THE CONCEPT SOUL IN THE ENGLISH WORLDVIEW (BASED ON THE MONOLINGUAL LEXICOGRAPHIC SOURCES)


  • Lina Repp
Keywords: concept, soul, cognitive features, the structure of the concept, lexicographic sources, definition, the English language, dictionary

Abstract

The article focuses on the analysis of the concept soul in the English language based on the monolingual lexicographic sources. The research deals with the English monolingual dictionaries in order to shed some light on the issue of the concept soul from the point of view of the language. The aim of the investigation is to study certain English monolingual dictionaries to reveal the fixed definitions of the concept soul in various lexicographic sources and find out the cognitive features of the concept that is under research. It should be stressed that the research is based on the seven monolingual lexicographic sources of the English language. Thus, the investigation deals with the following dictionaries, chosen for the research: Cambridge Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Macmillan Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary.  The conducted investigation of the definitions of the concept soul, based on the monolingual lexicographic sources mentioned above, shows that the concept soul possesses ten different meanings that represent its cognitive features. Thus, these cognitive features form the structure of the concept soul, described in the field theory of the structure of concepts. It was discovered that the structure of the concept soul includes the core, the close periphery and the far periphery. The core consists of five cognitive features: 1) somebody’s spirit; 2) a person; 3) a person of a stated type; 4) embodiment of special quality; 5) genre of music, whereas the close periphery includes four cognitive features: 1) sense of beauty; 2) a person's moral or emotional nature; 3) the culture of African-Americans 4) the central or most important part of something and the far periphery counts only one cognitive feature – a leading  figure of something. It should be emphasized that the detailed analysis of the soul issue from the point of view of the English monolingual lexicographic sources proves the diversity of the cognitive features the concept soul represents.

References

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5. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. [Електронний ресурс]. – Режим доступу: https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/soul
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Published
2022-05-02
How to Cite
Repp, L. (2022). THE CONCEPT SOUL IN THE ENGLISH WORLDVIEW (BASED ON THE MONOLINGUAL LEXICOGRAPHIC SOURCES). Anglistics and Americanistics, 1(19), 38-49. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.15421/382205
Section
RELEVANT ISSUES OF LINGUISTICS