“Better To Die Than...”. Аbout Paradoxes of Preference in Paremiological Pictures of the World

Abstract

The author of the article raises the problem of the search for proof of the existence of unity in the value consciousness of the representatives of different ethnoses. Proverbs, the particular features of which are to reflect the value positions of their producers and to be a distinctive instrument in forming the value consciousness of members of society, can act as factual basis for solving the problem. The analysis of proverbs in different languages with the notion of the inverted preference reveals the identity of producers’ valuable positions of the given proverbial expressions. This identity is established on the basis of coincidence of the categories acting as provokants of inverted preference as well as on the ground of concurrence of axiological meaningfulness of these categories in the proverbial spaces and “zones” of the conflicts of evaluative meanings. The conflict of assessment connected with comprehension of one or another category being observed in each of the proverbial funds is defined as the sign of invariant essence of values.