Open AccessThe Image of Russia in the Spanish Historical Diplomatic Discourse of the Second Half of the 18th Century: Frame Modelling
Author(s) -
Ol’ga V. Neshkes
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
vestnik severnogo (arktičeskogo) federalʹnogo universiteta. seriâ «gumanitarnye i socialʹnye nauki»/vestnik severnogo (arktičeskogo) federalʹnogo universiteta. seriâ: "gumanitarnye i socialʹnye nauki"
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2687-1505
pISSN - 2227-6564
DOI - 10.37482/2687-1505-v130
Subject(s) - frame (networking) , consolidation (business) , empire , period (music) , state (computer science) , frame analysis , linguistics , perspective (graphical) , history , content analysis , sociology , social science , aesthetics , ancient history , philosophy , computer science , visual arts , art , telecommunications , accounting , algorithm , business
Frame modelling has been widely used to analyse various types of discourse; however, the historical and diplomatic discourse remained beyond the purview of special studies until recently. This paper aimed to consider the linguopragmatic and ontological characteristics of the image of Russia in the Spanish historical and diplomatic discourse of the second half of the 18th century from the perspective of frame modelling. An interdisciplinary approach was applied, including the methods of comparative, lexicosemantic, discourse, and frame analysis. The frame “Russia” modelled by the author on the basis of the prototypical frame “state” represents linguistic units that actualize the image of Russia in the discourse under study as well as changes in this image that occurred during the given historical period. The material included 84 historical documents from Spanish archives, namely, official diplomatic correspondence dating back to the period of exploration of the New World by Russia and Spain and consolidation of their state rights on this territory. The studied correspondence, consisting of reports of Spanish envoys to Russia, letters of governors of New Spain and diaries of Spanish seafarers, is one of the main sources of the formation of the image of Russia as part of the Spanish linguistic worldview of the 18th century. Based on the semantic, discourse and frame analysis of Spanish diplomatic documents of the second half of the 18th century, it is concluded that the image of Russia in the Spanish linguistic worldview is rather ambiguous: Russia is portrayed as a large empire with rich land and human resources planning expansion into North America, while having corrupt officials and an uncivilized indigenous population in Eastern Siberia. The results of this study can be of interest to linguists, historians and diplomatic officials.