The Cognitive-propositional Structure of the Concept of WAR in English-language Artistic Discourse

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of the concept of WAR in English-language artistic discourse, in particular in Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner, which is based on the motives of real events taking place during the civil war in Afghanistan. This concept is presented in the form of a field with a complex structure: the nuclear lexeme war, together with the corresponding synonyms (battle, fighting, struggle, combat) represent the nuclear and near-nuclear zones of the concept; the peripheral zones of the concept are represented by the following units: the near periphery – soldiers, armed men, army, warrior, warlord, destroy, rocket, damage, bomb, rubble, ruins, pursue, quel, oppress; the far periphery (nationally specific tokens) – Afghans, Taliban, Talib, Mujahedin, Soviet, Alliance, Hazara(s), Shi'a, Sunni, Pashtun, kite fighting. The conceptual content of the concept of WAR in the analyzed novel is also represented by a large number of nominal, verbal and adjectival combinations: a cloud of dust, a haze of dust, Mujahedin forces, the roar of the cannon, refugee camps, a relic of two wars, the wires in one's jaws, be half-buried in rubble, to make one's eyes water, etc.