Particularities of Political Vocabulary in Tatar and Mari Mass Media : Synchronic and Diachronic Analysis

Politics, like any other social sphere, is served by a distinct system of lexical resources, namely—political vocabulary. The article examines semantical and structural organisation of political vocabulary in two languages —Tatar and Mari—both from a historical perspective and at the present stage of their development. Lexico-semantic groups expressing the concepts of “power” and “politician” are thoroughly explored. The following dominant ways of political vocabulary formation are identified: morphological, morpho-syntactic, lexico-grammatical and phono-morphological. Political lexemes deriving from Altai, Turkic and Tatar strata are investigated. Borrowings in the political vocabulary are carefully examined, data drawn from the leading Tatarand Mari-medium newspapers. The article also covers a study of functioning of the political vocabulary related to the concepts of “power” and “politician”, such as: state / country, government, political party / movement, heads of state departments, elections.

languages of several ancient Mari tribes, was in an intermediate position between Volga and Perm groups of Finno-Ugric language family, subject to a profound effect from Turkic languages.On the other hand, one of the prominent and notable features of Mari-Turkic language contacts was the existence of Mari borrowings-mariisms (a term suggested by N. Isanbaev)-in Turkic languages (Isanbaev, 1989).Later, in the XVI century, Russian influence, especially on the Mari language, became more apparent.
Therefore, historical facts indicate a long-term co-existence of Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples in the same geographical region, which naturally led to certain changes in their languages and cultures.
Terminology analysis is a major part of contact linguistics studies, particularly for the multi-cultural regions.Due to the significance of language as a means of expressing and transmitting information, more and more attention is currently being paid to extensive and thorough research of separate systems of terms.Rapid development of international relations, openness and mobility of borders result in an increasing linguistic interest in political terminology.
In Russia, political vocabulary research is immediately related to the concept of "socio-political vocabulary".The latter, to a certain extent, is covered in bilingual dictionaries (Russian-Tatar, Tatar-Russian, Russian-Mari, Mari-Russian).However, specialised dictionaries of political vocabulary are quite scarce.Two Tatar publications are particularly worth mentioning-"Political Vocabulary" (Seyasi, 1925) and "Political Dictionary" (Politik, 1958) published in 1925 and 1958 respectively.In the Mari language, political terminology hasn't to date been arranged into any specialised dictionary, but can be found in the Records Management Manual in the Mari language (Ivanov, 2007).
Analyzing socio-political vocabulary, linguists commonly support a unified opinion that there's a clear-cut nucleus within this lexical stratum-a word of strictly political classification-such as "state".
According to L. Muradova, a socio-political vocabulary nucleus can be identified as follows: if a lexical unit contains "political" and "social" components in its meaning, then it can be regarded as an integral part of a nucleus of socio-political vocabulary (Muradova, 1986).Dictionary definitions help to pinpoint these components.
L. Zhdanova distinguishes 4 distinct "zones" at the basis of socio-political vocabulary.The first zone includes socio-political vocabulary itself (in its narrow meaning)-designated names of people, places, concepts, structures constituting political life of society.Zones two to four include ideological, theme-based and "peripheral" terminology (Zhdanova, 1996).All language transformations, according to A. Miniyar-Belorucheva, are evinced on the level of lexical units, in their substantial and functional essence.This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that semantics is a core of language, it contains the "meaning of linguistic creativity" (Miniyar-Belorucheva, 2014).
It's equally complex to determine periphery constituents of socio-political vocabulary, on account of a complicated nature of the very concepts "political" and "social".For instance, L. Muradova characterises the content of the periphery quite comprehensively including lexical units from the fields of economics, diplomacy, culture.State politics covers various spheres of social life since it touches upon most areas of human activity.
Simultaneously, politics is an area directly related to relations among classes, nations, social groups; and the essence of it is the everlasting strive to conquer, retain and use the state power.Political systems of most societies include, along with states, political parties, church, organisations and movements seeking political power and dominance.For that reason, it's evident that both nucleus and periphery of socio-political vocabulary are complex notions, and that the borders of the periphery are relatively conditional.
In contrast to terminology of political science, political vocabulary is attributed to common lexical resources and is used in texts targeting general public.Thus, political vocabulary can be defined as a theme-based combination of commonly used words that need to be understandable for general public.E. Sheigal states that politics as a specific sphere of human activity is, by its nature, a cluster of speech actions (Sheigal, 2000).Political vocabulary is section-based: in the centre there are "genres" which conform to the fundamental objective of political communication-a strive for power.Those are: parliament debates, political leaders speeches, elections.In peripheral "genres", according to the author, the function of "fight for power" incorporates functions of other types of discourse: juridical, scientific, educational, medical, religious, etc.The author names the two concepts-"power" and "politician"-as fundamental for political vocabulary.
Political vocabulary momentarily reacts to all the changes happening in today's world.Presently, the foreground tendency of its development derives from mobility and cross-cultural dynamics and is demonstrated in intensification of the usage of political borrowings in all the world languages.Causes for borrowings emerging in the Russian, Tatar and Mari languages are thoroughly described in the works of I. Krysin, M. Khairullin, S. Sibatrova and other linguists.

Materials and Methods
Descriptive and classification methods were applied; the latter one incorporating semantic and structural classification of lexical units in the sphere of politics in the Tatar and the Mari languages.
Comparative approach was applied; that allowed to deduce both general principles and specific national features of various political discourses.
The study of political lexemes was based on samples from print media of Tatarstan and Mari El.In the modern age, mass media, especially periodicals, embody the very sector of social development that ensures functioning of political vocabulary.The data were drawn from leading Tatar-and Mari-medium newspapers: Ватаным Татарстан (My Homeland Tatarstan)-socio-political newspaper in the Tatar language, published in Tatarstan; and Марий Эл (Marij El, Mari El)-socio-political newspaper in the Mari language published in the Republic of Mari El, and also newspapers Безнең гаҗит (Our newspaper) (Tatar) and Акчарлак (Seagull) (Tatar) Кугарня (Friday) (Mari).

Results and Discussions
A unified system of socio-political vocabulary was established during the final period of the Tatar and the Mari nations genesis (end of XIX-early XX centuries); one of the most significant reasons for that being emergence of periodical press in the discussed languages.
The most significant impact on the process of development of the Mari political vocabulary came from the Tatar language.A large amount of words conveying the meaning of social status and other social concepts finds roots in the Tatar language (Isanbaev, 1978).
Political vocabulary in the Tatar language, hence second-handedly in the Mari language, derives from the four primary historico-genetical strata: 1) Altaic; 2) Turkic; 3) Tatar; 4) stratum of borrowings (Aleeva, 2009).G. Aleeva indicates that the Tatar socio-political vocabulary was organised in a terminological system during the Bulgar period and had Arab-Persian roots.
Standardisation process began during the second half of the XIX century, piquing by the XX century.After 1917, a significant proportion of Russian and Western European borrowings penetrated the Tatar language.
For centuries, these layers were a source of borrowings in the political vocabulary of the Mari language.
Socio-political terms from the Altaic strata are хан, түлəү, кабала, etc.The word хан "Khan" refers to the title of a ruler for Turkic and Mongolian peoples, as well as the person having this title.In the "Tatar-Russian dictionary" word хан is given with the meaning of "Khan" (hist.)(Tatar-Russian Dictionary, 2002 13, p. 374) and in it is close to the meaning of such words as идарəче "leader", хөкемдар "ruler", "overlord".In the Mari language dictionary the word хан is fixed with the meaning of "Khan"-the ruler of Turkic peoples.Presently, the word retains its meaning and has historico-stylistic connotations.
The lexical unit түлəү "payment, remittance" conveys a meaning of giving money or other valuables as a compensation to terminate sth, to void.In the "Tatar-Russian dictionary", the lexical unit түлəү possesses two meanings: 1) fee, payment, instalment, remittance; 2) colloquial tax (Tatar-Russian Dictionary, 2002).In the Mari language тÿлымаш (n) from the verb тÿлаш indicates "fee, payment, clearance, remittance" (Dictionary of the Mari language, 2002).
The word кабала (servitude) means: 1) lifelong subserviency due to debt obligations; 2) complete economic dependence of the exploited country.In the Tatar-Russian dictionary the lexical unit "servitude" is given in the sense of "enslaving subserviency" The lexical unit кабала (servitude) has the following meanings in the Mari language: 1) hist.servitude (slavery).2) indirect bondage; complete subordination (Dictionary of the Mari language).
Tatar word башлык "head of state" (concept-"politician", category-"heads of governing bodies") retains its basic meaning in some dialects of Eastern Meadow, Hill and Eastern dialects of the Mari language (Gordeev, 1983).
The word ил "country" (concept-"power", category-"state / country") is defined as: 1) the terrain, the area distinguished on the basis of geographical location and natural conditions; 2) the state with a certain governing control (Tatar telenen anlatmali suzlege, 2005).The word itself goes back to the ancient Turkic "tribal alliance, a people, a state".In the "Tatar-Russian dictionary" there are 6 meanings of this word: 1) country; 2) homeland; 3) province; 4) dialect village; 5) people, world, society; 6) adj.worldly, material, mundane (Tatar-Russian Dictionary, 2002).The same meanings of the word exist in the Mari language; the word ил occasionally takes the form of эл.
In the Meadow Mari language dialect киңəш operates in the form of канаш with the meanings of: 1) advice, counsel, recommendation; 2) meeting, gathering, assembly (Dictionary of the Mari language, 1992).Along with the Russian borrowing совет "advice", the lexical unit канаш is contemporarily used to refer to governing bodies: мер канаш "public council" самырык кокласе канаш "coordinating council", Министр-влак Совет "Council of Ministers".
The lexeme сайлау is used in the Eastern dialect of the Mari language in its unmodified form: сайлау "elections" (Isanbaev, 1978).As a result of assimilation, the borrowing is used with the suffix-маш in the Meadow dialect: сайлымаш "elections".
The Mari word тöра goes back to the Tatar one түрə, however, it has a broader meaning than that in the original language: 1) colloquial chief, official; 2) spoken sir, a man belonging to a ruling class; 3) spoken lord, chief; 4) spoken judge, an official at the court (Dictionary of the Mari language Vol. 7, No. 11, 2002, pp. 194-195).As an adjective this word corresponds to the Russian relative adjectives seigniorial, bureaucratic.
Genesis of the Tatar stratum of the political vocabulary concurs with the period of initial formation of the Tatar people (X-XII centuries.).It consists of words existing and formed on the basis of lexical and word formative material of the Tatar language itself.
The lexeme ярлыкау (peripheral genre-"jurisprudence") means: "1) pardon, absolution, forgiveness, leniency; 2) announcement, decree, command." In Mari the word ярлыкау is fixed in the form ярлык with the meanings: 1) label, sticker; 2) figurative sobriquet, a stereotypical nickname characterizing someone quite superficially (Dictionary of the Mari language, 2005).As a result of semantic development of the word its meaning was narrowed.The use of such borrowings is determined by a need to create a missing lexical unit to name phenomena.
Among the terms of a later period there are the words that were formed under the influence of political events in people's and the country's life.This group of words was mostly formed through internal resources of the countrywide language.These are suffix and complex words, terms and phrases that are included in the category of the analyzed stratum of the Tatar language.For example: зыялы "intellectual", тамгаханə "customs", раслау "approval", өндəү "agitation, campaigning", үзгəртеп кору "perestroika", министрлык "ministry", etc.
Тамгаханə "customs" (concept-"power", category-"governing bodies, services") from тамга-agency which controls import of goods and charges special fees for such an activity.It has recently appeared in the Tatar language as an equivalent of the word customs; in other Turkic languages it is not found.
The lexeme тамга operates in the Mari language as a "brand, label as a sign of ownership" and a "written sign, font, sign" (stamp) (spoken) (Dictionary of the Mari language, 2002).
A certain part of the Tatar political vocabulary consists of early direct borrowings from the Oriental and European languages which were included in the Mari lexical system indirectly through the Tatar language.This happened due to close contacts, exchange of scientific and technological advancements, economic, cultural, political connections.
In the modern Tatar language, the borrowed stratum of political vocabulary is significant.Words related to this layer came from the Arabic, Persian, Russian and other languages.They are direct loanwords.The earliest borrowings are orientalisms-borrowings from the Arabic and Persian languages, which began to penetrate due to Islam adoption in the X century.In the early XX century Tatar periodicals language was a simplified version of the classic ancient Tatar and Ottoman Turkish languages; along with the traditional for the time Arab-Persian borrowings, it included words of both Russian and Western European origin (Minullin, 2012).
In Mari these borrowings appeared via the Tatar language.
Дəүлəт "state" (concept-"power", category-"state / country") Дəүлəт (Arabic "empire, state") means "a political organization, society, led by a government and its agencies, designed for the protection of the law and the system; a country with such a political system".
The word дəүлəт appears in dialectal forms of the Mari language as дäÿлäт, тäÿлäт with the meaning "wealth" (Gordeev, 1983).
Хөкүмəт "government" (concept-"power", category-"governing bodies") Хөкүмəт represents the highest executive and delegating public authority exercising direct control of a state.
In the Mari language the word form хöкÿмäт is characteristic of the Eastern dialect; with the meaning of "state" (Isanbaev, 1978).
Халык means "population, inhabitants of a country; state" (from the Arabic "a people").
The lexeme халык (Tatar халык, Arabic хäлак "creation, people) in the Mari language is used in the meanings "population; nationality, nation" and appears in the forms: калык, халык Казна (Arabic хəзинə "treasure, trove; treasury) (peripheral genre-"economics") means "amount of financial and other assets of a state"; in the ancient Turkic казнак is "property buried in the ground".
Казна, кажна functions in the Mari language with the meaning of "treasury".
Certain words from the Persian language rooted and adapted in the Tatar language: базар "market; the place for public trade", кəгазь"official written document", дошман "enemy" and others.
Tatar word базар (Persian бāзāр) (peripheral genre-"economics") operates in the Mari language in the form of пазар with the semantics of "fair, market" along with Russian borrowing рынок (рынке).However, the latter one has a broader usage: Тÿнямбал рынке "international market", рынке условий "market condition".
In the Mari language, the Tatar lexeme кəгазь "paper, a formal written document" (concept-"power", category -"political and administrative documents") appears in the form кагаз and is used with the following semantics: 1) paper, writing material; 2) paper, a formal written message, document (Dictionary of the Mari language, 1992).
The Farsi word дошман (situational political vocabulary) means "the enemy; the one who is in a state of enmity".
Тушман from the Tatar дошман has a wider use in the Mari language.In addition to the first meaning inherited from the source language, this lexeme is functioning in a figurative sense: enemy, evil, obstacle (Dictionary of the Mari language, 2002).In a position of an adjective, тушман expresses such qualities as hostile, inimical: тушман айдеме "a bad (hostile) person", тушман шÿлыш "hostile attitude".Synchronic comparative analysis of the political vocabulary of the Tatar and Mari languages allowed to establish theme-based groups in accordance with the basic concepts of political discourse.
The basic concept of "power" is expressed by such lexico-semantic groups as: state / country; state system; national symbols; party / political movements; elections; foreign / domestic policy; governments, government bodies, agencies, departments, institutions.The concept of "politician" comprises: the head of state, heads of government structures (Khabibullina & Ivanova, 2014).Based on the structural classification of socio-political vocabulary, the following types of words can be distinguished in the modern Tatar and Mari languages: a) simple and b) complex.By simple we understand root words and derived words formed by suffixes; by complex words-compound and composite.
Fairly well-developed system of political lexemes formed by various ways of word-formation suggests the availability of means and patterns for such formation.
By simplification we understand words that have lost their primary structure so that, in the modern language, their stems and affixes are not prominent, i.e. they have become whole words impossible to be divided into constituent morphemes: ирек / эрык liberty, өлкə (tat.)area, сайлау (tat.)elections, карар (tat.)decree, тавыш voice, оньыжа (mar.) Chairman of the Mari Council.
At the present stage of language development the number of abbreviations is increasing drastically.For the languages under discussion, there's a characteristic change-from abbreviation borrowings to abbreviations formed on the basis of language potential itself.Sources of abbreviation emergence are both internal resources of languages and borrowings from the Russian language with their subsequent adaptation (tat./ mar.):РФ-Россия Федерациясы / Россий Федераций the Russian Federation.
The study of the functioning of the modern political vocabulary in regional languages was carried out in accordance with the basic concepts of political discourse-"power" and "politician." Lexico-semantic group state / country is reflected in the nomenclatural names of territories, territorial confederations.
Drastic changes in the political life of the Soviet Union led to the emergence of Russian Federation, the Republic of Tatarstan and the Republic of Mari El on the world map.Consequently the political vocabulary of the Tatar and Mari languages acquired the following lexical units: Tatar: Россия Федерациясы, Mari: Россий Федераций "Russian Federation"; Tatar: Татарстан Республикасы (Татарстан) "the Republic of Tatarstan (Tatarstan)", Mari: Марий Эл Республика (Марий Эл) "the Republic of Mari El".The renewed word stock, on the one hand, reflects the new content of previously known concepts (region, district, autonomy), on the other hand, it fixes the newly emerging territorial and political institutions (CIS, EU).
The names of political and ideological trends and their members should be attributed to the lexico-semantic group of party / political movements; e.g.: national separatists, nationalists, neo-fascists, pluralists, etc. Mari: (...) неофашист, националист-влакын торжалыкыштлан мучаш огеш кой (Mari El,No. 48)."(...) no end to acts of violence by neo-fascists and nationalists."Despite the fact that "pluralism, pluralists" had long been recorded in dictionaries, they were introduced in a new meaning by Mikhail Gorbachev during perestroika-existence of many equal opinions.
Mari: Шке жапыштыже Йошкар-Олан мэрже, Сомбатхейыште 5-ше No.-ан поликлиникын у зданийжым почын (Mari El,No. 59)."At the time, the Mayor of Yoshkar-Ola opened a new building of Hospital No. 5 in the Szombathely community." A greater part of borrowed political vocabulary in the mass media penetrates into regional languages; in most cases it has English origin.For instance, many anglicisms are taken to refer to those concepts which have not been previously mentioned in the dictionaries of the Tatar and Mari languages.They are, to some degree, the "only" ones possible (meeting, briefing, speaker, leader, sanction, etc.).

Conclusion
Political vocabulary in the Mari and Tatar languages is a sufficiently developed and orderly system.It serves as the core of the socio-political word stock.The vocabulary under discussion reflects two basic concepts-"power" and "politician"-and is represented by the following lexico-semantic groups: a state / a country, the state symbols, parties / political movements, elections, foreign / domestic policies, governing bodies; the head of state, heads of government structures.
The structure of the Tatar and Mari political vocabulary is formed according to the general classification criteria.The structural and semantic equivalence of the studied units indicates their linguistic relevance in terms of comparative analysis.Political vocabulary of the Tatar, as well as the Mari languages uses not only the external resources but also the internal ones.The following methods of word formation are represented in both languages: affixation (by suffixes), compounding, abbreviation and conversion.In both languages, morphological derivation is the most productive way of word formation.Morphological derivation reflects specific characteristics of each of the languages.Loan words predominantly coincide in their meanings as well as in their formal features.
Political vocabulary of the languages in contact-Tatar and Mari-goes back to the four historico-genetic strata: Altaic, Turkic, Tatar and the stratum of borrowings.One should mention the predominant tendency to form new Mari political lexemes on the basis of the existing Tatar ones.The fundamental lexical units related to public and political systems in the Tatar and Mari languages are of the Turkic origin.They are concentrated around two basic concepts:"power" and "politician".
According to the results of the study, it can be stated that the process of borrowing political vocabulary in regional languages is determined by the changes in global politics, actualization of new political realities which the Tatar and Mari languages lack adequate definitions for or the existing designated units have changed their semantic-functional status.
The modern political vocabulary of the Mari and Tatar print media can be characterised by its unification, international nature, universalisability and tendencies towards standardisation.