SECONDARY DESIGNATIONS OF NATIONALITIES IN MODERN UKRAINIAN AS ONE OF THE SIGNS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY AND A MANIFESTATION OF ETHNOCENTRISM

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate secondary designations of nationalities of a pejorative type in modern Ukrainian, using material from fiction, scientific sources and lexical dictionaries. On the basis of the collected material, we analyzed these designations as one of the aspects of the national identity shaping, as well as the negative side of this phenomenon — ethnocentrism. The analysis revealed extralinguistics and linguistic factors that influenced the formation of the Ukrainian vocabulary of this segment - history, culture and cultural-linguistic interaction within different ethnic groups in Ukraine and abroad. The studied designations will be identified, and classified within the aspect of ethnic and national identity in a way suitable for the understanding of a non-Ukraian speaking reader. The study will also show how these designations specific to a Ukrainian people having, for the most part, folk origins, can acquire individual traits in the creative laboratory of a writer, undergo an individual transformation, reflect the personal position of an artist in his art.