MANDAKH-2017 3rd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
CULTURAL IDENTITY OF MONGOLIA THROUGH FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Gantsetseg Sanjmyatav1, a* 1
Doctor (Ph.D), Associate Prof, Department of Foreign Language, Mandakh Burtgel Iniversity Ulaanbaatar city, Mongolia a*
s.ganaa@mandakh.mn
Keywords: authentic culture, cultural diversity, figurative language, written literature, folktales
Abstract Language is a communication tool and as such it portrays cultural activities at all levels within communities. While, recognizing cultural environment, which includes the thousands of different cultural practices, always opens an impressive language diversity especially through the use of metaphor in the twin branches of culture and cognition respectively. Deeply implanted within the Mongolian nomadic culture, the metaphorical language rises to describe Mongolian cultural identity. The semantic meaning of figurative language, which describes the Mongolian authentic culture, was transformed from and interrelated to ways of living. Therefore, the primary goal of this research work is to identify Mongolian cultural identity through the use of metaphorical language. In order to reach the goal the following objectives of this qualitative study were 1) to study relationship between Mongolian culture and language; 2) to investigate cultural identity of Mongolia through folk sayings and other metaphorical language. The research data was collected from documentary reviews including historical literary works, participants‘ observations, interviews and discussions with key, casual and general informants. The data was collected, classified and analyzed using qualitative analysis tools in accordance with the research objectives. Then the data was verified by a triangulation method and by descriptive analysis. A range of cultural methods were used in analyzing the data; such as observation of some daily activities, participation in the activities and events, communication in daily life and relating the meaning in the coordination of the communications and activities. The research results were analyzed with descriptive analysis focusing on folk sayings in written and oral literature to identify how Mongolian culture is expressed through its language. The result of the research was supported by structure functional, symbolic interactionism and cultural diffusion theories. Introduction Today, the world has a powerful trend toward a nation‘s cultural uniformity in the globalization era. The significant studies on language anthropology, which includes both cultural-
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