JAUNŲJŲ ŽEMAIČIŲ RAIŠKOS IDEALAI: SĄMONINGOSIOS NUOSTATOS
EXPRESSION IDEALS OF YOUNG SAMOGITIANS: CONSCIOUS ATTITUDE

Summary/Abstract: The object of the paper is the conscious linguistic attitudes. The author of the paper concerns a question whether typical members of a linguistic community tend to hierarchise different representational language systems, i. e. language varieties on the level of conscious attitudes. The paper considers what particular factors may determine the formation of such hierarchies. The diversity of representational systems is presupposed by geolinguistic and sociolinguistic evaluation of linguistic facts. Apart from providing a particular net of variety nominations, the acknowledgement, identification and conceptualisation of different variants immediately implicate a particular aspect of evaluation. Although a scholarly perspective towards varieties is not hierarchising, the echoes of such registers may act as certain hierarchising models: standard language vs. dialect, city language vs. country language, etc. The variety descriptors of the members of a typical linguistic community, contrary to scholarly net of variety nominations, not only segment the linguistic continuum but also possess particular evaluative features. The empirical basis for the insights shared in the paper concerns the data of the experiment carried out in a Samogitian region in the spring of 2011. The experiment was aimed at investigating the conscious attitudes, i.e. the subdialectal hierarchies formed by typical mem¬bers of a language community. The research was carried out in 4 Samogitian localities, i.e. Varniai, Luokė, Tryškiai and Nevarėnai. The participants were given a list of “tags” of linguistic varieties. The young Samogitians were to rate the varieties from the most to the least preferable one. According to the research results, the system of factors which determined the model of the attractiveness of the images of the linguistic varie¬ties is trinary. The conscious attitudes of the young Samogitians are influenced by their cultural and regional identity. This forms a positive image of the “linguistic homeland”. Although on the level of the conscious attitudes a variety of the “linguistic homeland” prevails over the standard language, a hisgh position of the standard language in the im¬age system of a typical member of the language community allows for predicting a scheme of competitive relations among these varieties. The third factor which determines the model of vari¬ety images is referred to as the capital syndrome. Undoubtedly, the subdialect of the main city (Vilnius) was evaluated positively firstly because of its image of a socially attractive city. Complex research is necessary to indicate the extent to which the images of the varieties are implicated by a linguistic reality. KEY WORDS: conscious linguistic attitudes, variant descriptors, language variations, hierar¬chization of variations.

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