Курсовая работа: Theatre concept in the semantic space of W.S.Maugham’s Theatre

Chapter I. The theoretical aspect of concept

1.1 Concept as the basic term of the cognitive linguistics

First of all we will consider the theoretical aspect of concept.

Conceptualization is the process of the creation and construction of concept in the human recognition. It is also the process of thought concerning the new information that causes the creation of concept [13; 67].

The cognitive activity of the human is the skill to orient in the world. This activity also combines the need to distinguish objects. So concepts appear in order to provide this operation. The formation of concepts is based on the recognition of the world and formation of the images about it.

The study of concept is the main task of the cognitive linguistics. Every attempt to realize the nature of concept causes the realization of the fact of presence of closely-related concepts and terms. Concept is the intellectual category that may not be recognized visually. This fact causes the presence of the wide area for the interpretation of concept. Every language mark represents concept in the language, but it does not represent concept in a whole. With the assistance of its meaning the language mark represents several conceptual features that are relevant for the transmission of the information. If we need to express concept in a whole it is necessary to apply different linguistic means and the whole nominative field of concept. So both concept and its compounds may be verbalized and non-verbalized. It is difficult to define concepts that are non-verbalized.

The native speaker is the origin of widening of some conceptual systems. Concepts are the essence of the mental reality. Every concept combines knowledge about the world and unreal imaginations. The system of concepts creates the world picture that reflects the human comprehension of the reality and its peculiar conceptual picture. The human understands the world on the base of the mentioned conceptual picture.

The word is the main mean of the access to the conceptual knowledge. Due to the mentioned access we have an ability to add other conceptual features to the intellectual activity even in case if these features are not named by this word. The linguistic nomination is the key mean for the use of concept in the intellectual activity. The word brings concept into our recognition, makes it active and causes the process of thought.

Words can be classed according to different principles: morphological (parts of speech), semantic (synonyms, antonyms, thematic), stylistic and other types of classification. In each of these classifications lexical or/and grammatical meanings assume different manifestations. In a morphological classification words are grouped according to their grammatical meanings; in a semantic classification, according to their logical (referential) meanings, in a stylistic classification, according to their stylistic meaning.

Lexical meanings are closely related to concepts. They are sometimes identified with concepts. But concept is a purely logical category, whereas meaning is a linguistic one. In linguistics it is necessary to view meaning as the representation of a concept through one of its properties. Concept, as is known, is versatile; it is characterized by a number of properties. Meaning takes one of these properties and makes it represent the concept as a whole. Therefore meaning in reference to concept becomes, as it were, a kind of metonymy. This statement is significant inasmuch as it will further explain the stylistic function of certain meanings. The same concept can be represented in a number of linguistic manifestations (meanings) but, paradoxal though it may sound, each manifestation causes a slight (and sometimes considerable) modifica­tion of the concept, in other words, discloses latent or unknown properties of the concept [7; 13].

A word can be defined as a unit of language functioning within the sentence or within a part of it which by its sound or graphical form expresses a concrete or abstract notion or a grammatical notion through one of its meanings and which is capable of enriching its semantic structure by acquiring new meanings and losing old ones.

It is not easy to explain the semantic structure of a word. Only lexicographers know how difficult it is. This difficulty is mainly caused by the very nature of the word. It may in some circumstances reveal such overtones of meaning as are not elements of the code [7; 25].

The following analogy will not come amiss. There are in nature sounds that we do not hear, there is light that we do not see, and heat that we do not feel. Special apparatus is necessary to detect these phenomena. Almost the same can be said about almost every language sign: sound, morpheme, word, sentence, stylistic device. These signs can bring to life subtleties of meaning which are passed unnoticed by the untrained mind and which can be detected only through the employment of a special method, called supralinear analysis. This method requires some faith in intuition.

There is a difference in the treatment of the potentialities of language signs in grammar, phonetics and lexicology, on the one hand, and in stylistics, on the other. In stylistics we take it for granted that a word has an almost unlimited potentiality of acquiring new meanings, whereas in lexicology this potentiality is restricted to semantic and grammatical acceptability. In stylistics the intuitive, and therefore to a very great extent subjective, perception of meaning in words is raised to the level of topicality. The issue touched upon here is the well-known contradis­tinction between the scientific (abstract), intellectually precise percep­tion of world phenomena and the sensory, intuitive, vague and uncertain impressions of an artistic perception of these same phenomena.

The lexical meaning of the word which may be described as the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit;i.e. recurrent in all the forms of this word. The difference between the lexical and the grammatical components of meaning is not to be sought in the difference of the concepts underly­ing the two types of meaning, but rather in the way they arc conveyed. The concept of plurality, e.g., may be expressed by the lexical meaning of the world plurality; it may also be expressed in the forms of various words irrespective of their lexical meaning, e.g. boys, girls, joys, etc. The concept of relation may be expressed by thelexical meaning of the word.

Besides concept are the idea that combines the abstract, concrete-associative and emotional-estimate features and history of the conception. Concept is the personal interpretation of the objective meaning and conception as the minimum of the meaning. Concept is also the abstract scientific conception expressed by its forms of the meaning. These forms are: image, conception and symbol.

The most wide-spread definition of concept is following: concept is the discrete mental creation that is the basic unit of the intellectual code of the human. This code is characterized by the internal structure. It is a result of the cognitive activity of the human and society and brings the complex and encyclopedic information about the subject and phenomenon and the social attitude to this phenomenon.

Concepts may be classified according to the type of knowledge and reflection of reality because these types are the foundation of the method of the assignment and description of concept.

The most wide-spread features of concept are following:

1) concept is the minimum unit of the human experience in the ideal imagination that is verbalized with the assistance of the word;

2) concept is characterized by the field structure;

3) concept is the main unit of processing, keeping and transmission of knowledge;

4) concept has the mobile borders and concrete functions;

5) concept is social, its associative field causes its pragmatics;

6) concept is the main cell of culture [11; 45].

So concepts represent the world in the human recognition creating the conceptual system. Besides, the marks of the human language codify the content of this system in the world. Concepts appear in the human recognition as a result of the activity, interpretation of the world and socialization. Every concept includes the generalized content of different forms of expression in the natural language and in spheres that are based on the language and their presence is impossible without language. Concepts as the results of the intellectual activity should be verbalized. The language connects the people into the nation with the assistance of concepts.

Imagination is the type of concept that is the generalized sensual-visual image of the subject or phenomenon.

Scheme is the type of concept represented by some generalized graphical or contour scheme. It is the hyperonym with the weak image. Conception is the type of concept that reflects the most general and considerable features of the subject or phenomenon. It is the result of the rational reflection and interpretation. Frame is the type of concept that is interpreted and has many compounds. It is the volumetric imagination and totality of standard knowledge about the subject or phenomenon. Scenario is the sequence of several episodes in time. Geshtalt is the complex and integral functional structure of thought that organizes the separate phenomenons of the human recognition.

Concepts can be also divided into group and individual, abstract and concrete. These classifications are topical for the linguistic-cognitive study because these types of concept need different methods of analysis and description. Some concepts are typical for limited quantity of people. They are group concepts. They are not applied by the nation in a whole. They also may be unrelevant in communicative side. At present concept is the synonym of the conception and content.