Fairytale Precedent Names in English-Language MediaDiscourse

Abstract

The article considers fairytale precedent names selected from English-language media discourse texts based on cognitive linguistics. Coverage of the fairytale precedent names linguocognitive features was carried out within the framework of conceptual analysis that allowed revealing the connection between linguistic and conceptual structures.

The study material includes cited statements containing fairytale anthroponyms posted on Internet sites and in the English Web 2020 data corpus (enTenTenTen20) of the Sketch Engine application. This corpus is an English corpus of texts collected from the Internet between 2019 and 2021. Based on the analysis of this material, a hypothesis has been proposed that the vast majority of fairytale precedent names that function in English-language media discourse are formed on the analogy principle. The study found that characteristic of media texts is the use of precedent names in metaphorical models which are likened to entities belonging to different conceptual spheres. In this case,the comparison of objects is carried out by the feature joint to both compared entities. In the analyzed material, the metaphor is represented by the models “a PERSON-man is like an ANIMAL-mythonym” and “an OBJECT-plant is like the ANIMAL-mythonym”. In the formation of the fairytale precedent names, the principle of analogy is also used in which two entities belonging to the same conceptual sphere are compared. As a rule, such similarity of a comparative (what is compared) and a correlate (what is compared with) occurs according to the full degree of similarity. The ability to characterize other objects of reality is explained in a prototype aspect of fairytale precedent names namely their similarity as an exemplary class representative to the leading property of the primary referent.

The study results indicated that the analog comparison frequency (87,72%) of the fairytale precedent names is much higher than metaphorical (12,28%) that confirms the proposed hypothesis. Thus, we can conclude that in the modern English-language media discourse the fairytale precedent names are formed mainly on the basis of analogy.

Key words: fairytale precedent names, conceptual metaphor, cognitive operation of analog mapping, conceptual analysis method, prototype, English-language media discourse.