Linguistic desacralization in the Spanish evaluative view of the world (a case study of vocabulary and phraseology)
The article deals with the linguistic desacralization in vocabulary and phraseology of the Spanish language. Spanish evaluative view of the world is the object of the study. Desacralized semantic derivates and phraseological units participating in the formation of evaluating meaning are the subject of research. The research material was collected from Spanish dictionaries of colloquial speech, modern phraseological dictionaries of the Spanish language, literary texts of Spanish writers of the 20th century, texts from Spanish newspapers and blogs. The analysis of dictionary definitions, semantic and contextual analysis were used as the main analytical methods of the research. The purpose of the study was to identify the semantic fields related to religious sphere which were the object of desacralization and to find different types of positive and negative linguistic evaluation in the semantics of the studied vocabulary and phraseological units. The results of the study showed that linguistic desacralization of vocabulary and phraseology covers the following semantic fields: the names of confessional signs, religious attributes, religious objects, the Bible books and biblical characters, the names of saints, the names of church traditions, rituals, holidays, church buildings, the names of church positions and clergy. Desacralized religious vocabulary is either the formator of general and private evaluations characterizing a person and the surrounding world or it is the intensifier of the evaluative meanings. Spanish linguistic consciousness is characterized by the usage of desacralization technique to create a comic effect. Inversion of moral values inherent in Spanish linguistic consciousness is due to baroque aesthetics and the peculiarities of the Western laughter culture. The important conclusion of the study is that linguistic desacralization cembracing loss and depreciation of the sacral component of the semantics of a word or phraseological unit is capable of conveying information about values and anti-values of human existence.