Anthropological factor of information access and category of evidentiality: Comparative analyses of english and tatar languages

Abstract

© Serials Publications.The importance of this research problem is attributable to deficiency of studies on interrelationship between linguistic categories and lingual-cultural factors. The article focuses on identifying evidential systems and strategies as an anthropological marker of nations' attitude to various information sources. Methods of structural-functional and comparative analysis revealed evidential strategies in the English language and evidential system in the Tatar language. The research shows that at anthropological level, syntactic representation of perception category in English reflects importance of personal perception of information; in Tatar grammatical representation of "non-firsthand" meaning or "reported evidential" emphasizes the absence of direct perception. Thus, personal perception is of great importance for English speakers whereas Tatar speakers tend to highlight absence of immediate access to information.