The conceptual environment of the frontier discourse in humanities

Abstract

The concept of frontier has been formed for a long time and in different directions. The main characteristics of a frontier - its flexible borders, a zone of space development characterised by uncertainty and instability - have proved their importance for understanding and describing the current state of the environment with regard to its social, cultural, communicative and linguistic indicators. The interdisciplinary (transcendental) potential of a frontier is realised in a complementary combination of natural-scientific and humanitarian scholarship. The aim of the present paper is to justify the scholarly integrity of the term frontier discourse the conceptual milieu of which is created through two overlapping multi-layered phenomena: frontier and discourse. The paper names the vectors of expanding the interdisciplinary possibilities of a frontier under the conditions of a discourse approach. Frontier as a flexible border is presented in the Internet communication, the socio-cultural space of the modern city, in the daily behavioural norms of the elite, in the family relations and in many other conceptual spheres the list of which remains open based on the ontological features of a frontier. Based on the examples from Russian and foreign literature, the author demonstrates the role of the frontier modus in the interpretation of literary texts whose plot, style and images are projected onto national history, culture, mentality in the by-border characteristics. Such frontier features as instability, its ability to create an interaction zone, which, under certain conditions, can lead to integration, are important for understanding the problems of modern language, speech and genre norms. The byborder territory is a place accumulating violations of traditional norms and providing the material which is necessary in order to anticipate the arising norm changes. The transformation of traditional genres and the formation of new ones also take place on frontier territories. It is concluded that frontier discourse ensures the understanding of norm movements in genre-stylistic characteristics.