RETRO AS AN OBJECT OF LINGUISTIC STUDY

The article deals with retro as a separate object of linguistic study. Rapid informatization and digitalization raise demand for the «aesthetics of the past», which results in promotion of the values of old times in mass culture. The growing popularity of retro necessitates studying retro from different perspectives, including the linguistic one. At present the phenomenon of retro is insufficiently covered in linguistics, therefore, one needs to specify the linguistic status of retro and develop corresponding terminology. In the present paper an attempt is made to formulate a definition of retro relevant to further linguistic study of retro. Having made an overview of approaches to retro in marketing, art and design, axiology and linguistics, the author differentiates between similar terms like «retro», «stylization», «nostalgia», «antiquity» and «vintage» and suggests two understandings of retro – a broad understanding and a narrow one. The former treats retro as a linguo-cultural concept, a complex hybrid phenomenon bringing together verbal and non-verbal means of manifesting the past, the present and the future to evoke nostalgia and create new cultural knowledge. The latter presupposes that retro is a number of means of verbalizing the past and a structural and meaningful unit of discourse, connecting the past, the present and the future. Either of the understandings facilitates a promising direction in linguistic research into retro. Special attention is paid to the axiological dimension of retro, i.e. its ability to manifest the main eco-humanitarian values – physicality, subjectivity and spirituality, hence, the feasibility of an axiological approach to retro.