THE CONCEPTUAL SPHERE OF UNDERSTATEMENT AS A REFLECTION OF CORE BRITISH VALUES
Abstract
The article elaborates on the fields of cognitive interaction between UNDERSTATEMENT and the related concepts and reveals intersystem, conceptual connections of UNDERSTATEMENT with the correlated concepts by means of conceptual and collocation analysis. Based on the data from the British National Corpus the conceptual sphere of UNDERSTATEMENT is modeled on the basis of similarity of cognitive features and hyper- hyponymic relations of the adjacent concepts and, thus, the borders of the conceptual sphere, which is understood as “an ordered set of concepts in the human mind”, are established. In the research, the author proves that UNDERSTATEMENT, being a typical British phenomenon, has a positive connotation and, along with other related concepts, presents the quintessence of ‘Englishness’ and is the foundation of such moral values of an Englishman as modesty, conservatism, restraint, a sense of proportion in everything, a lack of desire for boasting, showing off, flaunting emotions, non-interference into privacy, a sense of “fair play”, the desire to “save face”. Thus, the author manages to present a new perspective on UNDERSTATEMENT as a core systemic concept, expands its conceptual space and reveals the most important features of the cognitive, axiological, social concepts and phenomena of the Anglo-Saxon ethnic group, such as stoicism, distancing, politeness, English humour.
About the Author
V. G. Ivanova
Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University)
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Ivanova Victoria G. – PhD in Philology, Assistant Lecturer of English Language, Department No. 1
76, Prospect Vernadskogo, Moscow, 119454
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Review
For citations:
Ivanova V.G. THE CONCEPTUAL SPHERE OF UNDERSTATEMENT AS A REFLECTION OF CORE BRITISH VALUES. Linguistics & Polyglot Studies. 2017;(9):14-22. (In Russ.)
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