SEMANTIC AND CULTURAL SPECIFICITY OF REALIA

Abstract

This article examines the semantic and cultural specificity of realia as one of the most important objects of linguocultural and comparative linguistic research. Realia are treated as culturally marked lexical units that denote objects, institutions, customs, traditions, and concepts unique to the life of a particular nation. Unlike neutral vocabulary, realia carry not only denotative meaning but also a wide range of cultural, historical, evaluative, and associative meanings. Their semantics are deeply rooted in the ethnocultural experience of a speech community, which makes them especially significant for the study of language and culture interaction. The article analyzes the layered semantic structure of realia, their cultural markedness, their relation to national worldview, and the difficulties they create in interpretation, translation, and intercultural communication. Particular attention is paid to the fact that realia function as condensed carriers of collective memory and cultural identity. The study argues that the semantic and cultural specificity of realia can be adequately understood only through an integrated approach that combines semantic, contextual, linguocultural, and comparative methods of analysis.