Abstract
The article considers conceptual representation of ECONOMIC CRISIS in the economic mass-media discourse of the two historical periods: 1929–1933 and 2007–2010 to reveal its synchronic and diachronic distinctions and dichotomies. More specifically, it is aimed to study linguistic means representing the concept in the 20th century and determine their diachronic variations. Applying cognitive linguistic instruments, such as component analysis and conceptual metaphor theory, it has been determined that conceptual content, structure and metaphorical representation of ECONOMIC CRISIS are subject to historical variations. Terminologically motivated name of the concept “economic crisis” provides historical stability of its content and structure formed by historical constants DECLINE, UNSTABLE SITUATION, TURNING POINT on the one hand, and affects its historical change: extension with new constituents – variables DISORDER, LANDMARK, ACCIDENT, on the other. Propositional schemas of the concept, mainly those of action and identification, form the cognitive structure of ECONOMIC CRISIS and vary diachronically in the degree of prominence. The dominant conceptual metaphors of ECONOMIC CRISIS of a target domain CRISIS is MOVEMENT DOWN and CRISIS is A STATE OF EMERGENCY are stable through history while their further division into clusters of metaphors varies both in the set of source domains and in their frequency in discourse.
Highlights
The concept of “crisis” has always provoked the interest of scholars with its ambivalent nature and semantic ambiguity
ECONOMIC CRISIS is conceptualised in discourse by literal linguistic means and by figurative ones
The content of ECONOMIC CRISIS is disclosed by the meanings of the key lexeme “crisis”, a modifying adjective “economic” and the term “economic crisis” itself and can be explained as a category of understanding based on cognitive models
Summary
The concept of “crisis” has always provoked the interest of scholars with its ambivalent nature and semantic ambiguity. Further increasingly severe economic emergencies, as well as the development of the science of economics, urged to life the new term “economic crisis” which has become the object of analysis in social, political, and economic studies. In linguistics, this term is ascribed to an economic or business discourse. The recent data of social and economic research link current economic events to those of the 1930s They give more attention to the Great Depression of the 1930s as the longest and most severe economic crisis of modern times experienced by the industrialised Western world (Pells, 1998). In the long run it is likely to change.” (Inglehart, 1990, p. 55)
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