О неким језичким особеностима празничних посланица Српске православне цркве

Abstract

The subject of the work was the analysis of some grammatical and lexical features of the festive epistles of the Serbian Orthodox Church, a special genre of religious discourse. The texts of the epistles mostly contain general vocabulary, which is understandable to all speakers of the Serbian language. The characteristic of the epistle as a genre of religious discourse is the use of special linguistic means which achieve the main goal of these texts, that is conveying a sublime and edifying message on the occasion of the greatest Christian holidays – Christmas and Easter. The analysis of the inventory of the used lexemes showed, first of all, that nouns are the dominant type of words in the texts of this character, and that there are also numerous adjectives used in the service of epithets. One of the most important features of the language of the Epistles is the use of the participle ending in -ći, which is, after all, a feature of the religious discourse in general. An important part of the lexicon of the festive epistles is made up of compounds created by different creative patterns, through which these texts are given a sublime, festive character. This type of lexicon was inherited from the old Church Slavonic period and is a feature of the holiday epistles among other Orthodox Slavic nations as well. The epistles also contain a lexicon which indicates important social topics for that period, that are intertwined with the representations from the life of Christ given in the New Testament.

The paper will analyze a number of grammatical and lexical features of the festive epistles of the Serbian Orthodox Church, published in the last ten years, as a special genre of the religious discourse. By analyzing the inventory of lexical units, we will determine the specifics of the language of the epistles, taking into account the fact that these texts are addressed to priesthood and monks, as well as to the widest circle of believers of the Serbian Orthodox Church, of different education and social status, which is why they should be clear and understandable. On the other hand, epistles must, by their very nature, also contain lexis of a religious and theological character, in order to convey a sublime and edifying message. Based on the linguistic inventory of epistles the aim of our research is to determine the specific grammatical and lexical characteristics of this genre, as well as the relationship of the lexicon of this genre and the language of everyday communication.