Scientific publications

The article is devoted to presentation of the linguistic image of Piter which exists in national mind and is reflected in dialectal semantic and word-formative toponymical derivatives, phraseology and fixed expressions including this toponym. As a result of semantic and motivational analysis of the language data the main features of the linguistic image of the city have been described. These features are locative characteristics, social composition of the population and material culture. To the native speaker of Russian Piter seems to be situated at the Nord confines of Russia which are difficult to be reached. The image of the city is ambivalent: in Piter it is possible to become rich and to lose everything. As an intellectual and administrative center of the country “male” Piter is in contrast with patriarchal and provincial “female” Moscow. The image of pitershchik («that who lives in Piter») is well represented in folk speech: it is an artisan who has come to Piter to seasonal work; he behaves like a city dweller and he is often impudent and arrogant. The objects of the material sphere characterized like “Piter-made” are concerned to be “downtown style”, expensive and of high quality.