THE SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE CONCEPT “CRIME” IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLDVIEW

Abstract

The linguistic worldview reflects reality through the prism of national and cultural features characteristic of a certain collective. Knowing the world and forming ideas about it leads to the emergence of universal concepts that convey objective reality and are fixed in group and individual consciousness in the form of concepts. The concept of CRIME is one of the basic categories of human consciousness. In modern English-language discourse, the concept of CRIME is characterized by high representativeness. This indicates the significant place that this concept occupies in the picture of the world of modern British and American society. According to the lexical representation, the concept CRIME is a concept-frame on the one hand and a concept-scenario on the other. The concept frame is a collection of associations stored in memory, bringing together separate details into a single whole. The fact that the concept CRIME is also a script concept confirms the dynamic nature of the crime. The concept scenario is a stereotypical episode with signs of movement and development. In fact, these are frames that unfold in time and space as a sequence of separate episodes, stages and elements. The key position within the concept of crime is occupied by elements of semantics represented by types of crimes, as they most representatively and unambiguously correspond to the concept of crime. The typology of crimes is diverse and has the largest number of variations. The CRIME concept, like all other concepts, is structured metaphorically and thus finds a figurative expression in language. Metaphor is closely related to human cognitive activity, so even such a serious concept as crime can also be described using metaphorical means of expression. Metaphor has an individualized character. It is created by each medium according to his experience and imaginative capabilities. So, metaphor “colors” language, makes it more lively and understandable. The interpretation of metaphors bears the imprint of both their creator and their interpreter.