions but the speaker’s mental abilities, symbols, strategies and other hidden processes and human abilities that motivate actions should be studied; 2) the specific content of actions and processes affects the realisation of invisible processes; 3) culture shapes the speaker because they are under the inherent influence of culture [Dem’iankov, 1994: 19].
13 Owing to the subjects of study, cognitive linguistics in the East Slavic area has its own specific development.
14 1) Within the East Slavic cognitive linguistics more considerable attention is paid to cognitive semantics (much of the credit goes to the well-established semantic research schools, e.g. Moscow Semantic School). It has been proven that the meaning of a linguistic unit is closely linked to human cognitive functions. This linguistic unit reflects the knowledge that to a certain extent manifests itself in the naming process. An important role, therefore, in cognitive research of the East Slavic area is given to the naming theory which is a branch of linguistics studying the principles and mechanisms of giving a name to ideas and concepts. The main motivations in the process of naming give insights into speakers’ perception of a particular piece of the world that eventually results in understanding a specific perspective of the speech community.
15 2) Cognitive linguistics is based on the notions of image schema, metaphor and metonymy. The pioneers of the theory of image schema G. Lakoff and M. Johnson define it as a recurrent dynamic pattern of our perception process through which more abstract ideas are comprehended [Lakoff, Johnson, 1980]. These schematic representations enable speakers to be aware of the world. Numerous examples to prove the statement can be found, e.g. feelings metaphorically described as liquids (Rus. liubov’ perepolnila ego ‘love overflowed him’) or fire (Rus. vospylat’ liubov’iu ‘be inflamed with love’).
16 Indeed, metaphor reflects and represents senses based on their resemblance. So, niz ‘bottom’ is negatively evaluated by Russian mentality, hence, there are expressions such as nizkie pomysly ‘low thoughts’, nizkie vkusy ‘low taste’, nizkiǐ postupok ‘low deed’, nizy obschestva ‘the lower classes of society’. The metaphorical way of world perception has universal character so metaphor can be considered as one of the fundamental cognitive mechanisms of human mind.
17 Metonymy appears to be more appealing to analyze. It is based on the contiguity of concepts which is a shift from one name to another (Ia liubliu Bakha ‘I love Bach [music]’). Metonymy highlights specific imaginative blocks perceived by speakers, nevertheless, they are not attested in a language.
18 The main subject of research in cognitive linguistics is the concept, more precisely, world modelling with the help of concepts. Among the most significant for the construction of the entire conceptual system are the ones which organise the space and construct the main sections of its division [Arutiunova, 1999]. It is the field which has been actively studied in the East Slavic countries over the last decades.
19 Scholars are trying to understand different forms of knowledge representation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics that play an important role in language functioning – frames, scripts, scenarios, propositions, etc. This area is a matter of substantial research in the East Slavic region now.
20

3. The development of cultural conceptual linguistics. The definition of “concept”
21 Along with the other branches within cognitive linguistics (cognitive metaphor, cognitive grammar, etc.) which have been investigated a lot, a feature peculiar to cognitive linguistics in the East Slavic countries is cultural conceptual linguistics that stems from both cognitive and cultural linguistics and integrates them into the main study.
22 In the post-Soviet countries, attention to cultural conceptual linguistics began to be shown at the turn of the 20th century when the dictionary of concepts “Constants of Russian culture” came out [Stepanov, 1997]. This branch has gained the greatest popularity in the region since then. Evidently, this popularity didn’t come out of thin air. Firstly, cognitive linguistics and cultural linguistics began to progress almost simultaneously in the post-Soviet era. Secondly, well-recognised semasiologists (Nina D. Arutiunova, Iuriǐ D. Apresian, Tat’iana V. Bulygina, Iuriǐ S. Stepanov, Veronika N. Teliia) contributed a lot to this field, therefore cultural conceptual linguistics in the East Slavic countries has received a semasiological bias.
23 The core claim of cultural conceptual linguistics is that language reflects a specific way of conceptualization. The speaker gets to know the world, classifies and categorizes it. If similar objects and phenomena are classified in one group it is the case of taxonomy, but only essential properties of similar phenomena are considered while categorizing. Categorization is a process of assigning an object to a category. Conceptualization is something that is above classification and categorization and it is assumed to be of a more abstract character.
24 The focal notion of cultural conceptual linguistics is defined by one of the most controversial linguistic terms “concept”. In a number of cases, it allows premodifiers, as in cultural concept, cultural linguistic concept, national cultural concept, basic concept, fundamental concept, nationally marked concept.
25 People tend to simplify and categorize countless unique facts and events our world extends through image-concepts. Our ability to form concepts is innate and it enables us to know the rules of how to form conceptual structures that are shaped by our experiences. The speaker, therefore, is not able to think about the world and to organise a certain world model, or to create a certain image without relying on fundamental categories of human cognition.
26 Concepts reduce the variety of observable and imaginative facts and events to certain groups and divide them into classes. Thus, they begin to function as constituent elements of the conceptual system. This fact can lead to an assumption that concepts are mental entities and in cognitive linguistics they are considered as multifaceted mental units which actualize their different sides, features, characteristics in the process of mental activity.
27 For the moment, there have developed some approaches to the study of concepts: cognitive linguistic (Nina D. Arutiunova, Elena S. Kubriakova, Dmitriǐ S. Likhachev, Iosif A. Sternin, Zinaida D. Popova, etc.); cultural linguistic (Sergeǐ G. Vorkachev, Vladimir I. Karasik, Iuriǐ S. Stepanov, Valentina A. Maslova, Evgeniǐ E. Stefanskiǐ, ect.); 3) psycholinguistic (Alexandra A. Zalevskaia, ect.).
28 These approaches reflect different directions in their relation to the speaker. The cognitive linguistic concept takes the direction from the speaker’s cognition to culture. The cultural linguistic concept takes the direction from culture to the speaker’s cognition. The psycholinguistic approach distinguishes concepts as “the speaker’s experience” and as “an invariant which functions in a society or culture” [Zalevskaia, 2001, 37]. According to Alexandra A. Zalevskaia, the term “concept” should only relate to “the speaker’s experience” due to its perceptual, cognitive and affective entity of dynamic nature. For this reason, it is possible to investigate concepts with the help of an experiment.
29 The cultural linguistic concept is a unit of language cognition. In its turn, language cognition mediates between culture and language. The cultural linguistic concept, therefore, connects cognition, language and the world. It can be viewed as a culturally marked verbalized meaning presented by a number of realisations in language. It is a unit of collective knowledge and practice which possesses its linguistic expression and has ethnic and cultural characteristics. The study of language and culture would be incomplete without this connecting element [Kovshova, 2012: 62].
30 From the perspective of cultural linguistics, the concept can also be termed as “minimal semantic quanta”, “worldview constant”, “basic constitutive element of the worldview”, etc.
31 Favouring the cultural linguistic approach to the concept, we define it as a linguistic and mental unit, a partly verbalized cultural meaning that possesses its name (form) in language and includes senses, cultural connotations, notions, images which motivate the name (form).
32 While traditional linguistics finds the word, phrase, or sentence as the most important units for linguistic analysis, cultural conceptual linguistics considers the concept as a unit for analysis that can be represented by a word, phrase, sentence, or even a whole text.
33 The cultural linguistic concept differs from other mental units due to its evaluative component. The core of a concept always contains values as the concept serves for the study of culture, and culture, in its turn, is grounded on values [Karasik, 1996: 14]. The concept, therefore, should be considered 1) in terms of its place in the system of values of an ethnic group; 2) in terms of the functional significance of associations caused by it; 3) from historical and etymological aspects. Conceived this interpretation, the concept is an intermediary that facilitates the process of interaction between speakers and culture. Iuriǐ S. Stepanov defines culture through concepts by understanding them as a result of psychological processes, as “quintessence of culture in the human mind; something in the form of which culture enters our mind”. Thus, the concept seems to be penetrating culture. On the other hand, the concept is something by which an ordinary person who is not “a creator of cultural values” gets acquainted with culture, and in some cases, affects it” [Stepanov, 2001: 42].
34 Most linguists believe that the concept has a prototypical structure (also termed as conceptual field) implying that concepts do not set clear boundaries. By contrast, the concept ranges within a certain category from the centre to peripheral areas. Viktor A. Vinogradov mentions vague boundaries of conceptual fields: “The boundaries of the conceptual field are vague and flexible which means new members can be drawn into the field, and the power of attraction is directly proportional to the power of the concept and the weight of its field” [Vinogradov, 2010: 14]. Indeed, concepts are dynamic in nature. They are characterized by vague borders which tend to expand, merge, or, conversely, break apart that leads to restructuring the whole field.
35

4. The concept narod as one of the focal concepts in the Belarusian cultural dimension
36 In the article, we will provide an application of the theory developed in cultural conceptual linguistics by analysing one of the focal Belarusian concepts народ [narod] ‘people; folk; nation’.
37 The concept narod has already attracted scholars’ attention. For instance, it was the focus of the study within the frame of cultural conceptual linguistics in the Russian [Vorkachev, 2013], Belarusian [Pіvavar, 2015] cultural dimension.
38 The apparatus that is employed in the study is also related to discourse analysis of literary texts. With the anthropocentric approach to language, a literary text is interpreted as a complex sign that expresses the writer’s knowledge of the speaker and the world, expressed in a literary work in the form of an individual writer’s worldview. Writers perceive the world through the prism of their knowledge and needs, which makes their worldview individual, but from the reader’s angle of perception, it is socially and culturally determined. The reconstruction of individual worldviews created by national writers helps create the linguistic worldview of the nation in general. The worldview revealed in a literary text sets rules and expected behaviours, shapes the reader’s attitude towards the environment, as well as understanding their part in the universe. Consequently, lexical, morphological, syntactic, and compositional characteristics of a text reflect all the stated above.
39 To carry out this research, we have studied about 40 Belarusian literary texts of different length, classified as landmark pieces. The list of them was compiled based on two sources: 1) Belarusian literature textbooks for schools (5th– 11th grades) recommended by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus and 2) the two-volume publication “Belarusian Literary Heritage” [Belarusian Literary Heritage, 2011].
40 Undoubtedly, the concept narod is among the focal ones in the Belarusian cultural dimension. We define focal concepts of a cultural dimension as core units of the worldview that are of utmost importance both to an individual and community. When defining a concept as a focal one, first, we rely on a high frequency of particular lexemes that reflect a certain notion in the focal concept.
41 “The Word Frequency Dictionary of Belarusian. Prose” [Mazhjejka, 1976] treats narod as a highly frequent lexeme with 73 occurrences per 1000 lexical forms. According to “The Word Frequency Dictionary of Belarusian. Poetry” [Mazhjejka, 1992], narod in poetic texts is significantly more frequent: 253 occurrences per 1000 lexical forms.
42 The idea of high frequency refers not only to the data elicited from word frequency dictionaries, but we also note the repeated occurrences of certain ideas in various discourses (literary, journalistic, scholarly, etc.). Beyond mere high frequency in determining the focal concepts in literary texts, we are also guided by the principle of selecting frequent themes displayed in them.
43 Zalizniak et al. outlined the key ideas of the Russian worldview and found the criteria for their extraction. It was specified that a certain idea is focal to a certain language if it is repeated in idiomatic expressions, collocations, as well as in syntactic constructions and even in word-building types [Zalizniak, 2005: 10]. Furthermore, lexical units representing focal concepts are often difficult to translate into foreign languages. Indeed, in Belarusian narod is a polysemous word and it is quite hard to find corresponding English equivalents. None of the possible English correspondences (nation / folk / people / community, etc.) cover the Belarusian lexeme fully. A Belarusian-English dictionary has not been compiled so far. Thus, it is not possible to look up the translation of narod provided by professional lexicographers.
44 The Explanatory Dictionary of the Belarusian Standard Language [2016] treats the word narod in the following way1: 1) ‘all the population of a certain country’; 2) ‘the workfolk of a country’; 3) ‘different kinds of communities that developed historically (tribe, nationality, nation); 4) sing. ‘a large gathering of people’.
1. The Belarusian definition in the Cyrillic alphabet extracted from the dictionary is not displayed in the article, nor is it transcribed into Roman characters. Instead, the definition is translated into English.
45 In the Belarusian texts under consideration, the lexical unit narod functions in all these senses. In numerous contexts narod means ‘the people of a country, the whole nation’. Yet, in a lot of cases narod denotes ‘the people belonging to the peasantry or [not wealthy] working class’.
46 In Belarusian literary texts, the concept narod is conveyed via such language units as belarusy ‘Belarusians’, narod ‘folk, people, nation’, moĭ narod ‘my people, my community’, nash narod ‘our people; our nation’, darahi moĭ narodze ‘my dear people’, belaruski narod ‘Belarusian people’, zemliaki ‘compatriots’, stsishany i hrozny narod ‘a quiet and formidable people’, narod tvoǐ malen’ki ‘your people are not great in number’, narod, iaki nikoli ne kryŭdziŭ druhikh ‘the people / nation that never offended others’, hramadziane belaruskiia ‘Belarusian citizens’, nashi liudzi ‘our people, our community’, muzhny i advechny narod ‘courageous and time-honoured people’, litsviny ‘Litvins’, tutėĭshyia ‘local people’, rusiny ‘Rusyns’, belaruskiia liudzi Belarusian people’, hramada ‘community’, mazol’nykh ruk mil’iony ‘millions of hands covered with calluses’, paleshuki ‘Poleshuks’. Among these units, narod (47%) and belarusy (23%) are the most frequent ones which leads to the assumption that narod and belarusy constitute the core of the concept in question.
47 On the conceptual level, the Belarusian narod is closely intertwined and to a certain extent is the extension of the concept siam’ia ‘family’. That can be proven by the specific use of kinship terms referring to Belarusians as a community: braty, bratsy, bratan’ki ‘brothers’, braty mae rodnyia ‘my closest brothers’, dochki ‘daughters’, syny ‘sons’, syny Radzimy ‘sons of the Motherland’, dzetsi Belarusi ‘children of Belarus’, syn heroiaŭ i bahoŭ ‘son of heroes and gods’, etc.
48 As stated above, the kinship model of the Belarusian nation is the extension of the family concept. The lexemes son, daughter, brother, children, grandchildren, etc. label referents ranging from relatives to members of the same nation. Firstly, the kinship-based representation of the concept narod states the spiritual link among the members of the community. Secondly, as the example below shows, it includes the ancestors, who are considered to have taken part in building up that community.
49 (1) Унукі Скарыны, / Дзе ваш гонар, моц і краса? / Ёсць і ў вас, як у іншых, святыня (У. Караткевіч) [‘Skaryna’s grandchildren, / Where is your pride, strength and beauty? / You possess, as others do, your own shrines ’ (U. Karatkevich)].
50 The example above also shows, the widely acclaimed Belarusians are referred to whenever it comes to preserving the memory of the past, e.g. first-printer (Francysk Skaryna), writers (Yanka Kupala, Yakub Kolas, Uladzimir Karatkevich, etc.). They are often conceptualized as prophets.
51 As shown by example 2, narod is conceptualized as a community that has developed historically and is determined by awareness of its unity and difference from other ethnic groups or communities:
52 (2) Нас жа не жменька, а з шэсць мільёнаў – больш і шмат больш, не раўнуючы, як жыдоў, напрыклад, або татар ці армян (Ф. Багушэвіч. Прадмова да зборніка “Дудка беларуская”) [‘We are not a handful of people, but we make up six million – that is more, much more than Jews, for instance, or Tatars, or Armenians’ (F. Bagushevich. Preface to the book “The Belarusian fife”)].
53 Self-identification and self-determination of the Belarusian nation are extremely relevant to the texts created in the second half of 20th – early 21st centuries. Under conditions of globalization, migration and erasing ethnic borders, it is important for the people to maintain their identity and preserve their historical and cultural memory, to ensure the continuity of generations and promote patriotism 2, as shown by example 3:
2. The idea of preserving historical and cultural memory is still one of the key issues. The year of 2022 was officially declared as Year of Historical Memory in Belarus.
54 (3) Народ сябе пазнаць павінен! / Народ – не зборышча, не гурт, / Ён мусіць мець – інакш загіне! (Н. Гілевіч. Родныя дзеці) [‘A people must possess a need for self-determination! / A people is neither a crowd, nor a gathering, / They must possess this sense of belonging – otherwise they will vanish!’ (N. Hilevich. Beloved children)].
55 Metaphorical conceptualization of narod involving the person as the source domain is common in Belarusian texts, assuming, it is not culturally unique. Thus, narod has a soul, heart, memory and other human-related characteristics. The following example provides a further illustration of this:
56 (4) Так, жыццё гэтых людзей цяжкое, беднае і прыгнечанае, […] жывая яшчэ душа ў народзе гэтым (М. Багдановіч. Апокрыф) [‘So, the life of these people is hard, poor and oppressed, […] there is still a living soul in this people’ (M. Bahdanovich. Apocrypha)].
57 At the beginning of the 20th century “soft melancholy” was a typical feature of the Belarusian character that is externalized in literary texts via example 5:
58 (5) У большасці песень гэтага простага люду, як у думках, так і ў мелодыі, ёсць нешта меланхалічнае, і нават вясельныя песні, дзе маладым зычаць шчаслівага супольнага жыцця, маюць у сабе нейкае пачуццё смутку, як быццам яны не давяраюць будучаму лёсу (Я. Баршчэўскі. Шляхціц Завальня) [‘In most songs performed by ordinary people, both in lyrics and melody, there is something melancholic. Even wedding songs, in which newlyweds are wished a happy life, show some feeling of sadness, as if they do not trust the future’ (Yan Barshcheŭski. Nobleman Zavalnia)].
59 Some writers reveal the concept narod more deeply and in a multi-sided way. We have studied several Belarusian literary texts, and assume that Uladzimir Karatkevich3 created a conceptually new understanding of the character of Belarusian people. In the literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries a Belarusian was shown as a poor uneducated person (see the works by Azhėshka, Bahushėvich, some poems by Kupala, Kolas, Bahdanovich, etc.). For Karatkevich, Belarusians are proud descendants of glorious ancestors who passed on to them large inheritance of language and history. Uladzimir Karatkevich repeatedly claimed that Belarusians are rich in talents, and history, therefore, they’re entitled to feel proud and to have a future worth living. At the same time, the writer wanted to be impartial and gave a fair opinion of Belarusians as a community. Here is a quote from his poetic essay The Land Beneath White Wings that describes Belarus and its people:
3. Uladzimir Karatkevich (1930–1984) is one of the most prominent Belarusian writers of the 20th century. He was the founder of historical fiction genre in Belarusian literature. Some of his works are translated into English: a historical novel King Stakh’s Wild Hunt, a poetic essay The Land Beneath White Wings.
60 (6) Як і паўсюль, ёсць сярод беларусаў мяшчане і падзвіжнікі, лайдакі і працаўнікі, “малюскі” і героі… дурні і мудрацы. І кожны паступае адпаведна свайму характару, і мудрыя разважаюць мудра і па-свойму, а дурні – як паўсюль (У. Караткевіч. Зямля пад белымі крыламі) [‘As everywhere else, among Belarusians there are philistines and ascetics, idlers and hard workers, “mollusks” and heroes... the fool and the wise. And everyone acts according to their character, and wise people think wisely and in their own way, and fools act the same way as anywhere else’ (U. Karatkevich. The Land Beneath White Wings)].
61 The concept narod as the embodiment of dominant features of the Belarusian mentality constructs a collective personality with their own national character, having both positive and negative traits. The most famous positive feature of Belarusians is their peaceful nature and respectful attitude towards other nations, which is explicitly expressed in such linguistic expressions as veratsiarpimasts’ i pryiaznasts’ maĭho naroda ‘religious tolerance and friendly attitude of my people’; my druzhby narodam zhadaem ‘we offer friendship to other peoples’, etc. The following example can be analysed to test the conceptualization stated above:
62 (7) Па агульным назіранні, беларусам прыродна ўласцівая павага да іншых народаў і памяркоўнасць да таго, хто думае іначай (У. Караткевіч. Зямля пад белымі крыламі). [‘From observations, Belarusians have innate respect for other peoples and tolerance towards ones who think differently’ (U. Karatkevich. The Land Beneath White Wings)].
63 Among the other positive features typical of Belarusians are hospitality, love for freedom, patience, hard-working nature. This statement is confirmed by examples 8–10.
64 (8) Усе, хто прыязджае да нас, адзначаюць як адну з галоўных рыс – гасціннасць, почасту досыць цяжкую для госця. “Госць у хаце – Бог у хаце” – і ганьба таму дому, дзе не зробяць усяго, нават немагчымага, каб госць быў задаволены (У. Караткевіч. Зямля пад белымі крыламі) [‘Everyone who pays a visit to us notes one of our main features that is hospitality, which is often quite difficult for a guest’ (U. Karatkevich. The Land Beneath White Wings)].
65 (9) Беларусе, Жыць ты будзеш у свабодзе, / Браце мой цярплівы (Я. Купала. З новай думкай) [‘Belarusians, you will be living in freedom, / you are my patient brother’ (Ya. Kupala. With a new thought)].
66 (10) Шмат цярпець народ умее, / Умее і памсціцца (Я. Купала. Бандароўна) [‘Our people can tolerate for a long time, however, they are capable of taking their revenge’ (Ya. Kupala. Bandaroŭna)].
67 The features of the Belarusian national character expressed in literary texts far less frequently are reticence, sacrifice, sense of humor.
68

5. Conclusion
69 The concept narod and the meaning of the word narod in the dictionary do not coincide as the concept apart from the dictionary meanings also reflects the notions and ideas found in culture (beliefs, customs, rites and duties, tales, etc.), experiences of a speech community, or, in other words, its conceptual system.
70 Linguistic means to verbalize the concept narod are widely represented in the Belarusian cultural dimension. There are more than 30 keywords for verbalization of the concept which proves its high social significance and is characterized by its influence on the speaker’s world perception.
71 The concept has a prototypical structure, the core of the Belarusian concept narod is made up of the following conceptual components: (a) the community that has developed historically and is aware of its unity and difference from other communities (20.5% of all the contexts); (b) preserving the national identity and national self-awareness (17 %); (c) historical memory (11%); (d) close connection with the local environment (9%) [also see Pіvavar, 2015].
72 The concept narod is also made of such conceptual components as (a) peaceful character (6.5%); (b) hospitality (6%); (c) national poets viewed as prophets (5.8%); (d) war in the Belarusian history (5.5 %); (e) oppression by other nations (5%); (f) love for freedom (5%); (g) patience (5%).
73 The axiological component of the concept narod is represented ambivalently. In most contexts, Belarusians are characterized as a great nation. At the same time some negative features may be attributed to Belarusians (in about 10% of the texts under consideration).
74 The implications of research in cultural conceptual linguistics can be viewed as a revealing report of lexical and conceptual peculiarities of a language based on mental processes.

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