Qualität. Marktwirtschaftliche Schlüsselkonzepte zwischen Globalisierung und Diffusion. Dargestellt am Beispiel des Russischen

Ursula Doleschal & Edgar Hoffmann

The present article is concerned with the “diffusion” of key concepts of the market economy into modern Russian discourse. First, the theoretical prerequisites of the analysis are discussed. It is hypothesized that key concepts are first transported by words through intercultural communication from one culture (language) to another (horizontal dimension of diffusion) and, as a second step diffuses within the recipient culture (vertical dimension). In our case, this intercultural communication is going on between the special discourses of business communication and the public discourse of mass media communication. The latter also serves as a transmission channel between business discourse and private discourse within one language community. In the second part of the article, a semantic analysis of the word “kačestvo” ‘quality’ in discourse is carried out. The analysis is based on conceptual metaphors.

Linguistische Beiträge zur Slavistik. X. JungslavistInnen-Treffen Berlin 2001. Hg. Robert Hammel und Ljudmila Geist. München: Sagner 2003 (= Specimina Philologiae Slavicae 139), 58–100.