Respondent
Theme
Profiling of the concept MARRIAGE in English language
Annotation
The thesis studies specific features of profiling the concept marriage in
the English language through a comprehensive in-depth analysis of semantic,
cognitive, linguo-conceptual and lingo-semiotic characteristics of means of
verbalization of its notional, metaphoric and axiological components. The study
is based on lexicographical sources (45 dictionaries), samples of fiction and
treatises (17th to 21st centuries) from 24 sources, archive materials and results of
the associative experiment. Nominative field study includes lexical semantic
field modeling, whose units are arranged via synonymy/antonymy, logical
categories, hyponymy and associations. The problems of near-synonymy and
polysemy, which arise during the research, are dealt with applying continuous
model and the linguistic study is illustrated with the clustered model of
‘marriage’ concepts.
The research methodology employed in the thesis is grounded within the
scope of linguo-conceptual approach, which has formed on the merge of linguo-
cultural studies and cognitive linguistics. This approach embraces the metho-
dological potential and data of different scientific branches and therefore a
number of different analyses are singled out as the means of research of the
concept MARRIAGE. Etymological, definitional and componential analyses re-
veal the notional component of the concept. Metaphoric and axiological
components of the concept are analyzed through the study of its cognitive
microfields, associative field, collocations, proverbs and proverbial phrases.
Metaphoric component is analyzed through conceptual metaphors, which are
recurrent in synchronic and diachronic study. To research the semantic structure
of the concept MARRIAGE we use the postulate that the structure of the concept
is three-layered and comprises the notional, image-perceptive and evaluative
components. The interframe network (as proposed by S. A. Zhabotynska), built
on the analysis of the discourse, helped us to learned in more details not only the
concept MARRIAGE itself, but also its correlations and interconnections with
the other concepts.
The study analyses both common and occasional features for the British
through the semantic analysis of the verbalisers of the concept marriage and its
constituent components. Concept MARRIAGE is termed as a multi-
componential concept-cognitive, which belongs to the macro level concerning its
semantic content; it is a ritual concept from the point of view of its cultural
specifics which enters the social conceptual field “private sphere of human life” and the conceptual sphere “human”. Lexeme ‘marriage’ is the name of the
concept MARRIAGE, its main verbaliser and basic means of nomination in the
English language.
Comparative and typological analysis and analysis of the logical
verbalisers of the concept MARRIAGE concept in fiction and fictional didactic
works has enabled us to conduct a diachronic study of the interframe network
based on lingual semantic networks methodology with the thorough analysis of
the concept in main schemas of thing, action, possession and comparison frames.
Script model construction has enabled us to conduct a thorough analysis of the
matrimonial script, highlighting the main stages. Script is understood as a time
sequence of certain episodes, stereotypical scenes that are marked with
movement and development throughout time. These are in fact frames that
unfold in time and space dimensions as a sequence of separate episodes, stages
and elements such as a visit to the restaurant, a fight or an excursion. There have
been singled out macrо and micro scripts in the matrimonial script, ways of
situation development, agents, richly illustrated with examples from the fiction.
It has been established that pre-marriage (meeting, sympathy, courtship and
engagement) and marriage (marriage ceremony, daily marital life, in some cases
separation or divorce) periods constitute two key stages of the script. Study
results have undergone cognitive and comparative analysis, tracking the evo-
lution of the concept marriage.
The research also tackles the problem in terms of phraseology. The
semantic criterion helped us single out six groups of phraseological units
actualizing the lexemes-members of the conceptual field under analysis:
marriage state and relations, members of the wedlock, breakage of the marriage
relations, persons neglecting the norms, non-traditional marital relations, non-
married persons. Proverbs containing the concept MARRIAGE appeared to
constitute a large part of the paremiological layer of the British linguo-culture
and therefore they were subjected to analysis, which enabled us to state their
systemic-structural character and classify them within 18 themes, 57 logemes
(logical phrases) and 7 sub-logemes. The received data testify to the fact that
concept MARRIAGE is one of the basic for the British ethnic group, where
marriage is an important and crucial event in person’s life.
Key words: concept, literary discourse, concept marriage, profiling,
frame, script, conceptual image, conceptual metaphor, nominative field, field
structure.