Approaches to studying Concept

There are a few approaches to studying Concept distinguished correspondingly to the leading factor, aspect, scientific angle of view, method which grounds the platform for the research.

Approaches:

1. Cultural Approach (Uriy Stepanov) studies concepts as elements of culture and grounds its research on the data of different sciences; Language here is one of the sources of the knowledge about concepts;

2. Linguistic Cultural Approach (Vladimir Karasik, Sergey Vorkachev, etc.) understands concepts as language units and studies them as elements of national linguistic Culture in their correspondence with national values and national peculiarities of a definite culture (the approach from a language to a culture);

3. Logical Approach (Natalia Arutjunova and others) study concepts with methods of Logics without direct dependency from Language;

4. Semantic Cognitive Approach (Helen Kubriakova, Ivan Sternin, etc.) studies lexical and grammatical semantics of Language as a means of understanding the content of concepts and as a means of their modeling from the semantics of a language to a definite Sphere of Concepts.

5. Method (Approach) of Metaphor (Western approach of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson) treats Concept as a peculiar metaphor with a series of transferred meanings kept in it.

A method of Metaphor was the first scientific approach to comprehending concept introduced by the American scientists G. Lakoff and M. Johnson. Since then the method has been taken in consideration more or less by all the scientists in the field of cognitive research.

Essence: Concept here is treated as a peculiar metaphor with a series of transferred meanings kept in it; analysis and interpretation of them can help to understand and explain the content and function of Concept.

Metaphor in stylistics is one of the basic figures of quality; metaphor is based upon the similarity of some objects; it is a result of transference of the name of one object to another. As for their essence and the degree of stylistic potential, metaphors are classified into nominational, cognitive and imaginative (figurative).

Nominational metaphor does not render any stylistic information. It intends to name an object, thing or phenomenon of the objective world.

For example: the foot of the hill, the arm of the chair.

Cognitive metaphor is formed when an object obtains a quality which is typical of another object.

For example: The shore was drawing in the fog. A witty idea has come to me. One more day has died.

Imaginative (figurative) metaphor is occasional and individual, in comparison with nominational and cognitive which can be used in every day speech quite often. It is bright, imagine-bearing, picturesque and poetic.

For example: Patricia’s eyes were pools of still water. If there is enough rain, the land will shout with grass.

Proprieties of all the mentioned types of metaphor are taken into consideration when studying concept as a metaphor:

1) lexical representative of concept intends to name an object, thing or phenomenon of the objective world

e.g.: concept ‘Rain’ names a natural phenomenon of rain (as for Home classification it is referred to the type of concepts of Natural phenomena; as for Occidental classification it is a type of Concept-scheme).

It is known and understood by the representatives of a culture and is one of the concepts in the system of Cultural Picture of the World (Conceptual and Language);

2) concept includes not only meanings which are characteristical to its lexical representative but also obtains qualities which are typical of other objects or phenomena

e.g.: the concept ‘Rain’ is not only understood as ‘water that falls from the clouds in separate drops’ (Oxford Dictionary for Advanced Learners) i.e. natural phenomena, but also is quite often associated with human emotional state: melancholy, sadness, blue, etc.

It also is a unit of the World Picture of a culture;

3) concept can contain occasional and individual understandings of a phenomenon or an object dependently on whose Picture of the World it presents

e.g.: the concept ‘Rain’ in the E.Hemingway’s work ‘Cat in the Rain’ implies not only a natural phenomena and not only the emotional state of the American wife, the main character, but also symbolizes routine of life. In the V.Woolf’s work ‘Kew Gardens’ the concept ‘Rain’ obtains the characteristics of cleaning waters / washing waters whose propriety is to renew the life and also the characteristics of the mirror that reflects the life in its motion.

It is peculiar associative understanding of a phenomenon by an individual and thus is a representative of the World Picture of a certain individual.

Thus, concept is a phenomenon full with lots of commonly used in a culture understandings and individually formed associations; it includes a great number of meanings – lexical, connotative, notional, figurative, transferred, symbolic and associative.

Dependently on an approach there are peculiarities of defining Concept.

Definitions:

1. Concept is a metaphor which integrates lots of commonly used meaningful and individual associative units in itself (G. Lakoff and M. Johnson);

2. Concept is an abstract scientific notion which is worked out on the ground of a concrete life experience (Solomonic);

3. It is the essence of a notion which is realized in its substantial forms – in image (psychological category), notion (a category of Logics) and symbol (a category of Linguistic) (Kolesov);

4. Concept objectively exists in the human consciousness perceptive-cognitive-affective formation characterized with its dynamic function, which makes it different from notions and meanings as the products of scientific description (A.Zalevskaya);

5. It is an operative unit of thinking, a unit of collective knowledge which has a language expression and is marked with ethnic-cultural specifics; it directs to the highest spiritual essence (S.Vorkachev);

6. Concept is a certain idea about a fragment of the world (or about a part of the fragment) that has a complex structure. The structure is expressed with different groups of signs which are realized by different language means (M.Pimenova);

7. It is a certain ‘clot’ (сгусток) of a culture in a human consciousness; it is something in the form of which a culture enters the mental world of a man. On the other hand, Concept is something with what an average man enters a definite culture by himself and can influence it (U.Stepanov);

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