VERBALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT BETRAYAL IN I. WELSH NOVEL “TRAINSPOTTING”

Abstract

The study of concepts as mental units that reflect reality depending on the individual picture of the world of the native speaker is of particular interest to modern linguists. Under such conditions, it is relevant to identify ways of verbalizing and interpreting concepts. The obtained results make it possible to establish the specifics of the content, structure and means of the concept actualization, to identify the attitude of speakers to a particular phenomenon of extralinguistic reality and the peculiarities of a certain language community perception. The purpose of the study is to identify and analyze the features of the concept of BETRAYAL verbalization. The material for the scientific analysis was novel “Trainspotting” by the British writer I. Welsh. The capitalist world, where a pseudo-moral preoccupation with happiness and goodness supposedly reigns, actually consists in a constant search for pleasure and entertainment. In such a society, the idea of moral categories is distorted. In the novel “Trainspotting” by I. Welsh, the semantic zone “to betray human relations” is represented, which is a component of the concept BETRAYAL semantic structure. In particular, it is about the relations between people in capitalist society, which are compared to a game, and a person, in turn, with game pieces (pawn, game, play). Another aspect of betrayal of relationships is devaluation, which in the novel “Trainspotting” is verbalized as a change in the status of relationships, expressed in the opposition “friend-acquaintance” (friend, mate, associate, acquaintance). Friendship is compared to a trope, a metaphor. Obviously, an indirect hint is made at the use of this concept in a figurative sense. Social ties that are established within professional environments, voluntary associations, political parties, economic organizations, etc., are characteristic of modern industrial, urbanized, capitalist societies of drugs are perceived as a waste of time.