Article.
Anna
Kryshtaliuk
DOI 10.31558/1815-3070.2019.37.17
UDC 811.111
(081)
PHRASEOCOGNITIVE DIMENSION OF
MEDIA EVENT REPRESENTATION
Медіа-подія та фразеологічні одиниці неодноразово були об’єктами
дискурсивних досліджень. У цій розвідці ми
пропонуємо міждисциплінарний, когнітивно-дискурсиний підхід до вивчення ролі
фразеологізмів у репрезентації медіа-подій. Виокремлений у дослідженні
фразеокогнітивний вимір дозволяє розглядати фразеологізми як одиниці, які
активують значеннєві концептуалізації з доступом до конструювання медіа-подій.
Ключові слова: медіа-подія,
фразеологічна одиниця, когнітивно-дискурсивний підхід, фразеокогнітивний вимір,
концептуалізація.
Introduction
At
the present stage of interdisciplinary investigation wide scientific attention
is paid to the media discourse and its constructs (Potapenko; Bednarek;
Bignell; Matheson; Talbot). One of them is media event which is defined as an
embodied, discursive, meaningful construct resulted from the transformed
conceptualization of a raw event (Kryshtaliuk 190) based on mental structures
and operations. The inherent characteristics of an event are historical
significance, novelty and change of knowledge about environment. These basic
features are grounded in such profound operational characteristics as giving
specific meaning to and focusing on a single occurrence as well as being
contingent, consequential and carrying expectations. The discursive features of
an event generated by the media are public reach, group-building potential
(Bösch 2), simulation of visual evidence and physical presence.
Initial
construction and interpretation of media events often occur in the newspaper
discourse, which being a subtype of media discourse, is viewed as a mediated
reality generated by verbal and non-verbal means that strongly influences the
public. Newspaper discourse is a complex unity of news items and analytical
texts.
One
of the verbal dimensions of newspaper discourse participating in event
construction is phraseocognitive formed by the meaning of a phraseological unit
and the access it gives to the conceptualization of an event. The problems
raised in the investigation are of high relevance but the phraseocognitive
dimension and its role in media event construction have not been within the
scope of linguocognitive study yet.
Theoretical prerequisites and
methodology
Phraseocognitive
representation of a media event in the newspaper discourse is based on the theory
of the embodied cognition (“Embodied Cognition”), the cognitive study of the
modern English media discourse (Potapenko) and the theory of construal
(Langacker 55–89).
Cognition
relates to all aspects of conscious and unconscious mental function and constitutes
the mental events (mechanisms and processes) and knowledge involved in a whole
host of tasks ranging from ‘low-level’ object perception to ‘high level’ decision-making tasks (Evans 17).
According to the theory of embodiment cognition is grounded in the human body
and its interaction with the environment, thus in perception and action (Kristiansen, Michel, Dirven and de Mendoza Ibáñez
2). According to this theory all cognitive abilities, activities and their
products are embodied. They are shaped by image schemas which are recurrent
patterns of our actions, perceptions and conceptions (Rohrer 127–128).
Image
schemas are good at constructing media events in the newspaper discourse
because of some reasons: (1) they are recurrent patterns of
bodily experience; (2) they preserve the topological
structure of the perceptual whole; (3) they operate
dynamically in and across time; (4) they are structures which link
sensorimotor experience to conceptualization and language (Johnson, Rohrer 37).
In
the cognitive study of the modern English media discourse developed by S. I. Potapenko
image schemas were grouped and proved to be effective mechanisms of recreating
events by constructing topological, perceptual, spatial-motor and dynamic
relations between referents (Potapenko 38). Phraseological units give access to
different image schematic conceptualizations and construe them differently.
Phraseological units construe event conceptualizations with the application of
construal phenomena such as schematicity – specificity and others introduced by
R. Langacker (Langacker 55).
The
discussed above theories are used as the basis in developing the methodology of
cognitive-communicative analysis applied to the study of phraseological units
and their role in the formation of the phraseocognitive level as a discursive
construct.
Aim and material
The
aim of the paper is to specify the activated by phraseological units meaningful
conceptualizations that participate in constructing the phraseocognitive
dimension of a media event representation in the modern English newspaper
discourse through the prism of the image-schematic component of its structure.
The data for the research has been taken from the web-site of the British
newspaper the Guardian (2012–2018). Newspaper discourse
samples with phraseological units have been continuously selected for the
investigation.
Approaching phraseological units
Phraseological
units have been approached from structural-semantic (Lakomska), linguocultural
(Malcolm), functional-cognitive (Mishchenko 28) perspectives in different types
of discourse. But their status in language and discourse as well as their
definition are not fully decided.
From
a cognitive perspective a phraseological unit is defined as a complete
construction having unity of form and meaning underpinned by embodied semantics
formalized by image schemas (Mishchenko 40) and mental operations. Phraseological
units are distinguished as condensed representations of extensive world
conceptualizations. The differentiating features of phraseological units are
iteration and anomality (Kuznetsov 62). Scientists emphasize the semantic
continuum of the phraseological meaning from the most exact to the vaguest
(Numberg 492). The phraseological units are non-compositional but conventional,
i. e. their meanings cannot be interpreted from their parts (Cacciari
668). Consequently, the conventional meaning of a phraseological unit is the
access to the contextual-interpretational construction of meaning in discourse.
It is supposed that phraseological units treated as conventional referential
signs are originally new metaphors (Munat 391). Like signs phraseological units
are complete, fixed, minimal and covert (Munat 393).
Integrity,
stability, separability, expressivity (Kuznetsov 62) together with focusing and
coherence are those correlative features that establish common ground between
phraseological units and newspaper discourse.
Phraseological
units form a phraseocognitive dimension as their functioning in the modern
British newspaper discourse is based on such principles of cognitive
linguistics as symbolic and encyclopedic nature of a linguistic sign (Evans,
Bergen, Zinken 21). The meaning of a phraseological unit as meaning of any
linguistic expression presupposes an elaborate conceptual substrate, including
such matters as background knowledge and apprehension of the physical, social,
and linguistic context (Langacker 4). On the other hand, a phraseological
expression imposes a particular construal, reflecting just one of the countless
ways of conceiving and portraying the situation in question (Langacker 55). We
will further demonstrate that the phraseocognitive dimension results from the
embodied interaction of phraselogical semantics with the means of mass
communication and the environment of language users. Phraseological semantics
or conceptualization is the basis of an event representation. Dynamic semantics of
phraseological units The
phraseocognitive dimension of event representation is mostly structured by
dynamic semantics. It has been found out that in the newspaper discourse
phraseological units with meanings of ability, inability, blockage and blockage
restraint prevail. Phraseological units with the meaning of ability
represent event participants as able to gain success, e. g. take office, prepare the ground, gain ground, pave the way for, set the stage for, throw light on, etc. The key
components of the given above phraseological units are verbs take, prepare, gain, pave, set, throw
activating the vector of ENABLEMENT. Nouns office, ground, way, stage, light
are dependent specifying components indicating the
goal of ENABLEMENT, its final point that can implicate instruments to movement
and further success, e. g. It’s two weeks till Trump takes office (The Guardian 7.01.2017). In
the given newspaper headline the phraseological unit takes office with
semantics ‘to assume a position of political authority, especially one that is granted as a result of public election’ (The Free Dictionary) indicates
the prospective ability of the event participant (Trump) to become a president. The phraseological unit prepare the ground with
semantics ‘to create or prepare the basics or essential
foundation’ (The Free Dictionary) in the headline Chelsea see off Stoke and prepare the ground for key game with
Napoli (The Guardian 11.03.2012) signals
ability of the event participant (Chelsea)
to cause one more event (key game with
Napoli). The phraseological unit to throw light on with semantics ‘to reveal
information or details about something’ (The Free
Dictionary) gives access to constructing a new perspective on the well-known
event participants, e. g. Beyoncé
meets Botticelli: how tabloid photos throw new light on old masters (The
Guardian 20.08.2018). In the given headline due to the phraseological unit throw new light on tabloid photos are
conceptualized as sources of a new event based on reminiscences (old masters). In the newspaper discourse the choice of
phraseological units is determined by the associative correlation of its
meaning with media events, e. g. How the ‘blues’ of polar heroes throws light on Sad syndrome (The Guardian, 13.10.2018). In the given above headline the choice of the phraseological unit throw light on is predetermined by
closeness of its socially abstracted meaning to the real physical conditions of
the lack of light in Antarctica, that has a negative influence on the health of
explorers (polar heroes). The component light becomes salient in construing the meaning of ability to
explain Sad syndrome which is spread
on the territory. The meaning of inability is connected with those event
participants who cannot gain results and are unsuccessful. This meaning is
represented by such phraseological units as not
playing with a full deck, fall flat, lose ground, bring something to its knees, shoot oneself in the foot, take the shine off something etc. The verbal
phraseological unit fall flat with
semantics ‘to fail or be ineffective’ (The Free Dictionary) signals about
ineffective solutions or actions of politicians, e. g. Boris digs himself in deeper as his usual
tricks fall flat (The Guardian 14.03.2018). In the given headline
the phraseological unit fall flat construes
the inability of the UK Foreign Secretary Boris
to use successful manipulative techniques (his usual tricks). The
semantics of the phraseological unit lose ground ‘to lose a previously held advantage or lead’ (The
Free Dictionary) is determined by the salient verbal component lose and gives access to conceptualizing
event participants as losing their former position, Britain’s big supermarkets lose ground to cut-price rivals and upmarket grocers (The Guardian 19.11.2013). The conceptualization of the given headline is determined by the meaning of the phraselogical unit lose ground, indicating
the inability of event participants (Britain’s big supermarkets) to
keep their high position. The
harm done by an event participant to himself or herself is represented by the
phraseological unit to shoot oneself in the foot meaning ‘to damage or
impede one’s own plans, progress or actions’ (The Free Dictionary), e. g. Theresa May has shot herself in the foot
with the Brexit starting gun (The Guardian 4.10.2016). In the given
headline the phraseological unit to shoot
oneself in the foot indicates
the reflexive inability by representing the event participant (Theresa May) simultaneously
as source and goal of the force. The
meaning of blockage is constructed by the presence of physical, social,
cultural and psychological barriers blocking the further activity of event
participants, e. g. Danny Alexander: another top-rate tax cut would happen ‘over my dead body’ (The Guardian 5.02.2014). In
the given headline the phraseological unit over my dead body with semantics ‘used to emphasize that you completely oppose something and would do anything to prevent it from happening’ (The Free
Dictionary) indicates highly intensive blockage. Its source
is the event participant (Danny Alexander) and goal is another top-rate tax cut. Some phraseological units like at liberty, get someone off the hook give access to the meaning of blockage restraint which is opposite
to blockage, e. g. $18m plan to replace bail aims to keep defendents at liberty until proven guilty The Guardian 8.07.2015).
In the given headline the phraseological unit at liberty with
meaning ‘freely able to do something’ (The
Free Dictionary) represents a temporary (until proven guilty) blockage restraint for defendents. Conclusion Media
events are initially constructed in the newspaper discourse in the process of
conceptualization which is embodied and structured by image schemas. Newspaper
discourse is linguistically and conceptually multidimensional. One of such
dimensions is phraseocognitive, which arises out of meaningful
conceptualizations accessed by means of phraseological units. The
conducted research has shown that phraseocognitive dimension is mostly
structured by dynamic meaningful conceptualizations.
Among these conceptualizations prevail meanings of ability, inability, blockage
and blockage restraint. Accordingly phraseological units represent media
event participants as able to gain success, to cause one more event, to show
the event in a new perspective as well as unable to gain results or being
unsuccessful and losing their position. Phraseological
units with the meaning of blockage represent physical, social, cultural and
psychological barriers that can occur on the way of event participants. Some
media events are represented by phraseological units conceptualizing event
participants as goals of blockage restraint.
The prospect
of further research is to look at discursive functions of phraseological units
and their contribution into media event construction.
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