METAPHORIZATION OF THE POLITICS СONCEPT (ON THE BASIS OF THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE COCA CORPUS)

Abstract

The article under consideration reveals researcher’s discovering a mechanism of metaphorizing the POLITICS concept through order metaphorization parameters by N. V. Tatsenko – spatial (a certain space location of an object concerning other objects), dimensional (a measuring ability of objects), discrete (presence of certain limits around objects) and perceptive (an object ability to be physically perceived by human sensory systems) parameters – to understand thanks to which final concepts POLITICS is metaphorized, that is reconsidered in the content of other structures. The research is conducted on the basis of a relevant material – a concordance of the politics query (1000 contexts are selected by the continuous sampling method from all 60643 results) in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) – that is further processed by the researcher to sift out unnecessary units (bibliography references, identical contexts) and analyzed to find all possible POLITICS conceptual metaphors with their subsequent sorting by the above-mentioned order metaphorization parameters with several illustrating examples from the corpus resources. Thus, the discrete parameter considers POLITICS as PLACE, which is supported by the dimensional and spatial parameter (as well as by the spatial transference being its subparameter). The latter can also produce metaphors POLITICS is PHYSICAL BODY, THING, CONTAINER, CONTENT, INTERACTION. Another way of metaphorizing the researched concept is engaging the perceptive parameter, which assists in generating metaphors POLITICS is PERCEIVING / RESEARCHING / ANALYZING / DESCRIBING / IMAGINING OBJECT. A significant importance is also hidden in the artefact parameter (a subparameter of the discrete parameter) that not only constructs the metaphor POLITICS is PRODUCT but also reconsiders POLITICS as LIVING CREATURE which can perform certain actions typical for humans: to show, move, work, govern, analyze, require, develop, etc. like people. All metaphors registered in the researched corpus sample give an opportunity to sum up what words are generally used for keeping those conceptual metaphors in the mind of American society.