СЕМАНТИКО-КОГНИТИВНОЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОГО КОНЦЕПТА (НА ПРИМЕРЕ ТВОРЧЕСТВА Д.А. ПРИГОВА)

The evolution of human society is based on two processes: the accumulation and the transfer of knowledge, both scientific and humanistic. The method of transferring technological knowledge is well developed and known, which cannot be said about the method of transferring humanistic knowledge. But if you treat a literary text as a source of a person's inner, spiritual experience, it is necessary to find a way to perceive it correctly and apply it practically. The methodological basis of this skill is formed by some directions in linguistics, which are focused on solving communication problems. One of these is cognitive linguistics. Conceptual analysis (CA) is of particular interest among the variety of methods in this direction. This method allows you to reconstruct the language picture of the world.

As a result, we get a tool for understanding the cultural and spiritual heritage of both the nation as a whole and its individual representatives.

Today, two types of conceptual analysis can be distinguished:

1.The analysis, which results in the formation of the meaning of a certain concept.

2. A certain way of research used to reveal the meaning of a text by means of already known concepts.

In this work, an attempt is made to substantiate the method of concept analysis, which is the part of a certain poetic conceptosphere and reflects the individual consciousness of the author.

Conceptual analysis is not identical to semantic analysis (SA), which is aimed at explication of the semantic structure of a word, namely, its denotative, significative and connotative meanings. SA is associated with the clarification of the word, CA – with the identification of mental representation of the world of a particular individual (in our case, of the author of the text).

At the moment, there is no general method for concept explication. Basically, the meaning of a concept is deduced from the use of different words and word constructions, while sentences and their nominalizations, nouns of specific and general meaning, taking into account the contexts of use, are analyzed [1]. Our research is based on the following task - to form a method which allows to obtain the most objective interpretation of the concept (in our case, the concept "creativity"). With regard to the methodological substantiation of this task, the most valuable for us are the achievements in the field of conceptology which have been made in two directions: linguo-cognitive (semantic-cognitive) and linguo-cultural.

The main position of the methodology of these two directions in cognitive linguistics is to study the semantics of linguistic signs, which allows to penetrate into the conceptual sphere of people, to clarify the features of national linguistic culture in its historical development and individual author's conceptual spheres. The interpretation of the concept as a global unit of mental activity [2], a kind of quantum of consciousness is also non- controversial among the representatives of these directions. In both approaches, the concept research methodology contains such stages as the analysis of the lexical meaning and the internal form of the word representing the concept, the identification of the synonymous row of the lexeme - the concept representative [3].

Our research was carried out mainly within the framework of a linguo-cognitive approach (semantic-cognitive analysis), a distinctive feature of which is cognitive interpretation, which makes the transition from the content of meanings to the content of concepts. Following Z.D. Popova and I.A. Sternin, we believe that a concept can be expressed without even having a special denotation through a certain word, but in this case it must necessarily be verbalized by other linguistic means: by a phrase, a sentence or a text. A native speaker always has the opportunity to put the prevailing world views into the verbal form. But if this does not happen, therefore, the concept has not been formed in the consciousness of the individual. Also, the work implements a linguo-cognitive approach to organizing the structure of a concept according to the field principle (the core, the close, the far and the extreme periphery). In addition, our research has shown that the structure of a concept (but, as we assume, not any) can be represented by such components as image, conceptual content and an individual-interpretive field.

In each single case, a certain method of describing and researching a particular concept is used. For instance, the analysis of a cultural concept reflecting a certain fragment of the world picture of one or another nation requires a semantic description, which should give “possibly complete knowledge about the concept that exists in the minds of culture bearers – the knowledge expressed in certain linguistic stereotypes, which can be both words and phraseological units” [4]. Therefore, the material for such an analysis is mainly taken from dictionary entries, folklore texts, texts reflecting the everyday speech of a native speaker, in which the concept nominee word is directly used.

In the concept analysis, based on the material of literary texts that represent the poetic individual consciousness of the author, there are difficulties with the choice of the concept representatives. So, the name calling it can be omitted, and the concept is verbalized not in a word, not in a phrase and not in a phraseological unit, but in the whole text, that is, in fact, the text acts as a concept nomination.

For this reason, the analysis of the concepts extracted from a literary text, and even more so from a postmodern poetic text which has the polyvariety of the sign code, causes a particular difficulty in relation to the correct choice of the research method [5]. Explication of this kind of concepts requires a special approach in the development of methods of analysis, especially when it concerns such complexly organized cognitive structures as the concept "Creativity", the study of which is being carried out on the material of Prigov's poetic texts, organizing a special space of conceptual poetry.

Creativity is the process of realizing the spiritual and practical needs of a person, accompanied by a desire for a qualitative change in the present situation. The purpose of this activity is the creation of new cultural or material values. The concept "Creativity" is a set of ideas, situations, relationships that accompany the creative process. By the type of reflected knowledge and due to the complexity of this mental formation, it can be attributed to mega-concepts.

The lexicographic study of the concept made it possible to determine the complex structure of this concept.

In modern Russian lexicography, the lexeme creativity has two main meanings: creativity as a process and creativity as a result. This ambiguity is reflected in the concept “Creativity” in one way or another. The seme ‘the result of creativity’ is represented by synonymous lexemes: creativity (tvorchestvo), creature (tvoreniye), creation (sozdaniye) (according to dictionaries). The seme ‘the process of creativity’ – by words creativity (tvorchestvo), creation (tvoreniye, obsolete), creation (sozidaniye, high), creature (sozdaniye). If creativity is a process and a result of some kind of activity, then someone should carry out this activity, “creativity is specific to a person, because it always presupposes a creator who is a subject of creative activity”[6]. Therefore, it is possible to define subject-object relations within this conceptual paradigm. The meaning of the subject is represented by the following synonymous series: creator, maker, doer, demiurge.  Creator and maker (with the meanings tworets and sozdatel’) are the words most commonly used by native speakers, with a frequency index of 12.36 and 13.04, respectively [7]. The object is the result of creativity. Securing the status of a cognitive features for such meanings as "creator", "the process of creativity", "the result of creativity ", in our opinion, is not enough, since during the analysis within these units, three basic structural components of the concept were identified: an image, a conceptual content and an individual-interpretive field. Thus, “Creator”, “the Process of Creativity”, “the Result of Creativity” can be called the private concepts that are a part of the mega-concept “Creativity”. The usual method of describing a concept is not appropriate for representing this complexly organized cognitive structure. The mega-concept can be described as a series of hierarchized concepts, each of them can be described through a system of cognitive features [8].

Let us consider the formal structure (i.e., the structure being built on the basis of lexicographic research and reflecting the scientific understanding of this concept) of this complex mental formation.

Mega-concept "Creativity":

1. Concept "Creator"

2. Frame "the Process of Creativity"

3. Concept "the Result of Creativity"

This structure allows to search purposefully in a work of art (in this case, the poetic texts by Prigov) for representatives of each of the concepts. It is interesting that direct nominations for the mega-concept “Creativity” were not found in Prigov's texts, but this does not mean its absence in the artistic space of the postmodern poet. The formal structure helps to identify the representatives needed for concepts analysis.

Further, when analyzing a particular concept, cognitive characteristics representing it are identified, the latter are compared and, as a result of cognitive interpretation, generalized by cognitive classification features.

In general, the scheme of our proposed semantic-cognitive research can be presented as follows:

1. Construction of the nominative field of a concept, reflecting scientific consciousness:

a) The main name of the concept (the keyword-representative) is determined.

As a keyword, we define the lexical unit that most fully nominates the concept under study. In this case, it is the word "creativity". The relevance of its use by a native speaker and the preference of this particular lexeme in comparison with the synonymous “creation” [9] is checked by the frequency dictionary: the frequency index for the word “creativity” is 39.36, and for the word “creation” – 1.90.

b) A lexicographic study of this name is being carried out using various modern dictionaries. The data of explanatory and encyclopedic dictionaries are compared. A general definition of the keyword is compiled.

c) Construction of the derivational field of the keyword and the lexemes included in its synonymous row.

1. On the basis of the "Word-Formation Dictionary of the Russian Language", cognate units are identified, the frequency of their use in the language is determined by the frequency dictionary. Semantic analysis of the identified derivatives makes it possible to detect a number of both basic and additional cognitive features.

2. Analysis and description of the semantics of linguistic means forming the nominative field of the concept. Identification of conceptual features that form the concept "Creativity" as a mental unit.

3. Combining the selected features into semantic blocks on the base of generalizations.

4. Drawing up the structure of the mega-concept "Creativity", reflected in the scientific mind. Within this mental formation, concepts and frames connected and diffuse in relation to each other are distinguished. The structural formation of the mega-concept “Creativity” includes the following concepts: “Creator”, “the Process of Creativity”, “the Result of Creativity”.

5. The nominations of various types of concept denotation and individual concept features included in the structural formation of the mega-concept "Creativity" are extracted from the artistic (poetic) text by the continuous sampling method. Thus, several blocks of representative nominations are formed, each of which corresponds to a certain concept. For the texts with no direct nomination of the concept, a new method of associative superposition is used (linguistic structures sufficient for understanding from one text are correlated with the texts in which there is no direct nomination-representative; in the result of such comparison-superposition, the denotation is identified as the main content of this structure) [10].

Further, the analysis of each concept, frame included in the structural formation of the mega-concept is carried out separately and in the following order:

6. Analysis and description of the semantics of linguistic means that form the nominative field of the concept. Definition of conceptual features reflecting the individual meanings of the concept representatives (interpretation of semes, metaphors, frequency of lexemes).

7. Cognitive interpretation of the description results of the semantics of linguistic means – the comparison of conceptual features and, on this basis, the identification of cognitive features that form the studied concept as a mental unit.

8. Description of the concept content in the form of a list of cognitive features. Generalization of cognitive features similar in meaning and thus the allocation of cognitive classification features.

9. Comparison of cognitive features that reflect the content of each concept, frame, included in the formal structure of the mega-concept "Creativity". Determination of national and individual characteristics of the concept.

10. Modeling the mega-concept "Creativity" as a unit of individual poetic consciousness.

a) Description of the macrostructure of the concept (cognitive features are correlated with the figurative, conceptual components and the individual-interpretive field, their relationship in the structure of the concept is established).

b) Description of the categorical structure of the concept (description of the concept as a hierarchy of cognitive classification features).

c) Description of the field organization of the concept.

Thus, we have tried to substantiate some stages that are absent in other studies of cultural universal concepts: 1) the need for lexicographic research to draw up the formal structure of the mega-concept; 2) the search for representatives in a literary text based on the identified private concepts in the structure of the mega-concept. Also, the general analysis scheme outlines the essence of the new method of associative superposition, which helps in the interpretation of the texts with no direct nomination of the concept. We consider that these elements of analysis would help to reconstruct the concept reflecting the individual consciousness of the author of a literary text with greater accuracy.