METAPHOR-MAKING AND RELIGIOUS VOCABULARY IN 20th CENTURY UKRAINIAN DIASPORA FICTION

Abstract

The article deals with peculiarities of the religious vocabulary semantic renewal in the works of 20th century Ukrainian diaspora writers who, unlike their mainland colleagues, could faithfully reflect Ukrainians’ life and attitude to God. This topic, which did not arouse interest in Ukrainian academia in the 1990s, is today highly relevant. The analysis of lexico-semantic processes that come with metaphor-making involving religious vocabulary most often used in the mentioned material identified some of their specific features. Firstly, when there is a need to emphasize the permanent (not temporary) similarity of objects from the secular and sacred spheres, metaphor-making (not comparison) is more often favored. Secondly, in the process of metaphormaking, a combination of names of different categories (concrete and abstract, material and immaterial, etc.) is used, which adds sublimity, solemnity, festivity and lyricism to the utterances. However, quantitatively, metaphorical combinations of words that do not diverge categorically prevail (they are mostly old, already fixed in the language), which clearly is a realization of the writers’ intention to communicate with their readers through images common to them. Thirdly, the investigated metaphorical derivatives can perform the function of ironic characterization of the object, but such uses are more typical of the direct speech of the godless characters, which may disparagingly, sometimes even sarcastically, utilize religious vocabulary as enantiosemic elements. Meanwhile, literary works distinctly reflect religious correctness that the Ukrainians maintain when using sacred linguistic units outside the religious domain. Fourthly, the diasporan writers build creative, more-than-one-word metaphoric constructions, always with undertones of triumph and sublimity preculiar to sacred texts. Implicitness of the complex metaphors reflects the sophistication of the authors’ thoughts, their deep insight into God’s decrees. The diasporan writers’ creativity is nurtured by their freedom of thought and a high level of spirituality.