Lexical semantics of the concept “Steppe” in the artwork

Abstract

The article discusses the cognitive-semantic level of a literary work that is verbalized in the author’s text through semantic content, which represents the concept under consideration. Idiostylistic features of the concept “Steppe” in the classic trilogy of Ilyas Esenberlin “The Nomads” (the article analyzes the first book “The Charmed Sword”) reflect the special ethnic worldview of nomads, representing an inseparable connection to the environment. The article is conceived as an effort to expand current approaches to analyzing the literary composition concept, the concept semantics correlation with denotative-referential meaning and conceptual spirit of the text. Collectively it helps to understand the universal and unique world of a literary text as a whole. The article considers expression features, lexical semantics and cognitive interpretation of the concept within the text semantic space through the cognitive-semantic approach, combining traditional semantic and conceptual analysis techniques. The conducted content analysis allows to highlight specific thematic aspects of the semantic space conceptualization, identify significant categories and phenomena of reality expressed by means of language. The results and conclusions proposed in the scientific article can serve as additional material in the field of linguocognitive research for further development of methods for studying the semantic space of a literary text. Key words: Conceptual analysis, concept, reflective semantics, verbalization, means of expression.