II. The concept of the nationally biased lexicon.

The nationally biased lexicon comprises lexical units acquired by a linguistic community in the course of its specific historical and social development.

These units are characteristic of the given nation only and not typical of (pertained to) any other even to a genealogically related nation.

They reflect different aspects of material and spiritual life such as:

• national customs, traditions, folk rites and feasts (веснянка; коломийка; вечорниці; рушники подавати; гарбуза дати; May tree, carols);

• peculiar geographical, geological or environmental conditions;

• administrative or political system (county; borough (район великого міста; смт); рада; Дума; радянський);

• elements in a governmental or election system of a country (lobby (кулуари, група впливових осіб, що проштовхує вигідний їй законопроект/ кандидатуру; speaker; teller (обліковець голосів у парламенті); Whitehall, Банківська);

• cultural/ religious traditions often expressed through certain proper names/ names of saints (Маковія, Івана Купала, Uncle Sam (Am) – “an American” which is a jovial desiphering of the letters US; St.Patrick (Ireland’s) etc.);

• monetary system (shilling; penny; hryvnia);

• titles of address and the ways of conduct (sir; mister; gentleman; lady; товариш(у); пан(е));

• articles of clothing/ footwear (вишиванка; кептар; moccassins; kilt);

• national meals, beverages and even partaking of food, established as a result of a nation’s agricultural traditions and consumption of peculiar products (вареники; галушки; кутя; haggis; pudding);

• national system of weights and measures (mile; ounce; пуд; верства).

Such lexical units are called by I.V.Korunets’ units of nationally biased lexicon or: a nation’s culturally biased specific notions; peculiar national notions; specific national notions (specifically biased national notions); national specific units of the source language lexicon; units of specific national (culturally biased) lexicon.

!!! It must be noted that SNN is a variable and relative category which can be fully assessed only in a binary opposition of definite languages and cultures (i.e. only in a comparison with another language).

III. Penetration of a nation’s specific lexicon into other national languages.

The penetration of a nation’s culturally biased specific notions into other national languages is realized in different historical periods through various channels and in most different conditions.

• The latter include first of all trade contacts in the process of which many notions are borrowed as designators for produce which they signify: bacon, champagne, jam, jeans, Coca-Cola, corn-flakes, vodka, spaghetti, sweater, tweed, whisky, pizza;

• Some other peculiar national (culturally biased) notions can penetrate into the target language in the process of traditional bilateral economic and cultural contacts which may be maintained at different levels: Cossack/ Kozak, steppe, bandoure/ pandore, polka, waltz, beefsteak, pudding, lunch;

• Still other specific national notions become world-wide known through literary/ historic works, through the press or by way of other mass media like the radio or television: oasis, boycott, hryvnia, pagoda, rickshaw, sauna.

These and other specific national notions (terms) found their way to different languages and in the course of some historical period many of them became internationalisms.

Some nationally specific notions signifying important or historical events, magnificent scientific/ technological achievements may spread all over the world almost immediately, as it happened with the Sovietisms like kolkhoz, kulak, collectivization, Gulag, cosmonaut etc.

Therefore, the more important the specific notion is for a certain nation or the world as a whole and the more often it is used in everyday life of a community, the greater is the chance of its becoming an internationalism.

This is not the fate, however, of the overwhelming majority of other specific national notions in all languages, since !! the borders of a TL are open at any time only for the most important SL specific national notions (SNN).

Hence, many SNN referring to localisms i.e. being of exclusively local nature and circulation, remain within the boundaries of the national languages. They may sometimes be known even to a greater part of the national community (бунчук, виборний, сіряк – archaic notions; кулеша, пательня – dialectal words) but are of minor importance for the TL communities, which live under different economic, social, cultural or geographical conditions. That’s why they don’t find their way to other languages: proctor, whip etc.

The referential meaning of some units of specific national lexicon may be either similar or at least closely related (class tutor/ form master – класний керівник) but they are still far from identical in their particular meaning. As a result, they can scarcely be substituted for each other in the target language.

Some other specific notions are quite similar in English and Ukrainian, though they may seem to be different, and can usually be substituted for each other:

Department of Education and Science – Міністерство Освіти і Науки.

Distant education – дистантне навчання;

Extension courses – курси підвищення кваліфікації.

There are a lot more units of lexicon which generally have the same referential meaning in both the languages in question. For example, pancake, financial year, pie – they can be substituted for Ukrainian млинець, фінансовий рік, пиріг.

Because of these similarities if not identity in some meanings of a number of English and Ukrainian units of lexicon, they can not be treated as culturally nationally biased, i.e. specific.

Though some of these notions may become specifically national in reference to other languages.