VERBALIZATION OF CONCEPT DISEASE IN MODERN ENGLISH SONG DISCOURSE: SUBSTANTIVE AND FIGURATIVE COMPONENTS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the investigation of the content and structure of synonyms of the concept DISEASE verbalized by means of the English language in song discourse. The topicality of this work is determined by the fact that today cognitive-discursive approach is considered to be pivotal, whereas concept DISEASE takes the leading place in the world picture of the whole humanity. The analysis of present publications showed that contemporary scientists studied the peculiarities of verbalization of the specified concept in medical and pharmaceutical discourse, belles-lettres, dialects and taking into account national and cultural specificity. Nevertheless, there are no comprehensive publications which depict special features of verbalization and functioning of the concept DISEASE in song discourse. Being guided by cognitive-discursive approach, we described the peculiarities of the verbalization of synonyms of the concept DISEASE as an open versatile unit of human consciousness which constructs in the field of modern English song discourse and, on the one hand, represents individual experience and, on the other hand, general human experience connected with the interpretation of the state of disease in the consciousness of native speakers of English. Having analyzed our sample, we found out which synonyms are characteristic for the lexeme “disease” and their quantitative and collocational realization. Concept disease is represented by the following synonyms: sickness, virus, infection, illness, condition, epidemics, pandemic, affliction, disturbance, deficiency, pathogenesis, avalanche, contagion, infestation, ailment, state, pestilence, plague. In the article we showed that four models are typical for corresponding lexemes – nominative, attributive, predicative and prepositional, attributive and predicative being the most numerous. We also observed the figurative constituent of the concept (metaphoric collocations) and ascertained that these lexemes form a number of cognitive metaphors, among which the metaphors person = disease, love = disease and disease = sin are the most numerous. In this article, we also outlined the prospects of further investigations, namely the research of hypernymic and hyponymic connections within the concept DISEASE.