Lexical Approach to Cultural Aspects of Death in the Old Frisian Writings
Journal Title: STYLES OF COMMUNICATION - Year 2014, Vol 0, Issue 0
Abstract
Death as a phenomenon was in Germanic culture both feared, celebrated and respected. Personalized, it was supposed to take the deceased to the afterlife world. That is why the way somebody lost his life or the circumstances of his death were very significant. After the introduction of Christianity, death was treated as the end of the worldly life and the beginning of the eternal life in haven or eternal damnation. Church’s teachings were reflected in the mediaeval legal codes, which tried to keep a tight rein on the society and regulate the earlier dominating tribal laws. The main task of the study constitutes the linguistic analysis of the notion of death on the basis of the Old Frisian texts. The first part of the paper focuses on the cultural treatment of death by Frisians in the past. Here, the death as an ultimate and natural end of life is counterpoised to the death that is conceived as a consequence of punishment or murder. The second part of the paper provides the analysis of the vocabulary taken from the texts included in two manuscripts, the Rüstring and Brokmer Manuscript (both edited by Buma (1949 – 1963)), connected with the account of death. Here, the preference for the choice of lexical means which are present in these texts is detected and estimated. Expressions referring to death as a punishment are compared with those connected the natural decease of family members or nobilities.
Authors and Affiliations
Katarzyna Buczek
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP184274
- DOI -
- Views 75
- Downloads 0
Duality of the Sign Deconstructed. On the Basis of the Works by Jacques Derrida
This paper is an inquiry into some parts of the project of deconstruction by Jacques Derrida, who deconstructs but also and before all demystifies the traditional metaphysical language, language that is “larded with” dua...
The Linguistic Space of Cemeteries as a Reflection of Culture – Research Suggestion
Cemeteries as delimited areas, arranged according to certain rules, equipped with the set of selected elements, are like a mirror, which reflects the various aspects of the activity of the society that creates them. The...
Woodrow Wilson’s War to End All Wars Textual Features of the Presidential Address to Congress Delivered on April 2, 1917
Only five presidential messages led to formally declared wars in the history of the USA. While attempting to shed some light on the role of discourse in the origins of armed conflicts, the contribution explores a selecti...
Volunteering Movement in Russia: Regional Presence and Future Perspectives
This study provides an overview of the volunteering movement in Russia. Particularly, authors concentrate their discussion around major particularities of the volunteer development in Russia: the regional volunteerism, p...
British Humour as the Art of Contemporary Homo Ridens: Based on an Exploration of the Comedy Series Fawlty Towers
Humour may ridicule both − the old and the new: something that is old may be attacked from a new position, and equally, something that is new, modern, dangerous for the status quo. The weapon in such confrontations, sinc...