Names and characteristics of people with mental disorders: a motivational aspect (a case study of Perm krai dialects)

The research is a continuous study of the semantic field (SF) “Disease” based on the data of the Perm Krai dialect lexis which entered Perm dialect dictionaries and card indexing. Special units, covering the lexical-semantic groups (LSG) “People with mental disorders” and “Characteristics of people with mental disorders”, form the segment of the SF “Disease” in the Perm dialects. The motivated lexis of these groups is the subject of the research. The motivational, semantic, derivational and etymological analyses are used to describe the LSG structure and to build foundations of the motivational models typical of the lexis under study: characteristics of mental, physical and behavioral activities. Within the models particular motives are described in detail: 1) the motif of poverty/lack of intellect; motif of abnormality, abnormity; motif of imperfection; motif of misunderstanding; motif of strange speech behaviour; 2) motif of size; motif of weight; motif of form; 3) motif of savagery; motif of age. The motif of the way loss and space orientation stands apart as a significant one in the studied lexis. The research revealed the following characteristics of the people with mental disorders in the dialect language picture of the Kama region: reasonless, abnormal; mentally disabled, mentally handicapped; unable to understand and perceive the world around; talking through their hat; savage, acting strange, behaving as a beast; behaving as a child; and loss of their way, loss of the right way. Such people are often described in the light of the size, form and weight. It is inferred that the lexis is based on the principle of abnormality, i.e. dissimilitude between mentally ill people and other folk people, their opposition.