Perception of ethnic identity phenomenon in the context of historical events (Case study of the cinematographic destiny of Asta Nielsen, the silent movie star)

Abstract

The paper features a silent movie star Asta Nielsen’s ethnic identification change. It was conditioned by a series of social and political processes on the eve of World War I. Interconnectedness of all aspects of macro leveled social changes is one of the sociology of language fundamental postulates. Both interconnectedness and sensitivity to human organizational life scale are considered to be essential. Development theory, tradition to combine sociocultural constructs, communication and ethnography, requirements to observe human rights, and to use pluralistic approach based on loyal attitude to languages and cultures — this is a list of topical areas and methodological approaches to the object of the study. Some extralinguistic factors had a greater influence on the Australian and New Zealand perception change of their favorite actress’ belonging to a particular ethnic group which had accustomed to significant behavioral stereotypes and requirements for main cultural roles. These factors are considered to be taken as a subject matter of the article. The common methodological background of the current research is a system modeling approach to the link of language and society, value investigation, singularity and authenticity of languages and cultures, cultural traditions of different ethnic groups, as well as the issues of priority formation of social mindset based on national and universal civilisatory values. Descriptive method is used for functional changes’ interpretation in terms of interconnectedness of the object of research with non-linguistic phenomena. Observation is expressed in planned and purposeful perception of the object of investigation. Structural-functional analysis explains transformations of the existing system and elements of the whole into a new invariant, e. g., the article gives an emphasis to “cancelling”, a form of ostracism, when famous people or wide ethnic groups stop being supported by social and professional communities and fall into oblivion.