Wizerunki świekry i synowej w dyskursie gwarowym A uksztotów południowych .......... 167

IMAGES OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW AND THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW IN THE DISCOURSE OF SOUTHERN AUKŠTAITIAN SUBDIALECT

The article examines the understanding of the concepts ‘mother-in-law’ and ‘daughter-in-law’ enshrined in the subdialect spoken by the community of Southern Lithuania, reveals the similarities and differences of these images, and shows their connections. The research material was collected from the dictionaries and collections of dialectal texts published in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, manuscript dialect dictionaries, and folklore sources. The study employed descriptive, interpretive, and semantic analysis methods. The Southern Aukštaitian subdialect has preserved the images of the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law characteristic of the agrarian rural culture. Subjects evaluating the motherin- law and the daughter-in-law often describe them as discordant and less commonly as loving, respectful, and compassionate towards each other. Such evaluation is partly influenced by the specificity of the research material, namely folklore sources (songs and proverbs) and narratives about the realities of the past prevalent in the dialectal discourse of the old-generation representatives. The core of the research material consists of everyday sentences recorded in the dialectal narrative (data from folklore sources account for about one-third). The dialectal material was mostly relied upon in establishing the basic understanding of the concepts ‘mother-in-law’ and ‘daughter-in-law’ in the Southern Aukštaitian subdialect.