LINGUISTIC MARKERS OF ANTROPOCENTRISM IN IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS

• Main Author: M. Y. Marina
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kemerovo State University 2016-07-01
• Series: Вестник Кемеровского государственного университета
• Subjects: russian language; image descriptions; anthropocentrism; spatial point of view; mental point of view; anthropomorphism.
• Online Access: https://vestnik.kemsu.ru/jour/article/view/1987

The paper discusses a type of texts neglected by the Russian linguistics but actively studied in computer and cognitive sciences – image descriptions collected by linguistic experiments. The relevance of the linguistic study of image descriptions for theoretic and applied purposes is argued. The aim of the study was to propose a classification of linguistic anthropocentric markers (including indicators of the subject’s spatial and mental points of view as well as the image object’s anthropomorphism) in animal image descriptions (both domestic and wild, depicted in their natural environment). As a result, a classification is proposed including 20 classes of such markers differentiated by frequency. We discuss the influence of subjective (individual characteristics of respondents) and objective (denotative situation in the photo) factors on anthropocentric markers and the possibility to use the identified parameters for establishing norms of image descriptions and deviations.