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particular, native English speakers’ readiness to admit that the addressee may have another opinion and to express their own opinion in a non-categoric way.

Business interview nowadays is one of the most popular objects of linguists studies as it visibly demonstrates the linguo-pragmatic characteristics of business communication. The communicative goal fully defines the communication strategy, which is expressed in the choice of the conversation manner, the form and the content of the message and the appropriate form of speech [12]. According to E. Malyuga, a communication strategy is part of communicative behavior or communicative impact where a number of both verbal and non-verbal means are used for achieving a certain communicative goal, with due regard to the conditions of communication and the communicants’ personalities [13].

Let us consider some examples demonstrating how tag questions realize interlocutors’ various communication strategies:

Example 1.

Interviewer: Mubarak has been a very strong ally. He has helped in the war on terror. With him going, the U.S. is in for a rough go now. We are losing our closest Arab ally, are we not?

Edward Walker: Not necessarily. What's important to us is Egypt, it's not Mubarak. And Mubarak is not Egypt.

Interviewer: But Egypt does not seem to care for us, does it?

Edward Walker: Egypt doesn't care for us for a whole host of reasons, but it has to do primarily with the Palestinian issue. It has to do with the fact that we have talked about democracy and yet we don't seem to be supporting it.

(from the interview with the US former ambassador to Egypt Edward Walker on the radio show State of the Union with Candy Crowley, 2011)

The woman interviewer is in a situation of communicative confrontation with the respondent. The use of tag questions is defined, on the one hand, by her disagreement with the respondent’s viewpoint, and on the other hand, by the desire to convey her own opinion of the problem discussed.

Example 2.

Interviewer: How do I address you now? Is it Madam First Lady, Hillary, Hillary Rodham, Senator?

Hillary Clinton: It's a little confusing, isn't it?

Interviewer: Yes. What do you like the best?

(from Larry King’s interview with Hillary Clinton on the radio show Larry King Live, 2000)

The interview’s tone seems to be slightly ironic when he lists the stages of his respondent’s career, which probably makes her somewhat irritated. Using a tag question instead of a direct answer, the woman-respondent is trying to turn an awkward situation into a joke.

The strategy of evasion is realized through such tactics as redirecting, change of topic and avoiding direct answers. The aim of the speaker choosing this communication strategy is to give a negative answer but at the same time avoid direct confrontation, which is, in the first place, typical of women.

Example 3.

An interviewee’s lack of cooperation while answering an initiating question can be revealed by the strategy of dinstancing.

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Gore: Both the United States and Russia are taking steps to insulate bilateral relations and my open line of communication with Primakov is part of the effort to make sure we're clear in talking to each other.

Interviewer: What good has that done the United States? Some Russians are talking about targeting NATO cities with nuclear missiles, right?

Gore: Without going into details of the conversations I've had with Primakov I’ll say no doubt there are benefits from diminishing and dispelling misunderstandings.

(Interview with Al Gore - Second in Command // Newsweek. - April 19, 1999)

The example demonstrates the tactic of non-cooperative topic development. The interviewer is discussing the problem of Russian and American relations raised in his initiating question. The problem was highlighted in the respondent’s answer but the interviewer expressed his doubt in the effectiveness of the respondent’s actions. At the same time, the journalist questions the politician’s competency in solving the problem under discussion, which threatens the politician’s image in general and, therefore, may possibly result in a conflict. However, mentioning an indefinite source ("some Russians") as a ground for the accusation, softens it. Still, this tactic chosen by the journalist does involve a dispute demonstrated by the respondent’s evasive answer, which allows assuming the legitimacy of the journalist’s accusations.

Example 4

Interviewer: Well, let’s talk about the current economic climate a little bit. You know, you’d have to be on the moon not to realize we’ve been in the midst of a recession, right? How has that affected the sale and purchase of small-business websites?

Debra Mathews: It’s certainly floating down. Just like all other businesses, the web has been hit by economic decline. Especially in the last year.

(from the interview with the broker Debra Mathews on the radio show Small Business Trends with Anita Campbell, 14/07/2009)

In this microcontext, the tag question of the woman-interviewer using the strategy of solidarization expresses her interest in the topic discussed and sympathy for the respondent.

Example 5

Interviewer: Did you have a million-dollar trust fund while you were at Harvard? Bill Gates: Not true. Where does this randomness come from? You think it's a better myth to have started with a bunch of money and made money than to have started without, right? In what sense? My parents are very successful, and I went to the nicest private school in the Seattle area. I was lucky. But I never had any trust funds of any kind, though my dad did pay my tuition at Harvard, which was quite expensive.

(The Bill Gates Interview: A candid conversation with the sultan of software about outsmarting his rivals. - http:// ei.cs.vt.edu – 12/11/2001)

This example illustrates a symmetrical role allocation between the mencommunicants, which is shown by the respondent’s utterance where he explicitly denies the rumor suggested by the interviewer and expresses his dissatisfaction with certain myths about his personal life with the use of a tag question and further counter question. A symmetrical communicative interaction is characterized by the absence of any “communicatively privileged” role. The communicants are equal in their discourse. Symmetrical role allocation cases are quite frequent in interviews. Such type of relations makes an interview

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considerably similar to a conversation, which, in its turn, affects the character of interaction between the interviewer and the respondent and makes it informal and rather frank.

Example 6

Barbra Streisand: Honesty is a given. То me truth is so powerful. As they say, what comes from the heart goes to the heart.

Interviewer: Speaking of the heart, the theme of the new album seems to be love, doesn’t it?

Barbara Streisand: Yes, and for a while I only sang positive songs.

(Interview with Barbra Streisand - Singing, truck driving, deeply in love Barbra // Reader's Digest. - October 2003)

In this example the woman-interviewer uses a tag question to realize the tactic of introducing a new topic in the form of “prompting” it. A considerable similarity to an everyday conversation may be noticed. The new topic gradually flows out of the respondent’s preceding answer, which creates an impression of a naturally developing conversation in an informal situation. As a result, this tactic allows the journalist to manage the course of the interview’s thematic development in such a way that the respondent’s communicative line appears to dominate.

In the course of the study material analysis we also noted that a tag question is often accompanied by a vocative. A language has certain communicative parameters providing not an abstract information exchange but an actual communication process including not only the information content of an utterance but also an impact on the addressee. A certain impact on the addressee is the final purpose of any verbal act. This common purpose appears, in particular, in such acts which produce the vocative and the whole utterance accompanied by it.

Just like the vocative, tag questions are noted for a variety of invocative potential, and, therefore, using a vocative in such utterances enhances the invocative potential of the whole sentence.

Example 7

Interviewer: It is a dilemma, isn't it, Governor? Dealing with states' rights, federal versus constitutional, no one wants to deny anyone the right to vote.

Marc Racicot: I would absolutely agree.

(from Larry King’s interview with Governor Mark Racicot on the radio show Larry King Live, 2000)

In this example, the tag question and the vocative functions in a pragmatic situation when the interviewer draws attention to the respondent and prompts his certain verbal actions. The tag question and the preceding vocative are used as a means of capturing the respondent’s attention. Such utterances are typical of pragmatic situations under an attempt to influence the interlocutor’s emotional sphere. The aim of the given above verbal act is also the interviewer’s wish to establish an appropriate style and tone of communication.

It is also worth mentioning that confirmative and evaluative tags account for more than 90 % of examples, in both British and American variants of the English language. Aggressive tags account only for 1%, predominantly in informal spontaneous conversations. Confirmative tags prove to be more frequent in the British variant.

Thus, the studied examples have enabled us to draw the following conclusions:

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-relying on the idea that communication strategies correlate with pragmatic principles of communication but do not always remain within the framework of politeness and principles of cooperation, the strategies may be divided into two main groups: 1) strategies inhibiting cooperative communication (the strategy of evasion, the strategy of lowering the interlocutor’s status, the strategy of communicative confrontation, the strategy of open negative reaction); 2) strategies facilitating cooperative non-confrontational communication ( the strategy of lifting the interlocutor’s status, the strategy of creating a positive communication atmosphere, the strategy of solidarization).

-the tag question occupies a special place among the main communicative sentence types. The relation between the interviewer and the respondent, just as any other dialogic relations, are regulated by certain rules of interpersonal communication, in other words, by the principle of cooperation which assumes that the communicants are aimed at achieving communicative success. The English tag question is widely used in business discourse as it is one of the main lexico-grammatical units realizing maximum tact and having such meaning as hidden expression of one’s own interests without imposing one’s own opinion on the partner or breaking his/her tactics.

-in the context of the gender factor, the communicants’ cooperative behavior as a dominant line demonstrates simultaneously paying due attention both to oneself and to the communicative partner. Aimed at cooperation, the interlocutor (both male and female interviewers) is guided by the main principle which may be defined as trying to put oneself in the partner’s shoes. Aiming at symmetrical communicative interaction is typical of both genders. However, it should be noted that in most cases it is women who use such device as repetition when the journalist “picks up” the topic suggested by the respondent in order to make him/her develop this topic further.

Achieving communicative success defines both the behavior of interlocutors and their choice of verbal means. Tag questions have various functions: checking assumptions, a request for the partner’s agreement with the speaker, the speaker’s attempt to confirm his/her own thoughts, expressing doubt, expressing one’s own opinion. Some secondary functions include starting and maintaining conversation, a polite request, asking for information, sometimes expressing different emotions. But it is the tag question that is asked by interviewers to respondents in order to get unknown information.

Bibliographic list

1.Fomina Z.E. Sovremennye processy globalizacii v sfere jazyka, kul'tury i obrazovanija v kontekste vzgljadov nemeckih myslitelej i teorii V.I. Vernadskogo o vzaimodejstvii kul'tur i civilizacij/ Z.E. Fomina// Nauchnyj Vestnik Voronezh. gos. arh.-stroit. un-ta. Serija: Sovremennye lingvisticheskie i metodiko-didakticheskie issledovanija. – 2006.

–vyp. 6141-153.

2.Ponomarenko E.V., Radjuk A.V. Smyslovoj sinergizm kak osnova aktualizacii kommunikativnyh strategij i taktik anglijskogo delovogo diskursa / E.V. Ponomarenko, A.V. Radjuk // Nauchnyj vestnik Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo arhitekturno-stroitel'nogo universiteta. Serija: Sovremennye lingvisticheskie i metodiko-didakticheskie issledovanija. – 2013. – Vyp. 2 (20). – S. 34-42.

3.Maljuga E.N. Funkcional'no-pragmaticheskie harakteristiki voprositel'nyh predlozhenij v zagolovochnyh kompleksah jekonomicheskogo diskursa britanskogo i amerikanskogo nacional'nyh variantov anglijskogo jazyka / E.N. Maljuga // Nauchnyj vestnik Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo arhitekturno-stroitel'nogo universiteta. Serija: Sovremennye lingvisticheskie i metodiko-didakticheskie issledovanija. – 2012. – vyp. 18. – S. 14-21.

4.Brady J. The Craft Of Interviewing. - New York, 1977.

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5.Tarasov E. F., Berezin F. M. Rechevoe vozdejstvie v sfere massovoj kommunikacii. - M, Nauka, 1990.

6.Maddux R. Quality Interviewing. - New York, 1995.

7.Fomina Z.E. Innovacii v sfere russkogo kommunikativnogo povedenija kak social'no obuslovlennye refleksii novoj rossijskoj dejstvitel'nosti / Z.E. Fomina // Nauchnyj vestnik Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo arhitekturno-stroitel'nogo universiteta. Serija: Sovremennye lingvisticheskie i metodiko-didakticheskie issledovanija. – 2011. – vyp. 15. – S. 166-179.

8.Boguslavskaja O.V. Razdelitel'nye voprosy v delovoj anglijskoj rechi. – Ivanovo,

2005.

9.Algeo J. The Tag Question in British English: It's different, i'n'it? // English worldwide. - Amsterdam; Philadelphia, 1988. – № 9. – R. 171–191.

10.Holmes J. Women, Men and Politeness. – London, Longman, 1995.

11.Brown P., Levinson S. Politeness: Some universals in language usage.- Cambridge University Press, 1978.

12.Karasik V.I. Jazyk social'nogo statusa. // M.: In-t jazykoznanija RAN; Volgogr. gos. ped. in-t, 1992.

13.Maljuga E.N. Lingvopragmaticheskie aspekty delovogo interv'ju // Vestnik Severo-Osetinskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta imeni Kosta Levanovicha Hetagurova. – 2010. – № 4. – S. 127-131.

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INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

UDC 802.0-3 : 378.022

Voronezh State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Ph.D. in Philology, Associate Professor of

Foreign Languages Department,

Building-and-Technology Institute Irina Victorovna Guyduk

e-mail: irene.123@mail.ru

I.V. Guyduk

METEOROLOGICAL OMENS WITH NAMES OF SAINTS

IN LINGUOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

The meteorological folk omens with names of saints of the English folk calendar (EFC) constitute the subject of this article. Folk omens, as the case texts, perform the function of the expression of the cultural-and-ideological constant. Taking into account the cog- nitive-and-pragmatic nature of an omen and the dual unity of its real part (the condition) and predictive part (the forecast), we have revealed two ways of implementing the condition and the forecast: through correlation of phenoindicators and phenomena in the first conditional part of an omen with phenoindicators, phenomena and events of its second predictive part or indirectly through a metaphorical image. Metaphors of actional type dominate in the texts of meteorological paremic units (omens with names of saints of the (EFC)), there are also anthropomorphic metaphors and metaphors of fetish type. Examples of the formal duplication of an omen are given, when the content and the general semantics of an omen is completely preserved, only the “key lexeme” is variable, namely, ducks / geese, or there is a variation in the forms of presentation (prose or verse).

Key words: folklore genre, English folk calendar, a key lexeme, folk omens, meteorological omens, a phenoindicator, paremic units, a metaphorical image, a metaphor of actional type, an anthropomorphic metaphor, a metaphor of fetish type.

A folk omen is actively investigated as a folklore genre and as a text of the traditional culture, endowed with a clearly expressed linguocultural capacity, as a linguistic and stylistic phenomenon and as the fact of the folk verbal creativity, and at the same time it is the object of special attention of linguists [1, p. 47].

Paremias are interpreted as “... aphorisms of folk origin, which are characterized by stability, reproducibility and precedent nature, allowing, however, the variability of their syncretic form and semantic content within the original semantic-and-pragmatic constant. Omens at the same time along with proverbs and riddles in their categorical attributes are textemes of a special kind, as they represent some “text models”, abstract invariants having the main features of the text and cognitive-and-pragmatic functions designed to express judgments with a pragmatic evaluative interpretation of a stereotypical situation in relation to a particular discourse” [2, p. 3].

_________________

© Guyduk I.V., 2016

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Comparative study of omens in different languages is an important aspect of their modern descriptions. Comparison of English, Russian, Tatar and German omens reveals that the ethnocultural specificity is vividly reflected in them: the texts of omens concentrate a centuries-old folk experience, reflect stereotypes of ethnic consciousness, contain various information about the ethnic spiritual world.

N.N. Fattakhova in her study refers to folk omens, which embody knowledge and understanding of everyday consciousness of carriers of both the Russian and Tatar languages in the natural conditions of human existence, associated with weather prediction. In her work a diversified typology of folk omens is given taking into account phonetic, lexical, morphological, syntactic features, a general picture of the interaction of the semantic structure of paremias and

extralinguistic content expressed by them is provided, formal and substantial features of folk omens are established [3].

M.A. Kulkova focuses on segmentation characteristics of cognitive-and-semantic structure of folk omens in the Russian and German languages, due to the specifics of the linguistic projection of the mental world in the ethno-linguistic memory of representatives of ethnic groups being compared [4].

K.R. Wagner explores syntagmatics of zoonyms in Russian and English meteorological omens [5]. A.I. Lyzlov reveals the ambivalent character of evaluative features of English paremias [6]. The comprehensive study of N.N. Semenenko of a cognitive-and-pragmatic paradigm of paremic semantics on the material of the Russian language is also worthy of attention [2].

Insufficient study of folk omens and at the same time the need to study them, which is stimulated not only by philological, but also by their general cultural significance, makes this problem very relevant [7], and that determined our choice of the topic for research. The material of the study constitutes British meteorological omens with names of saints, extracted by means of a continuous sampling method from the following electronic sources:

Weather folk-lore and local weather signs ... by Edward B. Garriott and All Year Round Calendar – British Folklore, Superstitions, Sayings and more. In this article on the material of English meteorological omens with names of saints a motivational basis of the represented variety of omens is considered, as well as their ability to act as a means of symbolic categorization of the world and the possibility of predicting weather. Making predictions about the possible crop was of exceptional importance for British farmers, because the survival of a peasant family depended directly on the harvest (rich or poor).

Under folk omens, we understand “...autonomous stable statements of an indefinitely referential type, representing the product of centuries-old folk reflection and aimed at the modeling of human behavior, implemented by the predictive-and-incentive installations of omens” [8].

Folk signs are not only the product of observation of peasants and hunters, but they are also the result of the unconscious mythmaking; a significant part of them is based on the attribution of magical properties to objects and phenomena of the external world, the so-called superstitions, when a person takes for real the unknown forces capable of predicting events and even influencing them. The “force” of these omens to a great extent is based on the typological proximity and similarity of even genetically unrelated traditional cultures [1, p.49]. An omen remains stable, since a connection laid at its basis is settled by the time and embodied by a tradition [1, p. 48].

We cannot ignore the fact that folk signs are precedent texts: “Folk omens acquire the status of precedential phenomena as a result of continuous use of “rules of behavior” in the folk verbal practice, securing the character of stable and regularly used phrases in everyday discourse. Introducing precedent texts, folk signs are characterized by polypropositional,

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complex sign structure, the sum of the components of which is not equivalent to its meaning. Coverage analysis of paremiological description of stereotypical life situations characterizes national precedential space, which is forming in the process of centuries of assimilating experience of interaction with the environment by representatives of ethnic-and-cultural society, its socialization and reflection” [8].

N.N. Semenenko emphasizes such a feature of omens as generated by the interaction of their specific prognostic and general paremiological didactic function, which can be defined as a function of the expression of cultural-and-ideological constant (a dogmatic function of omens). An omen does not imply the variation of the expressed sense in principle, as this simply deprives it of a prognostic function [2].

N.A. Agapova regards a folk sign through the prism of keywords (KW), which are

“the bearers of cultural information and the foundation to build the entire text of an omen”.

The choice of such an approach to the study of a folk sign is not accidental: it is determined, first of all, by the ability of lexis to act as a carrier of mental meanings, of cultural information [9, p. 8]. Analysis of cultural semantics of keywords helps to understand cultural attitudes of this or that particular ethnic tradition, especially of ethnic symbolic thinking [1, p. 47].

E.E. Zavyalova, in her turn, classifies folk signs into natural and domestic, among which special fixed forms are distinguished, which are assigned to some particular time, and do not act on other days [10, p. 192], that overlaps with the classification presented in this article, as the name of a saint as a component of an omen quite accurately determines a certain time period, in fact, indicating an astronomical period of time, the limit of which is becoming the Day of Remembrance of a saint.

Of exceptional importance for our study is the concept of a “phenoindicator”. As professor Z.Ye. Fomina notes in the article “Meteorological Proverbial Signs with the Name of the Saint in the German Linguistic-and-cultural Community”: “The most important notions, connected with the signs study, include phenology, as it is the phenological knowledge that permit to explicit some rules for the signs study in particular their semantics, structure, eth- nic-and-cultural value and originality ... Of great significance are the so-called phenoindicators, that are the most noticeable natural phenomena” [11, p. 131].

Here are the names of saints, which are connected with phenoindicators of meteorological omens of the English folk calendar (EFC):

St. Swithin of Winchester (his Day of memory is connected with rain);

Archangel Michael (predictions related to the beginning of the winter cold, snow cover on Christmas);

St. Luke the Evangelist (a special period of a “little Summer” at the height of autumn correlates with his name, known as St. Luke’s little Summer);

St. Francis (the Day of memory of St. Francis is associated with the autumn migration of swallows and actually at that time autumn is in its full swing);

St. Vincent (a sunny day promises a good crop of rye and grapes (for production of wine));

St. Paul (a sunny and clear day leads a good year);

St. Valentine (he is considered to be a spring neighbour);

St. Patrick (an omen is associated with the beginning of spring);

St. Joseph (a clear day predicts a good harvest);

St. Mary (a sunny and clear day predicts a good year);

St. Barnabas (rain);

St. John (rain);

St. Barthelemey (the period of dry weather);

St. Mary Magdalene (rain);

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St. Margaret (flood);

St. Apostle Matthew (the equality of the days and nights).

There can be distinguished only three female names (St. Mary, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Margaret) out of 16 names of saints in the composition of meteorological omens, which correspond approximately 18% of the total number of names of saints.

A connection of the most weather signs with the Days of memory of saints can be explained as follows:

The character of the weather on holidays and church or saint’s days, when the masses of the people have forsaken their usual occupations in favor of out-of-door recreation, or the donning of the best wearing apparel, has naturally been a subject of unusual interest and special note. And it has followed from this fact that these days have been, to a greater extent than the ordinary working days, a basis for weather speculation [1*].

Next we will consider the basis for the classification of the English weather signs. A folk sign as a paremic genre with the leading predictive function is characterized by an expressed causal link uniting two situations in a conclusion: real and predicted [2, p. 19]. The cognitive-and-pragmatic nature of an omen constitutes the incorporate pairing of two frames, the first of which is represented as a part of the cultural complex associated with the observed situation, and the second is represented as a single slot associated with the forecast [2, p. 12]. Thus, the classification should be built taking into account the actual situation of an omen (its condition), and the predicted one.

According to our observations, it is namely a phenoindicator (or a set of phenoindicators, individual for each particular paremic unit) which can act as the “semantic core” (the term of Agapova) of the real situation of an omen [12, p. 9], projecting a certain course of events and revealing the relationship with the other phenoindicator (or a set of phenoindicators), phenomena and events from the predicted part of an omen. Thus, we propose to classify folk signs taking into account phenoindicators, phenomena and events, represented both in the frame of the real situation and in the frame of the forecast, and constituting the cogni- tive-and-pragmatic unity of an omen.

Phenoindicators and phenomena identified by us in the condition of an omen, in their turn, can be divided into four types: a natural phenomenon, floral, ornithonimic, combined. Phenoindicators, phenomena and events allocated in the predicted part of an omen respectively are: an astronomical phenoindicator (as a component of a metaphorical image), a natural phenomenon, productivity (a general prognosis for a (good) year, or a prognosis for certain types of crops). The predicted part of an omen can also be expressed through a metaphorical image of a saint as a component of a meteorological paremia.

This classification provides different variants of interaction and combination of the above described types of phenoindicators, phenomena and events, both in the part of the condition of an omen and in its prognostic part. Now we are going to consider each of the types and subtypes of our classification separately.

1.1. A natural phenomenon (rain) constitutes both the real and predicted situation of an omen.

So, the English folk tradition has always linked the prediction of rain with St. Swithun’s (St. Swithin’s) Day, which falls on July 15th:

St. Swithin’s Day, if thou dost rain,

For forty days it will remain.

St. Swithin’s Day, if thou be fair,

For forty days ’twill rain nae mair’ [2*].

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A temporal quantifier of the rain duration characterizing the time period of rain or fair weather (depending on which part of the omen is actualized in a particular year) is indicated precisely by the figure (40 days from St. Swithun’s Day).

It should be noted that the weather prediction exists in the poetic form and in the prosaic form, its meaning is unchanged, which indicates the fact of the duplication of an omen [9, p.10], when, while maintaining the meaning of an omen, its form of presentation varies (in verse or prose):

Whatever the weather is like on St. Swithin’s Day, it will continue so for the next forty days [2*].

Why is St. Swithun’s Day and rain and inextricably linked in the national consciousness? According to an old English legend St. Swithun of Winchester, an English bishop, is honored in Britain as “the patron saint of weather”. The legend claims that lying on his deathbed, the bishop asked to bury him outside the castle, so that rains were free to water his remains. His will had been accurately performed for 9 years, until July 15th of 971 the monks of Winchester Castle tried to move his remains inside, in a magnificent temple. According to the legend, during the ceremony of reburial, there had been a heavy rain, and subsequently there were heavy rains during each anniversary of the bishop’s death [13]. Thus, the repeated coincidence of the prediction and the weather phenomenon has increasingly contributed to the firm establishment of associations of St. Swithun’s Day and rain in the national consciousness.

The symbols of St. Swithun, besides the legend about rain, are apples from the appletrees planted by the bishop. In England, they say that you should not eat apples before St. Swithun’s Day [13].

It is interesting to note that there is a scientific meteorological explanation of heavy rains associated with St. Swithun’s Day:

There is a scientific basis to the legend of St. Swithun’s day. Around the middle of July, the jet stream settles into a pattern which, in the majority of years, holds reasonably steady until the end of August. When the jet stream lies north of the British Isles then continental high pressure is able to move in; when it lies across or south of the British Isles, Arctic air and Atlantic weather systems predominate [14].

1.2. The condition of an omen is expressed through the Day of Saint John as a vectorpointer of rainy weather → a natural phenomenon (rain) constitutes the predicted situation of an omen.

Before St. John’s Day (June 24) we pray for rain, after that we get it anyhow [3*].

St. John’s Day serves as a kind of vector-pointer of the period of rainy weather. The fact that national consciousness connects St. John the Prophet with the water element, is quite understandable:

“St. John the Baptist (“performing ritual lustration by water”) according to the Gospels: the closest predecessor of Jesus Christ, who predicted the coming of the Messiah, lived as an ascetic in a desert, preached and performed sacred ablutions / dippings for purifying Jews from sins which subsequently became known as the sacrament of baptism. St. John the Baptist laved (baptized) Jesus Christ in the waters of the Jordan river, dipping him into water” [15].

1.3. The following example in the classification presents a unique case where the condition of an omen and its predictive part are realized through metaphorical images (natural phenomena follow each other → rains give way to a period of dry weather):

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