ACTUALISATION OF THE FIGURATIVE COMPONENT OF THE EMOTIONAL CONCEPT JOY IN G. K. CHESTERTON’S WORKS

Abstract

The present article constitutes an attempt to define the figurative component of the emotional concept joy in the works of G. K. Chesterton, renowned English writer. The study is based on a large corpus of diverse genre materials, including philosophical religious treatises, fiction, and journalistic writings, allowing for a detailed analysis of the concept’s figurative dimension. While the exploration of emotional concepts has been a subject of extensive research in both foreign and domestic linguistics, the study of the concept joy in Chesterton’s works is undertaken for the first time. The article examines the content of the concept joy and reveals that its stucture is shaped not only by the essence of the corresponding emotion but also by the author’s unique worldview, which is rooted in Christian traditions of joy and love. The study also refines the understanding of cognitive metaphor as an idealised cognitive model that represents the perception of a given object as an image structured through linguistic signs. The present study sets out to establish that the concept joy in Chesterton’s works is primarily verbalised by the lexeme joy and its 29 synonyms, which serve as direct nominations of the concept. Other nominative means of its linguistic representation include adjectives modifying joy, noun and verb collocations involving joy and its synonymous equivalents, as well as a range of cognitive metaphors that constitute the concept’s figurative content. The study focuses on identifying the metaphorical models through which the concept joy is objectified in Chesterton’s works, including joy – essence of being, joy – spiritual value, joy – power, joy – cause of faith, joy – foundation of faith, joy – creativity. The research also determines the place of the concept joy in the writer’s worldview. The study concludes that joy is one of the fundamental concepts in Chesterton’s perception of the world and his literary works, and furthermore, it affirms the author’s individual significance of the concept joy in defining and comprehending Chesterton’s other key concepts–christianity, faith, and god.