Verbalisers of the Concept NATURE in Modern English Women’s Prose

Abstract

The article discusses the theoretical background of the basic concepts of the linguistic paradigm, such as “concept”, “conceptosphere”, “conceptual picture of the world”, and also characterises the term “concept verbalization”.

The aim of the present study is to characterise the concept as a basic unit of linguistic and linguistic-cultural paradigms and to identify and analyse the linguistic means of verbalising the concept NATURE in modern English women's prose. The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the linguistic elements of explication of this concept on the basis of Maggie O'Farrell's novel Hamnet (2020). To achieve this goal, the article uses descriptive, contextual and content analysis methods.

In analysing the concept and identifying the linguistic means of its explication in the novel, the author defines and describes its structure using the field model of the concept proposed by M. M. Polyuzhin.

The article reveals a sensory image of the concept NATURE, which reflects the core of this concept in the work. The basic layers that form the near-core zone of the concept were identified and characterised. The article also introduces the verbalisers and phrases for this concept within the reference fields that explicate the interpretive field of the concept. Also, using the Tropes 8.4.4 software, the frequency of representation of linguistic elements of the concept's explication in the interpretive field was identified.

Through the analysis of numerous examples from Maggie O'Farrell's novel, it was also determined that nature occupies one of the central places in the conceptual picture of the world of the characters of the novel, forming various associative links between elements of the natural world and people.