“Internacional’naja literatura”, 1, 1937 - [S015]
Communicative Intention: Creation of the image of the Other as the "Enemy"
Utterance Aim: A special marker for the concept of 'false' or 'fictitious'
Concrete Linguistic Means/Tool: Prefix 'lzhe-' as a special marker of the concept 'false' or 'fictitious'
Journal Title: "Internacional'naja literatura"
Journal Number: 1
Contexts & Examples: Книга Порше выгодно отличается от этих проникнутых фарисейством лжебиографий, так как даёт облик знаменитого лирика во всей его противоречивости и многообразии.
Edited by Svetlana Slavkova
The specific linguistic marker of simulation and substitution, i.e. the prefixoid lzhe-, which in Russian indicates a discrepancy between an object’s name and it’s real nature when combined with nouns (e.g, lzhenauka [pseudoscience], lzhegadalka [bogus guess], lzhepravednik [fake right]) casts doubt on the very essence of a phenomenon or concept – in a sense, it unmasks its ascribed meaning. In this example, prefixed to the noun ‘biografija‘ [biography], lzhe- is used to express the author’s conviction about the ideological erroneousness of Verlaine’s other biographies and their misalignment from ideological canons; moreover, and this is even more interesting, lzhe- conveys a certain satisfaction on the part of the author in having unmasked that discrepancy. From a semantic point of view, the prefixoid lzhe- is akin to pseudo- and quasi-, but in the Russian linguistic system it has a more transparent internal form, a feature that is particularly effective in contexts geared towards an immediate and direct impact on the reader.