Respondent

Ostapchuk Iryna Ihorivna

Theme

Tropes and Tropeization of English Mass Media Discourse.

Defence Date

29.03.2016

Annotation

Thesis  for  the  Candidate  degree  in  Philology,  speciality:  10.02.04  —  Germanic
Languages.  —  Ivan  Franko  National  University  of  Lviv,  Ministry  of  Education  and
Science of Ukraine, Lviv, 2016.
Thesis  deals  with  the  tropes,  their  structural–semantic,  cognitive–discursive
parameters and the process of tropeization of English mas media discourse.
In the  paper the  essence of  metaphor  as the process  of  transferring the  figurative
meaning  and  interpretation  of  the  evolution  of  tropes  within  linguophilosophical  and
linguistic  studies  is  revealed.  The  content  of  the  concept  of  “trope”,  its  structural  and
semantic  types  and  characteristics  are  outlined.  Thus,  the  tropes  as  figures  of  speech
include  metaphor  and  metonymy,  euphemism,  dysphemism  and  paraphrase  based  on
substitutive, comparative, emotional and evaluation characteristics.
The  analysis  of  metaphor–metonymical  transfers  reveals  a  symbol  of
metaphor / sense motivator or the type of related change, i.e. the associative sense, which
undergoes a series of transformations. Within the cognitive interpretation, the source and
target domains that are most involved in the process of mapping are outlined.
Frame  analysis  of  tropes  and  cognitive  modeling  method  confirm  people’s
perception  of  specific  social  events.  Recurrence  of  tropes  proves  their  word  building
potential.  Most  efficient  ways  of  derivation  are  affixation,  stem  building,  semantic
contamination,  analogy  and  other  less  productive  ways  of  word  formation  (sound
imitation, word chains, word hybrids).
At  the  syntactic  level  the  trope  enters  the  syntagmatic  units  as  a  fully  functional
member  but  expresses  its  imagery  in  different  ways.  The  use  of  quotes  graphically
distinguishes the trope; presence of sociocultural or etymological comments  emphasizes
the  creation  conditions  of  the  figures  of  speech;  fully  functional  tropes  do  not  cause
difficulties in understanding and do not require additional markers for the correctness of
interpretation.  The  tropes  can  also  show  their  figurativeness  through  nonverbal  way  of
expressing, especially vivid in the visual means of advertisements.
Based  on  the  study  of  contemporary  English  mass  media  discourse  and  the
proportion  of  recurrence  of  tropes  in  a  certain  period,  the  notion  of  the  tendency  to
tropeization is suggested. It is the involvement of tropes to the figurative description and
analysis of certain phenomena and events, especially in media texts. The reasons for the
emergence and use of tropes are extralinguistic factors of social development and the need
for clear notions of complex phenomena. Wide use of tropes causes functional analysis to
be done.
Informative  group  of  trope  functions  focuses  on  the  nominative  and  cognitive
capabilities  of  tropes.  With  communicative  and  expressive  functions  tropes  transmit
feelings and attitudes to events under media focus. Pragmatic functions aim at influencing
readers’  opinions  by  underlining  meanings  of  prevention,  prosecution,  invitation,
coaching, prohibition, promise, etc.
Key  words:  metaphor–metonymical  transfer,  paraphrase,
euphemism / dysphemism, tropeization, mass media discourse.

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