Экономные, как немцы. Национальные стереотипы и их отражение в коннотациях этнонимов в русском и других языках

The contribution deals with ethnonyms and their relationship to ethnic stereotypes with special focus on Russian and some other European languages. It addresses both methodological and theoretical questions. First, it advocates the use of large electronic corpora for the study of stereotypical usages of ethnonyms and demonstrates how a corpus of linguistic data can enhance the study of stereotypes encoded in linguistic structures. Second, it addresses the relationship between mental stereotypes in the sense of Adam Schaff and semantic associations (connotations) encoded in polysemy, derivates and idiomatic expressions. It is argued that although many connotations indeed do reflect ethnic stereotypes, we can find other cases where the connection is only indirect or has faded away completely. The author comes to the conclusion that notwithstanding a considerable overlap connotations and tereotypes are not identical and, therefore, should be kept apart.