Superpersonal WE in the drama "Boyarynia" as a means of realizing Lesya Ukrainka's ideological plan

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze the reference of the first person plural pronouns (we and our) in Lesya Ukrainka's drama " Boyarinya" and to identify those reference groups to which the characters of the drama involve themselves. To achieve the goal, a contextualreferential analysis of pronouns was used, which allows establishing a connection between a specific pronoun and a group of people, which are mentioned in the speech of a certain character. We have shown that Lesya Ukrainka in the text of the drama forms two types of WE-groups: with personal reference and with superpersonal reference. Groups of the first type include the speaker and a small number of other persons known to the reader, characters of the drama (for example, Perebiyny and Stepan, Oksana and Stepan's mother, etc.). Groups of the second type cannot be precisely delineated in terms of scope, instead, such groups are assigned certain characteristics in the text. For example, using the pronoun we in the first act of the drama, Oksana refers to herself and other girls who belong to the Ukrainian nobility and participate in dances. Only four characters in the drama form superpersonal groups in the speech: Oksana, her brother Ivan, Stepan and Guest. The context of the work makes it possible to reproduce the volume of such WE-groups with a high degree of reliability. For example, the Guest includes himself in the WE-group, which also includes those representatives of the Cossack foremen who are determined to fight against the Moscow authorities in Ukraine. The scope and characteristics of suprapersonal WE-groups is an important marker that expresses the values and guidelines of a certain hero of the drama. Lesya Ukrainka, the largest WE-group in terms of volume, forms in the speech of Oksana, who most often identifies herself with the entire Ukrainian people, and not with a certain limited part of it. So, for Lesya Ukrainka, it is Oksana who is the moral authority who thinks on the scale of all Ukrainians, it is this heroine who is the standard of loyalty and love not only for her husband, but also for her people.