A “Successful Person” as a Value Dominant of the American Liguo-Axiological Worldview

Abstract

The article deals with the study of an essential for the American culture concept “successful person” through the lens of linguistic axiology. A linguo-axiological approach to language study makes it possible to detect important information about the American axiological world view and gives an opportunity of a more detailed familiarization with the American national character and mindset. The aim of the paper is to reveal and analyze the ways of verbalization of the value component of the concept “successful person” as well as to determine its place in the axiological world view of the representatives of modern American linguistic culture. The research is based on the analysis of various types of English dictionaries: defining, phraseological, etymological, etc. The analysis revealed that the concept under investigation is widely represented in the language on the lexical and phraseological levels, possesses vivid evaluative characteristics and has a branched semantic structure. This concept also acquires in the culture a metaphorical interpretation and is verbalized by a series of metaphors. The concept “successful person” holds one of the dominant positions in the American world view being a realization of the key idea of a national cultural phenomenon “American Dream”.