Figurative Meaning Research Articles

Embodied Figuration and Character Emotion in Cinema: The Role of Embodied Affective Cues

Abstract This paper engages with research on embodiment, cognition, and figurative meaning in cinema to develop a system for categorizing the cinematic cues that viewers use to gauge character affective experience. Many film theorists whose work is primarily focused on affective experience consider the relationship between the spectator and the character’s facial and bodily expressions. However, films often convey the affective states of characters by integrating bodily expressions with cinematic techniques, such as lighting, framing, and editing. These cinematic techniques can provide insight into a character’s affective states through their figurative associations with represented moods, feelings, and emotions. By exploring the metonymic, metaphoric, and similative properties of cinematic representations of affect, we can better understand how cinematic representations are understood by a community of viewers. Throughout this paper, I put forth the framework of “embodied affective cues” and identify behavioral, physical, and environmental cues to address how a character’s affective experience is represented by cinematic cues external to their body.

Chapurreau: Breve historia conceptual de una etiqueta lingüística

The participle form of the Spanish verb chapurrear ’to speak a language badly‘ is registered in some regions of Spain – Asturias, León, Extremadura, Aragon – as a glossonym through which speakers of minority languages name their mother tongue. This article provides the first academic approach to the conceptual history of chapurreau. By focusing on the example of Ribagorça (Aragon, Northeastern Spain), it is shown that i) the glossonym derives from a verb champurrar ’to debase a liquor‘, attested since the 17th century; and ii) between 1750–1800, the verb acquired a figurative meaning which was spread not only by Spanish central administration – as it was thought–, but also by Catalan writers from the 1840s onward.

Myths and tales about the animals of the Oirats of Xinjiang

The subject of the study is the fabulous folklore of the Oirats of Xinjiang. The object of the study is the specificity of mythological and fairy-tale texts about animals. It should be noted that the fabulous folklore of the Oirats still remains little known to domestic researchers, despite the fact that attempts to study it began in the middle of the last century. The study of Oirat folklore is especially relevant for domestic Mongolian studies, since it is historically connected with the folklore tradition of Russian Kalmyks and Altaians. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as the study of fairy-tale texts and the identification of common artistic means, which allows us to establish and explain the general systemic connections between these ethnolocal folklore traditions. The research methods are comparative analysis and the method of interpretation of fairy tale text. For the study of fairy tale narrative, this approach turns out to be potentially heuristic: both directions mutually determine each other, revealing multidimensional connections of the once unified folklore tradition. Myths and tales about animals represent the ancient genre of fairy tale folklore of the Oirats of Xinjiang. The main contribution of the study consist in the statement the myths and tales' content retains mythological elements associated with the archaic ideas of the ethnos about living beings of the world around them. Particular attention is paid to figurative language, rich in expressive poetic expressions, an abundance of figurative means, and a large volume of vocabulary of the original language of the Oirats. All this testifies to the preservation of the fairy-tale-mythological fund and performing tradition of the Oirats of Xinjiang. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that during the analysis of fairy tales and myths about animals as a special genre, it was established that there is no allegory in the content of the archaic animal tale of the Oirats of Xinjiang, despite the fact that its main characters are animals. According to archaic views, man believed that animals were once people. Therefore, in many ways, the animal world was perceived as a reflection of the human world, and the morals of animals were equated with the same qualities of humans.

Dialectologie și toponimie: corelații diatopice și semantice (terminologia formelor de relief)

NALR-Mold.Bucov., vol. V, 2022, includes several maps, but also unmapped materials from the onomasiological group of landform terminology, which also involves some aspects of Romanian toponyms. The territorial distribution covered by these materials sheds light on their diachronic relationship with the corresponding names of Slavic or pseudo-Slavic origins, as mentioned by Emil Petrovici, and highlights either the popular or the cultivated character of some formal variants. Thus, the names Calea or Drumul lui Traian are confirmed as learned forms, promoted by the Transylvanian anthroponymy and the ideology of the 19th century, while the historical documents in Moldova and Bucovina attest the pop. ent. form Trojan. There are no survey points in the NALR that list the meaning of “defence wave” or “ditch, gully, log” attached to the recorded appellative “trojan”. Obviously, this meaning has long been forgotten. Romanian entopics for the semantic field meaning “passing through high and narrow places” are newer than prislop (or prihodiște), and are the result of either figurative meanings (i.e., scară, șa, tarniță) or post-verbal derivatives (i.e., curmătură, trecătoare). Pas is a geographical neologism (from germ. Pass) and only strungă (”lathe”), from the substrate, is archaic, but still with figurative meaning as an entopic and toponym. The most reliable argument that would prove the origin and antiquity of the Romanian toponyms derived from foreign words is their positioning in “usually purely Romanian toponymic areas”, as E. Petrovici noticed. Thus, the oronym Prislopul Secului cannot be considered Romanian only by considering its very close proximity to Gura Breazii, Măgura, Feredeu, Opcina Mare, Neagra, Straja, etc. The fact that the toponym Prislop appears, as a rule, in the mountainous areas of the Carpathians is evident, given its entopic meaning, but the only place named Prislop in the hilly area between Siret and Prut, from about 4 km north of the village of Tansa, Iași county, should be pointed out, the oronym being attested since 1706. The rare and late habitation in this area, dating perhaps from the 13th century, as well as the isolation of the place, wooded and uninhabited before 1400, are circumstances that do not support a Slavic etymon of the toponym. NALR-Muntenia and Dobrogea, vol. IV, indicates the presence of ent. prislop (prizlop) in Vâlcea, Argeș and Prahova counties, in only eight localities of the Northern areas, but there is no trace of this word in Dobrogea. E. Petrovici uses material from ALR to restrict the geographical spread of the ent. tarniță ῾șa᾽ to only two areas – a larger one, including the Romanian Bucovina, the North of Neamț county, and the Maramureș, and a narrower one, in the Apuseni Mountains, at Abrud and to the North of this location, with only one record of the meaning of “passing”, at Pipirig, Neamț county. In reality, the spread of the appellative tarnița, which has extensions into the Ukrainian Bucovina, and of its figurative entopic is proven by the presence of the corresponding toponyms in a larger area, found in the Tarnița villages in the regions of Southern and Southwestern Romania, in Argeș, Hunedoara and Mehedinți counties. The de-semanticization and narrowing of the areas of the old appellatives and entopics from the class of terms referring to places of passage over the high ridges will continue, but the witnesses of semantic erosion, the toponyms (oiconyms, oronyms and hodonyms), will remain untouched by the passage of time.

“The Music of Being”: a note on a metaphor from Giorgio Agamben’s last volume of <i>Homo Sacer</i>.

The article attempts to clarify the place and meaning of musical-acoustic metaphors that appear in the last volume of Homo Sacer, The Use of Bodies, in connection with the project of modal ontology. The definition of philosophy as the “supreme music,” increasingly common in the pages of his later texts, suggests that this is not just a figurative meaning of musical images but an attempt to give them conceptual weight. To clarify the musical basis of philosophy, the article offers an analysis of a number of statements from The Use of Bodies in the context of Agamben’s early reflections on language and voice (most notably in Language and Death). The analysis allows us to show that musical metaphors mark the direction of Agamben’s positive program, particularly the project of modal ontology, which seeks to resolve the aporia of the ontological apparatus thattraces back to Aristotle. Although the aim of the article is mainly technical — to fit only apparently incidental musical metaphors into the logic of Agamben’s entire philosophical project — it seems that this analysis may be useful in clarifying the basis for understanding and critiquing the thought of the Italian philosopher.

Категория прямоты в лексике и прагматике

The article deals with the linguistic and speech category of directness, which is dialectically connected with its opposite – the category of indirectness. Realizations of the category of directness are considered: firstly, in language vocabulary and idiomatics; secondly, in speech communication; thirdly, in a more general sense of understanding the features of the system of language and speech. Two aspects of using the concept of directness to characterize linguistic and communicative-speech phenomena are considered. On the one hand, the use of the concept of directness for this purpose is due to the semantic structure of lexemes directly / direct / directness, their direct and figurative (metaphor, metonymy) meanings, relations with opposite concepts (various depending on the meaning of “directness”). On the other hand, this is due to the character of natural human language, which also dialectically combines “directness” (of communication, communicative meanings) and “indirectness” (inaccuracy, asymmetry, etc.). In theoretical linguistics, for several centuries, these features of the nature of language have repeatedly become the object of reflection – from different points of view, in different concepts, under different names, while so far much more attention has been paid to indirectness than directness, which is shown by a review of modern linguistic literature, dedicated to the relevant features and units of linguistic and communicative speech phenomena. The article analyzes the contexts representing the semantic and pragmatic polysemy of directness in speech communication: situations that are comprehended as such in artistic dialogues (author’s speeches) (“He / she said directly” / “Say directly”); the main speech intentions of the speakers in these situations are revealed – recognition, request, consent and refusal, prediction, statement, promise.

Эмотивная метафорика в жанрах дипломатического дискурса: динамический аспект (на материале текстов пресс-конференций и интервью министра иностранных дел С. В. Лаврова 2023 года)

The article presents the analysis of emotive metaphors used by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov in the genres of interview and press conference in 2023. The research is a continuation of an earlier similar study based on the materials of 2022. The relevance of the topic is determined by the fact that these genres of diplomatic discourse, combining the properties of status-role and relatively personal communication, allow us to identify the aspects of the use of emotive figurative means in achieving the main goal of diplomacy – in approving the course of the country’s foreign policy in the context of a consistent escalation of the “hybrid” (including informational) war of the “collective West” against the Russian Federation in 2023. The purpose of the study is to identify the functional aspects of emotive transfers used by S. V. Lavrov in the studied texts in the dynamic aspect (in comparison with similar transfers in 2022). The research is based on 46 transcripts of the two genres, published from 01.01.23 to 06.06.23 on the official website mid.ru (mid.ru/ru/press_service/minister_speeches). Based on the complex methodology of semantic, discursive, linguocognitive analysis, it was found that in 2023, as in 2022, the Minister regularly uses emotive metaphors in order to draw attention to the most acute and significant, from the state point of view, problems of international relations (escalation of tension in the world, “hybrid” war against Russia, the main source of which is the aggressive policy of the “collective” West”), as well as to express the attitude towards them (in status-role and personal aspects). To solve these problems, S. V. Lavrov not only continues to systematically use reduced, ”undiplomatic” hyphenations (“vulgarisms”), but also more actively attracts bookoriented (“rhetorical”) metaphors. The cognitive and pragmatic functions of emotive metaphorics are most fully realized, as in 2022, in a system of conceptual models, the composition, structure of which and the main trends in development in 2023 are directly related to the solution of topical political and ideological problems.

The Translatability of Sports Metaphors in Political News

The present study investigates the difficulties and problems in deciphering the figurative meaning of English sports metaphors that appear in political news and, more specifically, in US presidential campaigns and their Arabic equivalents when they are under the detailed scrutiny of translation. In order to highlight the problem under discussion, the study explores the translation of some sports metaphors in their original context of use. Several English sports metaphors from different sports fields are collected randomly from British and US online newspapers with their possible equivalents in Arabic that are used in comparable texts that report the same topic. This comparative study focuses on the different strategies that are followed in rendering English sports metaphors in Arabic online newspapers. The researcher employed an empirical, descriptive and analytical approach where sports metaphors are described and classified. Their translations on online Arabic newspapers are also discussed and examined. The analysis will be based on the conceptual metaphor framework proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1984). Thus, it will be important to assess the conceptualized experiences across different cultures, particularly between English and Arabic, in this study. The findings reveal that English sports metaphors pose a metaphorical and cultural threat to the Arab translator, who might be tempted to translate them literally in case s/he fails to understand their hidden meaning. Producing accurate translation equivalents for these items cannot be achieved without knowing their metaphorical senses and the ability to provide natural and acceptable equivalents in the target language. The aim is to create a similar impact on the target language audience.

Insights from the Meaning First Approach and cognition into denominal verbs in child language: <em>Cherrying</em> means ‘eating cherries’, not ‘becoming like a cherry’

We experimentally investigate the meaning of denominal verbs in child and adult Romanian using a semi-artificial/semi-nonce denominal verb (SAD) paradigm, i.e., using non-existent verbs derived from familiar nouns (a cireşi ‘to cherry’). Importantly, the SAD paradigm allows us to probe into meaning formation without the lexical bias of existing verbs. To see whether children have difficulties understanding SAD verbs in linguistic contexts, we conducted a Contextual Denominal Task. Children were asked to select a matching picture after hearing sentences with SAD verbs in linguistic contexts biasing them for a particular interpretation. Children generally opted for a literal interpretation of a cireşi ‘to cherry’, involving the actual object cherry (‘to pick/eat cherries’), over a figurative interpretation such as a deveni (roşie) ca cireaşa ‘to become (red) like a cherry’, i.e., ‘to blush’ even in figurative-biasing contexts (like Mary cherried when John told her she was beautiful). In order to see whether children perform better when the meaning is made explicit or whether they have a general difficulty with figurative meanings (whether implicit or explicit), we also conducted an Explicit Denominal Paraphrase Task, where children were instead exposed to the corresponding denominal paraphrases (e.g., a deveni ca cireaşa ‘to become like a cherry’). Children performed almost adult-like when the figurative meaning was more explicit. We account for our findings within a Meaning First Approach (Sauerland & Alexiadou 2020; Guasti, Alexiadou & Sauerland 2023), which assumes that compressed meaning is hard, and that decompressing words is subject to two possible principles: (structural and conceptual) simplicity and plausibility. While adults tend to observe plausibility, children prefer simplicity more, generally opting for literal readings, which merge the light verb DO or similar verbs with nouns (Hale & Keyser 2002; Kiparsky 1997).

Linguistic Characteristics of Slogans in Professional Discourse

This research paper intends to analyze and identify the role of slogans and their linguistic characteristics in professional discourse. As far as we are concerned, the usage of the word in the slogan text is so meaningful. In most cases, the meaning of the word in the slogan has a figurative meaning and serves commercial purposes in professional discourse. A wide range of English slogans as the object of the research found in different professional discourses has been analyzed in this research. We would like to explain the formulation of the problem.1. What are the most commons figurative language used by the producer in making an English slogan seen from the figurative language and stylistics?2. And What are the meanings of the slogans used in an advertisement in professional discourse?3. This research paper focuses on the qualitative method as well as the quantitative one. The collected data of English slogans advertising from English newspapers or English magazines are analyzed qualitatively based on related theories or approaches, such as Semantics and stylistics.

Artistic practices of Valery Hegamyan in the context of Ukrainian-Armenian intercultural ties

The purpose of the work is to investigate the artistic and stylistic practices of V. Hegemyan, which he applied in the process of creative activity in the context of the history of art of Armenia and Ukraine. Emphasis is placed on clarifying biographical facts about the artist and teacher. The research methodology consists in the application of general scientific and special research methods, in particular, analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction, generalization and abstraction, semitic, descriptive, which collectively allowed to consider artistic practices in the work of the artist V. Hegamyan. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time the facts of the artist's creative biography were introduced into scientific circulation, which made it possible to reveal the intercultural influences of the environment of Ukrainian and Armenian cultures on the formation of V. Hegamyan's creative style. Conclusions. V. Hegamyan's creativity and teaching are frankly synthetic in nature. Both of his activities are based on classical traditions, but as a result are qualitatively new artistic phenomena. Hegamyan's artistic style is a kind of symbiosis of masterful realism and modernist principles of symbolism, expressionism, fauvism, and constructivism embodied in monumental techniques. V. Hegamyan's genre work is widely represented: from studies of classics, landscapes, still lifes, wonderful realistic and conventional portraits to huge genre paintings. There are strong ethnic motifs in the artist's work: both Armenian and Ukrainian, while the artist nevertheless operates with general aesthetic categories, finding his own symbolic and figurative meaning.
 Keywords: artistic practices, work of Valery Hegamyan, Armenian artists, painting, graphics, intercultural relations, Ukrainian art, artist-pedagogue.

Cultural unit white – prototype terms

Abstract The article focuses on the Hebrew prototypes terms (PTs) of white in the Old Testament – light, milk, and snow. The aim is to explore the worldview of Hebrew to reveal the original messages of the Bible. The translation is an essential tool that shows which translation elements (the word and its root derivatives) are symmetrical, asymmetric, and dissymmetric to Hebrew due to the different worldviews of languages. The method is interdisciplinary and includes several theories and approaches. Original is Almalech’s methodology for tracking all verbal options to signify color: Basic color term (BCT), prototype term (PT), rival terms to prototype (RT), and terms for the basic feature of the prototype (TBFP). Semiotic osmosis is also an original element of Almalech’s methodology and has a place in the study of colors in the Bible. The phenomenon is observed when Hebrew PT is translated with the BCT, Hebrew TBFP is translated with BCT in the Indo-European language, e.g., darkness is translated with black, fresh is translated with green. In the case of light, semiotic osmosis is when a quality of light is perceived as synonymous with light, e.g., brilliance is synonymous with light in Hebrew, English, Bulgarian, and other languages. The importance of light in religious systems, regional culture, and natural features are taken into account. Almalech’s semiotic approach to color, i.e., treating them as a sign communication system, involves the insisting that a distinction must be made between verbal and visual color because of their different potential to have primary and secondary (figurative and cultural) meanings. The substance of the language sign (sound is a mechanical wave) is physically different from the visual sign (electromagnetic wave). Almalech considered prototypes to be the cognitive interface between verbal and visual colors. Therefore, semiotically understood, color is a cultural unit that contains verbal and visual colors, complemented by social, religious, and folkloric use of primary and secondary color meanings.

Textual periphrases in the semantic structure of N.M. Karamzin's sentimental historical novel "Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter"

The work is devoted to the problem of the functioning of the lexical figurative means of artistic expression – periphrase as an integral component of the semantic structure of the literary text created in the line of sentimentalism aesthetics in the genre of historical story against the background of the ongoing process of the formation of the norms of the Russian literary language in the context of linguistic polemics of the turn of the XVIII–XIX centuries. The study of the semantic structure of a literary text involves the analysis of the types of nomination techniques and their aesthetic content. However, the use of peripheral expressions has a certain specificity, which is associated with their heterogeneity in thematic marking, structure and object of nomination. The subject of the study is periphrases, the paper presents the classification of periphrases of N.M. Karamzin's story "Natalia, the boyar's Daughter" as works of the genre of sentimental historical story. Using the example of the analysis of the text of the story, the peripheral combinations in the thematic groups love and time (time/period: life, year) are considered, the models of periphrases, metonymic nomination are described, the functions of periphrases are considered. The study of the functioning of periphrases is focused on determining the place and role occupied by this technique in the semantic structure of the text. The relevance of the research is connected with the choice of the research material – N.M. Karamzin's novella "Natalia, the boyar's daughter", its consideration in order to identify the features of the semantic structure and is due to the general interest of modern linguistics in the interpretation of a literary text based on a system-functional approach to the study of the object.

Этноспецифические и универсальные особенности фразеологических единиц с названиями земноводных в русском, чувашском, английском и немецком языках

The aim of the study is to identify the culture-bound and universal features of phraseological units with amphibian names in Russian, Chuvash, English and German, as well as the productivity of the zoonyms under consideration in the formation of set expressions. The paper discusses the most common names of amphibians, namely “frog” and “toad”; analyses zoometaphors of the Russian, Chuvash, English and German languages and their functioning in set expressions of languages with different systems, which makes it possible to identify the national peculiarities of expressing native speakers’ knowledge about people, animals and the world. The study is novel in that it is the first to consider this group of zoonyms in a comparative aspect involving the material of languages with different systems to identify, analyse and describe national and cultural characteristics, similarities and differences in the functioning and productivity of zoonyms in phraseological units. As a result, it was proved that the national specifics of native speakers’ worldview and lifestyle, as well as different living conditions, traditions, history and religion often influence the figurative meaning of zoonyms.

Common speech mistakes in schoolchildren’s final essays

It is particularly important to analyse the typical mistakes schoolchildren make in their final essays. This work enables us to identify the gaps in learners’ knowledge resulting in inaccurate expression of thought, violation of logic, and stylistic dissonance. The article considers various typologies of errors obtained from schoolchildren’s essays. We have identified the most common grammatical, lexical, and stylistic errors. The first group includes an incorrect use of aspectual-temporal forms of the verb, participial and adverbial participial phrases, errors in sentences with homogeneous parts, and other issues. Lexically, students tend to choose incorrect words, violate lexical combinability and so on. Stylistic mistakes involve unnecessary use of low colloquial and colloquial vocabulary, literary vocabulary, including officialese, an improper use of figurative and expressive means, and other issues. The paper concludes that schoolchildren’s essays aim to be as literary as possible. Learners use standard constructions, "tried-and-tested" in many works.

Comparative constructions in modern Russian prose: the evolution of figurative comparison

The research explores the changes undergone by comparative figurative meaning constructions (metaphorical and similative) in modern prose texts in comparison with earlier periods of Russian literature development. The article aims to identify trends in the evolution of comparative constructions in modern Russian prose. The need for a multidimensional description of linguistic processes in modern literary speech determines the relevance of the study. One such process is the evolution of figurative comparison in comparative constructions. We analysed the material of the works by such modern Russian prosaists as Yu. Buyda, V. Zalotukha, Ye. Vodolazkin, A. Ivanov, Z. Prilepin, A. Ilichevsky, T. Kibirov, A. Matveyeva, O. Slavnikova, M. Stepnova, D. Rubina, G. Yakhina and others. Additionally, we used contexts obtained from the National Corpus of the Russian Language. The research employed descriptive, structural-semantic, and comparative methods. The main attention is given to the appearance of new elements in the traditional range of comparative metaphorical and similative constructions. They denote realities which have recently emerged, including those related to computer technology and terms from various fields of science. The article concludes that in modern prose texts, the range of figurative comparative constructions is expanding on the basis of genus-species and synonymic relations. The revival of comparative constructions is accompanied by frequent concretisation of figurative comparisons, which increases the size of such constructions. As a result, they can include one-word definitions, semi-predicative phrases, and subordinate clauses. Thus, the figurative comparison becomes detailed and multidimensional. At the same time, there is a tendency to a stylistic degradation of figurative comparison used in modern Russian prose.

Creating a database of paremiological units for neurocognitive testing

The aim of the study is to build a database of paremiological units for a neurocognitive test to assess the state of cognitive functions in patients with diabetes mellitus. To identify the most relevant and frequent paremiological units, we conducted a survey among native speakers of the Russian language. The paper describes an experiment conducted on the Yandex.Toloka site. As a result, we received 36900 descriptions of the figurative meanings of proverbs and sayings. The respondents properly interpreted 86 units of G. L. Permyakov’s paremiological minimum (from 85 % to 100% of correct interpretations), 11 units caused significant difficulties (from 35 % to 65 % of correct interpretations). Particular attention was paid to the analysis of the most characteristic cases connected with incorrect explaining of the figurative meanings of some units. In general, the base being created includes 56 proverbs and sayings interpreted correctly by the largest number of the informants (95 % or more). The scientific novelty of the study is its large-scale survey, conducted with the help of modern technologies, identifying the paremiological units mostly spread among native speakers of the Russian language. We selected linguistically validated material, which made it possible to create the basis of a new tool for assessing the state of cognitive functions in patients with diabetes mellitus.

SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF BLOOD RELATIONSHIP TERMS (FATHER — OTA — PADRE) IN THE RUSSIAN, UZBEK AND SPANISH LANGUAGES

The article is devoted to a comparative-contrastive study of the structural and semantic features of the vertical line of blood relationship (consanguinity) terms отец (Russian), padre (Spanish), oтa (Uzb.), representing the national, cultural and linguistic specificity. Their study led to the conclusion that they are used both in direct and figurative meanings. The conducted analysis indicates some regularities of these terms: men in the descending line use them when referring to older men in age, to the spiritual father, and the women — to their husbands in the meaning of «father of my children». In the Uzbek language, oтa is used not only when referring to one’s own father, but also to one’s paternal grandfather; in Spanish — along with padre, its synonym progenitor «parent» is used to refer to the father.

Multimodal artistic metaphors: Research on a corpus of Sardinian art.

The study aims to define an artistic metaphor and highlight the multimodal properties of metaphors in artistic environments. In this research, an artistic metaphor has a relevant aesthetic purpose and it conveys beauty. Interpreting a metaphor in Sardinian art requires time for contemplation, however the cognitive effort of understanding the meaning of an artistic metaphor is rewarded by the delight of those who contemplate it. This metaphor has some characteristics in common with a visual metaphor but differs from other types of images that have been more extensively analyzed in the literature: it is difficult to establish a specific directionality, and consequently, it is not easy to recognize the target and source domains; the way it is expressed makes its interpretation and classification problematic at times. A proposal is presented in the paper to describe artistic metaphors according to universal macro-categories, inspired by the knowledge of Aristotelian and Kantian categories and by studies in the field of aesthetics: (1) time, (2) space, (3) decontextualization of stereotypes, and (4) fusion of forms. These categories are applied to a corpus of artworks by important artists in Sardinia to show that the visual, tactile, and auditory components of the pictures can boost an effective comprehension of figurative meaning. Results suggest that the multimodality of Sardinian artistic metaphors orients the observer toward original possibilities of learning and stimulates knowledge of the "submerged" wealth of symbols and archetypes that characterize insularity.

Linguistic-conceptual analysis of silence in the novel «Ivan» by V.O. Bogomolov

A review of the verbal and nonverbal representations of the concept of silence and its cognitive and propositional structure in the literary context is presented in this paper. The research is based on the novel "Ivan" (1957) by Vladimir O. Bogomolov and the aim is to decode the general linguistic layer underlying the literary concept of silence and to discover the author's intention in the linguistic means of objectifying the concept. Using the pragmatic expressive and aesthetic approach typical of a literary text, the author narrates the mysterious story of Ivan, a twelve-year-old boy found in the water near the riverbank and arrested on suspicion of espionage. By employing the metaphor of silence, the author focuses on describing the boy's private history, deprived of his childhood, which he reverently guards in his silence, devoting more attention to that than to the depiction of military episodes. The article deals with a variety of verbalizations of the conceptual content of silence, revealing the author's individual perceptions of it, allowing him to present the conceptosphere of silence as a field, the core of which is a generalized cognitive and propositional structure that includes the main lexical representations of the concept. Figurative meanings constitute the immediate periphery, while subjective-modal meanings are the further periphery. Such an analysis helps to reveal the functions of the concept in focus and, consequently, to interpret the individual-authorial image of the world and broaden the understanding of the narrative text itself.