Autobiographic Activities as the Process of Personal Self-Determination ²⁸⁰⁰

The article provides the analysis of autobiographic activity process, describes its social and mental planes, and argues autobiographic texts as the midline between narratives and mentatives. The main processes of autobiographic activity are regarded: awareness of the narrative's goal, creating self-sufficient spoken message, using individual meaning biographic thesaurus, orientation towards individually selected precedents, development of personality's private mental space. The notions of plot scheme and living (existential) modus of autobiographic activities are introduced. The hypothesis of connections of the main plot schemes and living modi with leading human existential is suggested and grounded. The twelve modi (life as duty, life as loss, life as heroic deed, life as trick-sterhood, life as adventure etc.) are figured out and empirically investigated with the use of the author's semi-projective inventory «Living modi». The generalized results of the author's research of preferred living modi and plot schemes in the groups of young (18—25 years old) and mature (40—52 years old) respondents are provided.

Keywords: autobiographic activities, narrative, mentative, social and mental planes of autobiography, plot scheme, living (existential) modus, semantic space of an autobiographic text, self-determination, identity, privacy.

Column: Theory and Methodology