Ethno-linguistic peculiarities of French Canadian and English Canadian linguistic world-images in comparative aspect

Abstract

In this article, the ethno-linguistic features of French Canadian and English Canadian linguistic world-images are subjected to comparative analysis. As the result of the mentioned linguistic world-images comparison according to a number of criteria, the author comes to conclusion that there is a significant number of differences between them. First of all, these differences come from the peculiarities of English and French Canadians’ historical paths: for a long time English Canadians and English have dominated in all spheres of public life, whereas francophone minority has been oppressed (which is reflected in idioms), and the use of French was confined to a family circle. The differences in morphological and grammatical features of languages determine the differences in mentality: though the system of tenses (respectively, the mental division of the time space by the nations) is quite similar, a greater analyticity of the English language and a greater linguistic "flexibility" of French is observed. When English Canadian and French Canadian phraseology is compared, the greater role of religion in the French Canadian community is evident, rather than in English Canadian; the influence of the Canadian variant of the English language on the Canadian variant of French is clearly expressed. With all the differences, both LWI share a number of common (common Canadian) concepts ("northness", "homeland", etc.) and values (tolerance, peacefulness, discretion, etc.).

Key words: linguistic world image, concept, value, phraseology, ethno-linguistic specific
feature.