oa The role of the bear in the Russian folk tale: Personage, plot type, and behavioural scenarios

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Taking four genres as examples, this paper tracks the realisation of the bear image in the system of Russian folk tale characters. The bear as a tale character is portrayed through a set of capacities defined by the genre convention of the Russian folk tale and the communicative aims of the narrators. So, the bear character is composed of a vast range of conventions. It seems evident that the folk tale as an oral activity and as a special interaction of the narrator with the audience is a presentation of methods of acting in various life circumstances and the very means of influencing the listeners. Different folk tale genres demonstrate the various scenarios of such actions. Forty-six plots with a bear as a character (with multiple records in Russian) have been categorised into plot types. All plots were reviewed from the point of view of the role performed by the bear in each genre.