The Modelling of a Multidimensional Linguocultural Concept on the Example of the Concept СТАРОСТЬ ‘SENILITY’

Abstract

The novelty of the study is due to the modelling of a linguocultural concept, while its structure properly represents a multilevel model determined by its essential, obligatory components, such as meaning, notion, value and imagery components, as well as by the set of their potential associates. The study synthesizes modern ideas and views already developed in the Russian linguistics concerning a concept as a mental formation. There are generalized theoretical and applied approaches to the definition of mental formations or concepts, in particular, both linguocultural and linguocognitive formation aspects of a concept are discussed in detail. The complexity of elaborating a simple, unambiguous definition and formulating value and imagery conceptual components represents the subject of the study. On the basis of the Russian language material, the model of the concept СТАРОСТЬ (‘SENILITY’) is put forward, the concept’s structure is particularly characterized, as well as the principles of selecting lexical, paremiologiсal and phraseological units which form the concept’s lexical frame. The elaborate algorithm to structure the concept consists of a number of stages: the defining of a semantically and stylistically neutral concept’s verbalization, the reconstructing of the notional component, the selecting of lexical units to express its value and imagery components. The issue of the differentiation and delimitation of value and imagery components is studied separately as both of them possess different and common reconstruction sources, e.g., phraseological and associative dictionaries. The model of the multidimensional linguocultural Russian concept СТАРОСТЬ ‘SENILITY’ as the pattern to construct similar models of other concepts, produces the main result of the given study. The reconstruction of multilevel models of concept is in prospect and would allow present the fragment of the worldview of the Russian linguoculture bearers.