Korolev, S. A. The Language of Catchphrases: From Gogol’s Vocabulary to Speech Practices of the 1950th – 1960th

Abstract: The article is devoted to the reconstruction of the vocabulary of students of the 50th – 60th of XX century. The author of the article compares verbal expressions reflecting the speech of that period with Nikolay Gogol’s lexicographical experiences. Based on the great writer’s practice and partly adopting his methods, the author of the present article has tried to create his own ‘catchwords’ and expressions reflecting a particular epoch. Noteworthy that he shares Gogol’s feeling for the importance of the language and the word. The author is based on famous notes written by Nikolay Gogol (‘Russian minor lexicon’, ‘Materials for the Vocabulary of the Russian Language’, vocabularies from his notebooks of the 1840th) and their interpretations by V. Podoroga. In particular, the author has used Podoroga’s approach to literature as a historical material and an associated method of participant observation. The author notes that the teenager vocabulary of that time has the situational nature typical for everyday life: plenty of words and expressions used in the 50th – 60th were created based on concrete life circumstances. The author of the article also underlines the connection between the ‘social dialect’ with the social environment of the aforesaid period and states that that connection was rather indirect.

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