Serafima Nikitina

Chief Researcher, Section of Applied Linguistics

PhD, Dr.habil.

Serafima Evgenievna Nikitina was born on September 1, 1938, in Saratov. She studied at the Faculty of Philology at Saratov State University. Serafima Nikitina majored in linguistics and folklore studies, every year she went on expeditions to gather folklore. She wrote her diploma thesis in Applied Linguistics at Saint Petersburg State University and in 1960 defended it at the Faculty of Philology. In 1960 – 1963, she studied at the graduate school of the Institute of Linguistics, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Section of Structural and Applied Linguistics (supervisor Prof. Alexander Reformatskij). Since October 1970 she has been working at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The fifty consecutive years of Serafima Nikitina’s work at the Institute of Linguistics can be divided into three periods. The first period was devoted to applied linguistics, i.e. the study of scientific terminology and the construction of a thesaurus in linguistics. The thesaurus was published in 1978 and became Nikitina's first monograph. The second monograph, devoted to the semantics of the scientific language, was published in 1987. In it, she continued to interpret the results of the previous work. Later it received an award. The next period included her using the thesaurus methodology to study the vocabulary of folk songs that Serafima E. Nikitina was concentrated on during expeditions organized by Moscow State University and the Moscow Music Conservatory in various regions of the country. Many articles have been written on the structure of the dictionary of Russian folklore. The third period was the longest. It continues until the present time. This is an entry into the world of cultures or ethno-confessional groups established in Russian folk culture but in many values different from folk Orthodoxy. They opened up for deep research in our country only at the end of the 20th century. The study and description of the connection between three essences, faith, culture and language, in the consciousness and speech of members of such communities (confessional personalities) - Old Believers, Doukhobors and Molokans - became the main, but not the only direction of Nikitina's professional activities. She worked in the realm of anthropological linguistics and folklore studies using linguistic methods and techniques, primarily the comparative method, as well as structural and applied methods and techniques.

Theses:

  1. Thesaurus as a way to describe and present the language of science (based on linguistic terminology) – PhD thesis, specialisation 10-02-19. 1983.
  2. Cultural and linguistic picture of the world in the thesaurus description (based on scientific and folklore texts). Habilitation in the form of a scientific report, specialisation 10-02-19. 1999.

Serafima Nikitina is a member of two commissions under the International Committee of Specialists in Slavic Studies: a) on ethnolinguistics b) on the study of Old Believers.

Member of Dissertation Council D.002.006.03 of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Since the 90s, Serafima Nikitina has been managing several grant projects for the Soros Foundation, Russian Foundation for Humanities, The Russian Foundation for Basic Research, «Otkrytoe občšestvo» [Open Society], and the Basic Research Program of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She teaches special courses and gives lectures at universities in Russia and abroad, conducts a lot of research. In her personal collection of expeditions, there are about 400 cassettes and discs. Nikitina uses their content in monographs and articles, as well as in numerous speeches for educational purposes.

Science Index

Selected publications

Monographs:

  1. Tezaurus po teoretičeskoj i prikladnoj lingvistike. [Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Thesaurus] – 1978. 

  2. Semantičeskij analiz jazyka nauki. [Semantic analysis of the language of science] – 1987.

  3. Ustnaja narodnaja kul’tura i jazykovoe soznanie. [Verbal folk culture and linguistic consciousness] – 1993. 

  4. Èksperimental’nyj sistemnyj tolkovyj slovar’ stilističeskix terminov. Principy sostavlenija i izbrannye slovarnye stat’i. [Experimental systemic explanatory dictionary of stylistic terms. Drafting principles and selected vocabulary entries] – 1996 (co-author Natal'ja Vasil’eva), 172 p. 

  5. DOM v svadebnyx pričitanijax i duxovnyx stixax (opyt tezaurusnogo opisanija). [HOUSE in Wedding lamentations and spiritual verses] – 2000. (co-author Elena Kukuškina). 

  6. Čelovek i socium v narodnyx konfessional’nyx tekstax (leksikografičeskij aspekt). [Man and society in confessional texts]  – 2009, 354 p. 

  7. Konfessional’nye kul’tury v ix territorial’nyx variantax (problemy sinxronnogo opisanija). Monografija. [Confessional cultures in their territorial variations] – 2013. 312p. Reviewers: PhD, Dr.habil. Ljudmila Sofronova, PhD, Dr.habil. Galina Kurennaja. ISBN 978-5-86443. 

  8. Solovki v pamjati pomorov (po materialam èkspedicij v Pomor’e). Monografija (co-author – Natal’ja Vedernikova). [Solovki in the memory of the Pomors (based on records made during expeditions to Pomorye)] – 2014, 320 p. ISBN 978-5-8125-2002-15. 

Re-editions:

  • Semantičeskij analiz jazyka nauki. Na materiale lingvistiki. Monografija.  [Semantic analysis of the language of science based on the linguistic material], editor N. Sljusareva.  – 2010. – 146 p. ISBN 978-5-397- 00953-9.

  • Ustnaja narodnaja kul’tura i jazykovoe soznanie / Monografija. Izd. 2. [Verbal folk culture and linguistic consciousness. 2nd edition] – 2014. 192 p. ISBN 978-5-9710-0705-0. 

Coauthored monographs:

  • Cveta rossijskix flagov v russkoj kul’ture. Monografija. Vasilevič Aleksandr, Vedernikova Natal’ja, Mičšenko S.S., Nikitina Serafima. Institut jazykoznanija RAN. [Colors of Russian flags in Russian culture] – 2010. 224 p. ISBN 978-5-7017-1673-99. 

Articles:

  • Leont'eva Nina, Nikitina Serafima. Semantic relations expressed by Russian prepositions. // «Essays on lexical semantics», Stockholm, 1974. 

  • The Oral Tradition of Dzhavakhetiia Doukhobors // Spi¬rit-Wrestlers' Voices. Honouring Doukhobors on the Centenary of their migration to Kanada in 1899. New York-Ottawa-Toronto. 1998.

этнолингвистика
фольклор