Wartości w polskim i ukraińskim językowym obrazie kwiatów
Values in the Polish and Ukrainian Linguistic Images of Flowers

Summary/Abstract: The relationship between language and values has long attracted the attention of linguists, yet the issue of valueswithin the linguistic image of flowers on the material of Polish and Ukrainian has not yet been analysed. The stereotypicalfeatures of flowers in Polish language and culture have been studied by a team of ethnolinguists headedby Professor Jerzy Bartminski, resulting in part 3 (Kwiaty [Flowers]) of volume 2 (Rośliny [Plants]) of the Słownikstereotypów i symboli ludowych [Dictionary of Folk Stereotypes and Symbols]. In Ukrainian, on the other hand, thestereotypical features of flowers were described by Vitalii Žajvoronok in the dictionary Znaky ukrajins’koji etnokul’tury.The author examines the manifestations of valuing at the level of linguistic categorisation of the flower and the recognitionof individual plants as flowers, as well as at the level of metaphorisation and connotation of various phenomena, objects,man himself, his life, etc. presented in Polish and Ukrainian. In both languages, the flower itself is the value, while its parts(petals, heads) acquire axiological connotations. Flowers present positive members of axiological oppositions: life – death,top – down, beauty – ugliness, honesty (virginity) – falsehood (lying), sacrum – profanum, brightness – darkness, youth –age, etc. The second, negative member of these oppositions is the flower. The second, negative segment of these oppositionsis verbalised in the linguistic image of flowers by the absence / displacement / change of the positive segment, i.e. the absenceof the flower / its parts / its inversion on the up – down axis.

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