Language representation of the concept “WOMAN” in the novel “Over the Neman” by Eliza Ozheshko

Abstract

The article describes in details a human-oriented and conceptual approaches to study linguistic phenomena at forming an integral national picture of the world and the writer’s personal literary style. The author has explored the evolution of scientific researches concerning the verbalization of the literature objects necessary for a human life and conceptualization. The existence of cognitive strategies of the concept ‘WOMAN’ have been emphasized on. They are based on the principals of archaic worldview and a mythological picture of the world. It is a close connection between the concept and ethnically specific and generally cultural features of a certain nationality that has been determined. The concept ‘WOMAN’, its structure and verbalizing instruments in the Polish language based on the text material of 19th century fiction prose have been analyzed. It is stated that the concept realization in the novel ‘Over the Neman’ has been performed with the authorial vocabulary. It is aimed at reflecting and describing the protagonist’s appearance and outlining her inner world. The naming ‘WOMAN’ is mostly described by the nouns and adjectives with a positive connotation; a general characteristic of the protagonist’s appearance is expressed by the adjectives to nominate the face, eyes, hair, body type, constitution and clothes. First and foremost, an inner individual characteristic is verbalized via various and diverse in its connotation lexical and grammatical groups. The article states, in the character of a protagonist Yustyna, a writer of the positivism era Eliza Ozheshko generalized the best female features, depicted the strong personality who combined a wisdom, courage, will and tenderness. The literary type is presented according to a woman position in the society of that time, in order to find specific features of the 19th century era and exalt the labour man. The author details the specific features of verbalization of the concept ‘WOMAN’ as a piece of the Polish fiction worldview. Owning to the synthesis of cognitive, lingual and cultural approaches, the type ‘WOMAN’ has been outlined and presented as a phenomenon of a national conscience, in fiction prose.