WHAT IT MEANS TO BE TSAR: SEMANTIC INFLATION OR CREATIVE SHIFT

The paper focuses on the actual relation between the elements of the cultoronymic series ЦАРЬ — CZAR/ TSAR, with the goal of demonstrating that despite common roots, these are distinct words, different in form and meaning.

The corpus-based study consists of two parts: (1) the Russian-language part of the research, based on the data of the National Corpus of the Russian Language, explores the semantic evolution of the Russian term ЦАРЬ reflecting the political and ideological changes in the country; (2) the English-language part of the research employs the data from a variety of corpora — historical, synchronic and regional — to highlight various aspects of the two English xenonyms that sprang from the Russian term.

The research shows that all members of the cultoronymic series can be used in the literal and metaphorical meanings, yet, being coreferential, they differ in meaning:

When used literally to refer to a Russian (or, earlier, Slavic) monarch, the Russian term originally had a markedly positive connotation, including such evaluative components as “kind” and “wise”, while the English-language Russianisms have a negative tinge, characterizing the ruler as a despot or tyrant;

When used metaphorically, the Russian term ЦАРЬ can be applied to the country’s post-Soviet leaders, implying their striving for or already performing unrestrained, tyrannical power. The English-language Russianism TSAR is also occasionally used in this sense. Meanwhile the rival Russianism CZAR has developed a different metaphorical meaning, close to that of a “magnate”. This explains why, for example, President Donald Trump used to be a “czar”, but is now described as “tsar”.

The paper attempts to demonstrate the openness of borders around languages, which tend to interact and penetrate into each other whenever they come into contact. At that, any interlanguage transfer triggers a chain of adaptations, by means of which the language and its users claim the borrowing as a separate entity, not a clone of its parent. However tempting, it is wrong to approach the interpretation of a loan from the perspective of the source language, since the new discursive environment shapes the loan from the very moment it enters the target language.

Keywords: culturonym, borrowing, interlanguage transfer, assimilation, linguocreativity