A dialect dictionary as a linguoaxiological source

The 100th anniversary of the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences is a propitious occasion to look back on Russian lexicography’s track records, especially given that this academic science has been flourishing in Russia for over two centuries, its roots stretching back to ancient times. Initially, vocabulary studies focused on fixing and systemic description of folk words as defined by V. Dahl. Russian dialectal lexicography, now more than a century old, has a history of significant success in dictionary descriptions of Russian vocabulary and phraseology. The publication of the “Dictionary of Russian folk dialects” edited by F. P. Filin, F. P. Sorokoletov and S. A. Myznikov was a landmark event not only for Russian, but also for cross-linguistic lexicography and dialectology. This dictionary, as well as the dictionary projects the “Pskov regional dictionary” supervised by B. A. Larin, and the “Arkhangelsk regional dictionary” supervised by O. G. Getsova, gave a boost to dialectographic studies in practically all Russian regions. Notably, most new developments follow the lexicography principles of the “Dictionary of Russian folk dialects”, its structure and vocabulary as a model and measure for vocabulary quality.

The article presents the experience of lexicographic processing of Russian dialect phraseological units and paremias in projects by its authors.

One example of this experience is a special consolidated dictionary of Russian dialect phraseology, “Polnyy frazeologicheskiy slovar russkikh narodnykh govorov” [Complete phraseological dictionary of Russian folk dialects], backed by a Russian Scientific Foundation grant (2017–2019) within the project “Mir vostochnykh slavyan v paremiologicheskoy interpretatsii: aksiologicheskiye dominanty i ikh lingvokulturograficheskaya reprezentatsiya” [The world of Eastern Slavs in paremiological interpretation: axiological dominants and their linguistic and cultural representation].

Working on this dictionary, we have expanded the phraseological vocabulary of the Dictionary of Russian folk dialects with materials from numerous fundamental Russian dialectal dictionaries, regional dictionaries, and small-scale local folklore collections including proverbs and sayings. Our dictionary accommodates modern views on phraseological units and proverbs as lexicographic description objects and applies new procedures for their objective linguistic and culturological commenting. In a bid to reflect the phraseology and paremiology dynamics in live speech, we have departed from the strictly differential principle of material selection. Nevertheless, the composition of the “Complete phraseological dictionary of Russian folk dialects” and the principles of the selection of phraseological units conform to those guiding the compilers of the “Dictionary of Russian folk dialects” in dealing with dialect vocabulary. The article accentuates the importance of the proposed principles for dictionary representation of dialecticisms, as well as the continuity and further development of ideas by Russian dialectography founders in new vocabulary projects. Particular attention is paid to the methods of interpreting the axiological component of phraseological units and paremias semantics applied in the dialect dictionary.