Conflict Situation in the Worldview of the Peoples of Siberia (Based on the Folklore of the Selkups And Khants)

Folklore texts and ethnographic descriptions are the most important basis for modeling worldview, especially among non-literate and early literate peoples. An interdisciplinary situational approach is proposed as one of the modeling strategies, combining the methods and resources of different disciplines, e.g., linguistics, cultural anthropology, and folklore. The essence of the interdisciplinary situational approach is that folklore and ethnographic texts are analyzed for the presence of ethnolinguistic situations, the components of which are identified and interpreted using the methodological apparatus of different disciplines. Language contributes to the detailed interpretation of the meaning of the situation and helps to define boundaries. It is no coincidence that communication is one of the features of ethnolinguistic situations because language events and language situations are indeed part of them. The “ethno-” component is associated with the description of a particular ethnic group, but does not prevent typological comparisons. Every ethnolinguistic situation presupposes participants and is based on their activity, i.e. on a certain meaningful action. In folklore, the ethnolinguistic situation correlates with a motif, which is understood as a segmental event, a relatively independent, complete, and relatively elementary segment of the narrative. The motif functions as an organizing moment of the plot movement and brings its meaning to the content of the plot and is also a characteristic feature or dominant idea of a literary composition (Kim, 2015: 28). When we combine data from different disciplines to understand the ethnolinguistic situation, we obtain a special interdisciplinary unit that allows us to interpret folklore or ethnographic data as much as possible and model a picture of the world based on them. The study aims to test an interdisciplinary situational approach to the interpretation of a fragment of the worldview of the peoples of Siberia using the example of several conflict situations in the folklore of the Selkups and Khants. A folklore work is rarely complete without conflict situations. The situation is a unit of the folklore text. The ethnocultural analysis of the components of the situation makes it possible to identify details that are important for further typological research into the folklore of the Siberian region.

conflict, interdisciplinary approach, ethnolinguistic situation, folklore of the Selkups and Khanty, worldview