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Петрук В. А.
Група 446
Реферат на тему:
VERBALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT OF FEAR IN ENGLISH PROSE
WORKS (BASED ON THE WORKS OF H. LOVECRAFT)
The essay focuses on features of the concept of fear verbalization in English
prose works, based on the works of H. Lovecraft. An attempt has been made to analyze
verbal presentations of the emotional state of fear in H. Lovecraft’s prose works.
Description of fear involves naming the concept by nominative means including lexeme
of fear, its synonymous rows, their derivatives belonging to different parts of speech
and accounting the characteristics of the emotional state of fear, followed by a verbal
explication of this emotional state.
Key words: verbalization, concept, fear, emotion, description.
Реферат зосереджений на особливостях вербалізації концепту «страху»
в англійських прозових творах, базуючись на роботах Г. Лавкрафта. Була
зроблена спроба проаналізувати вербальні презентації емоційного стану страху
в прозових творах Г. Лавкрафта. Опис страху передбачає називання концепту
номінативними засобами, включаючи лексему страху, його синонімічні рядки, їх
частиномовні похідні та опис характеристик емоційного стану страху з
подальшим словесним поясненням цього емоційного стану.
Ключові слова: вербалізація, концепт, страх, емоція, дескрипція.
OUTLINE
1. The notion of concept in modern linguistics
2. The definition of the notion of emotion and the connection to the notion of
concept
3. The concept of fear as a basic human emotion.
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4. The usage of the notion of verbalization regarding the description of emotional
states
5. Conclusion
1. The notion of concept in modern linguistics
The main premise of cognitive linguistics is that linguistic cognition is an
integral phenomenon of human consciousness as a whole and we assume cognitive
patterns and processes to be expressed in language observed by psychologists,
neurobiologists and the like. The core problem is the definition of words as well as the
meaning of phrases for cognitive linguistics; in other words, the meaning of any
linguistic language, no matter how small or large it is.
The term concept is a capacious interdisciplinary notion, which, in addition to
linguistics, appeals to philosophy, logic, psychology, computer science, and other
scientific fields. It is traced back to Aristotle’s “The classical theory of concepts”
definition of terms. [7] Despite this, this term only appeared in linguistics in the 19th
century, and it came into active use at the end of the last century due to several objective
and subjective reasons.
In linguistics, the concept, in contrast to a word, has a more complicated
structure and it has many definitions and interpretations because the concept is a
category of cognition that is not directly observable. The meaning of the term is
identified with the traditional interpretation of the meaning of the word or associated
with the notion, the concept is defined as an object of the psyche that reflects the
individual referents of mental phenomena.
According to Y. Stepanov, the concept is “a basic cultural cell in the mental
world of a man”, which indicates the conceptual unit is a language-cultural notion, in
order to study vocabulary, consciousness and culture systematically. In its mental form,
the linguistic-cultural definition varies from other units. The mentality is considered to
be a guided image and perception collection. [5, c. 248] Language is one of the ways
of reaching the mind, their conceptual domain, the content and form of ideas of
concepts as units of thoughts.
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Following the classical scholastic view linguistic signs are related to two types
of entities:
(a) the type of cognitive entities, concepts;
(b) the type of entities of the external world.
There are both direct and indirect relations in-between the triangle of reference:
between signs and concepts (direct), concepts and entities of the external world (direct),
between signs and entities of the external world being mediated by concepts (indirect).
For a long time, there has been no single approach while defining the concept in
linguistics, so there is no single common classification. It is worth noting several main
typologies – O. O. Selivanova’s distribution according to the method of
conceptualization, Z. D. Popova and Y. A. Sternin’s distribution by type of knowledge,
and V. L. Ivashchenko summarized the experience of predecessors and proposed his
classification. A special place in the concept sphere of any linguistic culture is occupied
by the concepts of emotions, which scientists distinguish among these varieties. The
term emotional concept is preceded by the term "emotion", which is also interpreted
differently in scientific works, so it is worth considering it first.
2. The definition of the notion of emotion and the connection to the notion of
concept
The question of the types of emotions and their number has been at the center of
scientific discussions since ancient times. Many scientists have tried to develop a
universal classification system of emotions, each of which has proposed its criteria for
distinguishing them.
In general, in psychology, there are several dozen concepts of emotions, most of
which are not denied, but enrich each other. Today, the primacy in the study of
emotions belongs to a separate area of psychology – the psychology of emotions, which
has an integrative nature, and the term emotion is usually used to denote “a class of
mental processes, states, phenomena reflected in the form of direct, passionate
experience, the content of phenomena, objects and situations, etc.” From a purely
mechanistic perspective, "Emotions can be defined as a positive or negative experience
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that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity." Emotions produce
different physiological, behavioral and cognitive changes.
The result of the emotional conceptualization of the world and the emotional
sphere of the individual's existence as its integral component is an emotional concept.
Given above, at the mental level of consciousness emotions form an emotional concept
sphere, the components of which are emotional concepts - multilevel mental-linguistic
formations, which, on the one hand, are emotional forms of cognition of the world and
correlate with mental forms through experience, and on the other hand, a set of
elementary meanings, understood by the subject of cognition (endowed with a certain
age, gender, mental and other characteristics), a representative of a certain social group
(ethnic, professional, etc.), emotions.
3. The concept of fear as a basic human emotion.
The term fear within the psychological scientific picture of the world is
conceptually heterogeneous and ambiguous. The cause of these phenomena is a lack
of theoretical understanding of emotions, the coexistence of different points of view on
the same object of knowledge.
Fear is traditionally considered to be an emotional multifaceted concept related
to psychology, sociology and linguistics. Fear in the system of human emotions is
described as a mental process that reflects a person's attitude to himself and the world
and is characterized by facial expressions, psychometric, behavioral changes, which
are depicted in language. One of the basic emotions that can be represented verbally,
along with joy, sadness and anger, is the above-mentioned emotion of fear.
As H. Lovecraft once said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,
and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”. [11] Regarding this,
we can say that the analysis of the means of verbalization of the emotional concept of
fear is an important aspect of the study of prose works in the genre of horror. This type
of verbalization reflects all the physiological and psychological processes that take
place with the hero who feels this emotion.
The primary cause of fear is the physical or mental perception of a certain state
of affairs, which is categorized by consciousness as threatening biological and/or social
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existence. The state of fear is directly manifested in the physiological and behavioral
reactions of the individual. They include: changes in the circulatory system, changes
in respiration, muscle tension and tremors, disorders of the stomach and intestines; like
any other emotion, fear is characterized by specific facial and pantomime expressions,
involuntary exclamations, and so on.
Fear can be external (its origin can be some external force and it may not be
affected by an entity, e.g. a natural disaster) or internal (it exists as a result of an
individual’s thoughts, e.g. fear of the dark). Fear can also be categorized according to
norms. Fear may be natural or psychotic (a person is conscious of the fear and is able
to control it) (the fear is not recognized or controlled and becomes an obsessive idea).
Fear can be differentiated in both a short-term state (which can be called "fright") and
as a stable character trait (which is defined as "fear" itself or "cowardice") by
classifying terror by the criterion of duration. Fear can range from fear to panic and
dread by the criterion of severity. In comparison, as a result of an occurrence that has
already arisen, anxiety may emerge immediately at the moment of the threat or arise
afterwards. The variety of this definition is highlighted by the various requirements for
the designation of terror.
The emotion of fear plays an extremely important role in human life, so every
natural language has a huge arsenal of language tools for its representation, which we
will consider and which will be listed below.
4. The usage of the notion of verbalization regarding the description of
emotional states
The term description was introduced into scientific usage by Bertrand Russell,
who understood it as "that which relates to something ...", i.e. some or a specific object
that has certain characteristics. Some scientists pay attention to the types of
descriptions. In particular, B. Russell divides them into two categories: indefinite (or
ambiguous) and definite. Descriptive units include graphic, morphological, lexicostylistic, lexical-syntactic means.
Descriptions are, first of all, designations that are mostly used instead of one's
name, representing its significant content, expanding the information about the subject
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indicated by it. Before disclosing the use of this tool to systematize the concept of fear,
we may first consider the main methods of analysis. The study of the concept of fear
through the semantics of lexical units that represent it, involves the use of traditional
methods of component and distributive analysis for linguistics.
The first method stands for a system of methods of the linguistic study of the
semantic structure of a language unit by breaking it down into the smallest semantic
components, establishing connections and relations between them. The basis for
distributive analysis is the language environment of the units, the location relative to
other units in the speech flow.
The emotional concept of fear has a conceptual value and figurative meaning
and, like any other emotional concept, is actualized in the discourse by nomination,
description and expression. [6, c. 43]
The means of nominating an emotional concept include the nominative units of
language that name it. To identify the conceptual content of a lexical unit called a
concept, it is necessary to refer to its vocabulary definition. [1]
In lexicographic sources, the dictionary definition of the lexeme fear is
represented by the following definitions: 1) an unpleasant emotion or thought that you
have when you are frightened or worried by something dangerous, painful, or bad that
is happening or might happen: [8]; 2) A fear is a thought that something unpleasant
might happen or might have happened [9]. The main features of these definitions,
which denote the concept of fear, we can identify a categorical feature - an emotional
state.
We may use verbalization, which is a process by which multiple psychological
experiences are generated in a person in verbal form. In the English linguistic image of
the world, the study of linguistic content tends to expose linguistic means and clarify
the unusual characteristics that verbalize the idea of fear. The set of language tools used
to verbalize the emotion of fear is very diverse. In the English language tradition, the
concept of fear is represented by the following lexemes: fear, dread, fright, alarm,
dismay, consternation, panic, terror, horror, angst, awe, recoil, etc.
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The given lexemes form a synonymous row of stylistic and ideographic
synonyms, which vary according to the following types of connotation:
1. Connotation of duration:
worry – dismay – angst;
2. Emotive connotations:
fear – panic – awe – alarm;
3. Connotation of degree or intensity:
fear – fright – horror – terror.
Referring to an excerpt from H. Lovecraft's story “The Tomb”, we can analyze
the use of the concept of fear: “I alone remained, riveted to my seat by a groveling fear
which I had never felt before. And then a second horror took possession of my soul.
Burnt alive to ashes, my body dispersed by the four winds, I might never lie in the tomb
of the Hydes!” [11, c. 10] Thus, the use of words horror, fear gives the reader a greater
depth of understanding of the psychological state of the protagonist, and the very
representation of the world, which we perceive through the prism of the psyche of the
protagonist, becomes closely related to the concept of fear.
5. Conclusion
The emotional world of the individual is extremely multifaceted, unique and
generates the considerable interest of scientists in various fields of knowledge:
psychologists, philosophers, theologians, linguists. The study of this part of the human
inner world is fascinating and desirable, because humanity desires to undercover the
depths and mysteries of the unknown soul. Particular attention should be paid to the
emotion of fear, which is still incompletely revealed.
The concept of fear appears dominant and characteristic in the works of H.
Lovecraft, which indicates the author's awareness of human psychology and the ability
to convey this emotion.
Thus, the expression of fear in the works of H. Lovecraft, as well as other basic
emotions, contains a certain universal component (this is a negative emotion inherent
in all prose works), but it also has certain unique features (this is characterized by the
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connection of fear with feeling unknown, creating a depressing atmosphere and a
deeper disclosure of psychological processes).
The means of verbalizing the concept of fear, identified in the course of the
study, create a frightful, sullen atmosphere, which depicts situations that go beyond the
usual worldview for the reader. Verbalization of this concept reflects all the
physiological and psychological processes that occur with the hero who feels this
emotion.
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