Klaipėdos universitetas

The combination of imagological and semiotic approaches allows us to consider ethnic stereotypes in fiction as elements of national imagomythology. Their totality (and related cultural elements) can be interpreted as a special semiotic system. Like an element of traditional mythology, an ethnic stereotype can take various forms of expression, but what remains unchanged is its place in the general picture of the world, which is transmitted by literary tradition as a set of plots and stories. The totality of such narratives constitutes the national imagomythology – a nation’s description of itself in comparison with other nations. Both mythological images and ethnotypes can be desemanticised, reduced and used in artistic practice as elements of stylisation and imitation. Ethnic stereotypes, as well as elements of traditional mythology, like literary tropes, do not require critical thinking from a rational point of view (they are initially understood as fiction).

Before the mid-20th century, the Jews in Žemaitija were the most numerous and economically and culturally significant minority, with close contacts with the Žemaitijans. The paper focuses on the stereotypical characteristics of Jews as reflected in Žemaitijan dialect texts from an ethnolinguistic point of view. The analysis of these characteristics provides knowledge about the evaluated nation from the perspective of the evaluating nation. The research into stereotypical images of Jews rests on the view that they consist of a specific set of certain common characteristics and traits, and an analysis of linguistic expression provides more detailed information about them. The research has revealed that the ethnic stereotype of Jewish people in Žemaitijan dialect texts is quite positive.