RANGE OF METAPHOR OF THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE LINGUOETHICAL CONCEPT DUTY

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the range of metaphor of the Englishlanguage concept DUTY. The aim of the article is to highlight crossdomain metaphorical projections in which DUTY acts as a target domain. The object of research is the linguoethical concept DUTY, and the subject is its range of metaphor. The presented scientific work is performed in the context of the theory of conceptual metaphor, which allows to explain the mechanisms of correlation of concepts belonging to different areas, through the transfer of features from one to another. The realization of the declared goal is carried out with the involvement of the following research methods: the method of continuous sampling, the method of contextual analysis and the method of semantic-cognitive interpretation. The paper reveals the essence of metaphorical projections, which consists in transferring the features of the source domain to the target domain. It is noted that the features of the target concept, which coincide with the features of the source domain are part of the conceptual intersection, which makes up the area of conceptual projection. This zone is heterogeneous in its structure and consists of central transference and areas of elaboration and expansion of conceptual metaphor. The elaboration of metaphor is manifested in the expansion of the list of the source domain features, which are transferred to the target concept, while the extension involves other concepts related to the superordinate source domain. The analysis of the research material, which is a sample of the iWeb English corpus, as well as corpus of proverbs, aphorisms and quotes from famous people with the target unit duty, highlighted the metaphorical range of the DUTY concept and revealed metaphorical projections in which it is involved as a target domain. It was found that the main superordinate source domains are THING and PERSON, prototypical nuclear features of which form the central metaphoric transfer. The extension of these metaphorical projections is represented by hyponyms of the above-mentioned categories, while the elaboration of metaphor is represented by the transfer of cognitive features that are adjacent to the features of central transfer. The analysis shows that abstract ethical concepts are metaphorically understood through more specific basic concepts, that form the human central life experience.