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2025 Vol. 16 №2

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Li Yuechuan Markasova E.V.

The question "Who am I? / What am I?" as a marker of identity search

DOI
10.5922/2225-5346-2025-2-9
Pages
158-176
rhetorical question self-identification identity self-presentation diachronic psychology “I-constructions”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the questions "Who am I? What am I?", which have been actively spreading in the Russian language since the end of the 18th — beginning of the 19th century, both in poetry and prose. As a linguistic means of self-presentation and self-iden­tification, questions are used in situations that encourage a person to reflect on their place in so­ciety and their own rank feelings. The very fact of using the rhetorical questions "Who am I? What am I?" excludes a neutral attitude of the individual to the situation that has become the reason for understanding their "I". Being a tool of self-knowledge, the analyzed questions are an indicator of a person's fixation on their own social and personal identity and reflect chan­ges in psychology against the background of socio-economic processes that transform tradi­tio­nal forms of interaction in society. Based on the data of the National Russian Corpus, it is shown that changes in the perception of the “I” in the 19th—20th centuries, described in phi­losophy, led to the emergence of rhetorical questions “Who am I? What am I?” in the lan­guage. This construction is distributed synchronously with the I-constructions I am I, I am not I, I am good, I am bad, etc.

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