Cultural code of a modern regional city: An experience of discourse description (based on street art objects in Tomsk)

Within the framework of the modern humanitarian paradigm, research carried out using interdisciplinary methodology is of particular relevance and is distinguished by the presence of a new perspective in the study of traditional objects. Involving semiotic and discursive analysis data in the consideration of objects of urban street art in order to identify their cultural potential determines the correspondence of the work to the modern vector of humanitarian thought development. Objects of regional street art culture are considered as means of transmitting socially significant values. Studying the functional potential of street art within the framework of various humanities allows us to understand the features of the national picture of the world in its regional version of synchronous existence and identify key aspects of culture and language that are reflected in street art. The aim of the article is to study art objects of the urban environment as a means of forming an idea of the system of collective axiological attitudes in relation to a particular city, existing in the minds of citizens and guests and constituting the essence of urban identity and cultural code. The material is individual street art objects that are part of the urban space of Tomsk – one of the Siberian cities with rich historical cultural traditions and at the same time sensitive to modern challenges and trends. The criteria for selecting objects for analysis were the recognition of an object in relation to its location in the urban space, the mandatory presence of a verbal component to express pragmatic and conceptual content, and the presence of the possibility of discovering cultural meanings in the process of interpretation. The methodological basis of the research is complex in the choice of tools and techniques. The main methods are discursive, linguo-conceptual and linguo-cultural analysis, supplemented by the results of introspective and experimental (using a social experiment in the format of an online survey) research. The analysis of each of the street art objects selected for presentation in the article is carried out in stages. Each stage is associated with a description of certain characteristics of the object: local, formal, substantive. In the latter case, special attention is paid to the analysis of the pragmatic, including axiological, semantics of the linguistic units included in the structure of the art object. As a result, a conclusion is drawn about the degree of significance of the art object for the representation of the cultural code of Tomsk. One of the objects was studied in terms of the manifestation of communicative and pragmatic properties in conditions of synchronous dynamics, taking into account changes in formal and content indicators. This study shows that street art elements in a regional landscape reflect the unique culture of a city, convey the lifestyle and behavioral norms of its inhabitants, reflect cultural traditions and mythology, as well as characteristics of collective thinking and linguistic expression.

city discourse, urban text, cultural code of city, urban identity, regional city, street art, art object, discourse analysis