CATEGORICAL APPARATUS OF IMAGOLOGY

Imagology - defined as the study of ethnic stereotypes as applied in various fields such as philology, history, sociology, psychology, journalism, art history, cultural studies etc. - has taken a deep root in science. Imagology collects data from different types of sources, combining them to reveal the images of “alien” peoples and nations, and their cultures as perceived in the viewers’ own national consciousness. The concept “native - alien”, which is a binary archetypical opposition, lies at the base of this discipline, with the ethno-stereotype being its means of perception and evaluation of the “alien”. Within philology the following kinds of imagology may be distinguished: literary, folklore, and linguistic. As is clear from the definitions, literary imagology studies images of the “alien” in works of literature of any genres; folklore imagology studies those appearing in all kinds of oral folk art; and linguistic imagology studies images that actually appear in the language, that is to say, this subfield directly studies the linguistic means of reflecting an “alien’s” image. While imagology is a well-known humanities discipline, it is also a relatively new field of study, with its categorical apparatus not yet fully defined. Imagologists presently employ terms taken from other disciplines of study. Among them are the terms “image”, “stereotype”, “ethno-stereotype”, “myth”, “mythologeme”, “cliche”, “appearance”, “mentality”, “national character”, and “self-consciousness”. Some imagologists create new terms to suit their needs. You can find such definitions as “imagotheme”, “imageme”, “imagon”, “imagotype”, etc. In most cases where these terms appear, the researching imagologists explain what they actually mean by these terms. The author of this article evaluates the current state of imagological terminologies and concludes that its categorical apparatus needs to be systematized and unified. Unification of imagology’s terminology would be of substantial benefit because this would help determine and limit the range of terms while making them accessible for use by all imagologists. This would contribute a lot to this sphere of studies. The author defines the range of imagological concepts, giving the explanations of these concepts as applied to the field of imagology. In the author’s opinion, the concepts “native - alien”, “stereotype” and “ethno-stereotype” (including auto-stereotypes and hetero-stereotypes), “prejudice”, “image”, “appearance”, “mentality”, and “national character” should be the main terms in any imagological study. As for “myth”, “mythologeme”, and “cliche”, they can be omitted from the categorical apparatus of imagology since the first two are widely used in mythology and therefore lose their accuracy when applied to imagology, the last one (“cliche”) being particularly synonymous to “stereotype”, as used in imagology. Highlighting these terms does not mean that researchers may not introduce new concepts if it is advisable and contributes to the development of imagology. The author declares no conflicts of interests.