<i>Submissiveness</i> as part of the Russian conceptual sphere
The article examines the concept of submissiveness as presented in the National Corpus of the Russian Language, dictionaries of the Russian language, dictionaries of Russian proverbs and sayings. The author reveals the key features of the concept, its peripheral meanings, axiological characteristics and associative connections. In the most common collocations submissiveness can be expressed, portrayed, demonstrated, shown, expressed, preached, and taught. As for the specifics of the compatibility of the lexeme “submissiveness” with dependent nouns, the most frequent expressions are such as submission to fate, God’s will, the Lord, power, and circumstances. Аny socio-cultural community has its own system of values and rules. In Russian idioms submissiveness is represented as a feature of communicative behavior that causes a positive response and makes the hearts warm. A positive assessment of submissiveness as a virtue (calm, firm, absolute) is also noted in religious texts, while in publicistic discourse and fiction this quality is discussed in the negative context (blind, slavish, stupid submission). Russian concept of submission varies in its semantic and cultural content depending on the context of its use (religious context, folk culture context, general cultural context) and it shows that submission is the constituent of the Russian conceptual sphere.