SPECIFIC FEATURES OF WORLD POWER CONCEPT VERBALIZATION IN MODERN ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLDVIEW

Abstract

The focus of the recent investigations in the sphere of cognitive linguistics is on studying the verbal ways and means of presenting ideas, knowledge, emotions, etc. in human consciousness. The concept as a complicated discrete unit of the collective consciousness is formed and stored in the memory of native speakers in a verbal form. The article describes some specific features of the concept WORLD POWER verbalization. The presented concept is a component of a larger mental formation – the conceptual sphere GEOPOLITICS in the modern English-speaking worldview. Cognitive and semantic analyses of the lexical units representing this concept are given. The actuality of the research is determined by the rising role of the concept WORLD POWER in the current being of the English-speaking ethnos that can be proved by the number of the analyzed verbal means of the concept (7.5% of the total number of the units representing the conceptual sphere GEOPOLITICS). The material of the research comprises the data of internet media resources and English lexicographical dictionaries. The tasks of the research are to outline some specific approaches to the problem, to analyze the synonymous line of the concept WORLD POWER and to describe the major verbalization means of the given concept. The synonymous line of the concept WORLD POWER includes such lexical units as control, superiority, authority, leadership, compulsion, constraint, competition, advantage, arm, authorization that realize logically narrower notions than the nomen power. The lexical unit power actualizes the basic conceptual characteristics – “control” and “country”. The notion of power has stable negative associations with lies, evil, inequality, greed, crisis, etc. The concept under study is presented as a complicated mental structured formation in the native speakers’ consciousness characterized by high nominative density.