THE STRUCTURE OF THE HYPERCONCEPT OCCULTISM (based on the English dictionaries)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the structure of the English hyperconcept OCCULTISM on the material of explanatory and etymological dictionaries. In this study, an attempt is made to take into account different approaches to structuring the concept, in particular, the linguistic and cultural concept. The following research methods are used in the work: etymological analysis, definition analysis, conceptual analysis. The structure of the English hyperconcept OCCULTISM contains three components: ALCHEMY, MAGIC, ASTROLOGY. The paper analyzes their motivational and conceptual features. We believe that motivational and notional features are primary or basic, other features are secondary and may vary in their number and methods of nomination. The definition analysis showed that the notional features of the concept ALCHEMY are “unscientific, search, transformation, eternal life, universal medicine, mysticism, secrecy, purity of thought, durability, versatility”. The motivational features of the concept ALCHEMY are determined by the etymology of the English lexical unit “alchemy” and are verbalized as follows: “occultism, search, unscientific”. The notional features of the concept MAGIC are “power, supernatural, extraordinary, use of means, influencing or predicting events, hidden, controlling, spiritual, superhuman”. The motivational features of the concept are determined by the etymology of the English lexical unit “magic” and are verbalized as follows: “to be able, have power”. Based on the definition analysis, we conclude that the definitions of these units contain the following significant components: (1) SUBJECT (PHENOMENON), (2) PROPERTY OF THE SUBJECT (PHENOMENON) – power to influence, control, (3) OBJECT – people, events, (4) ATTRIBUTE – spiritual, supernatural, hidden. The notional and motivational features of the concept ASTROLOGY are “foretelling, stars, influence”. The perspective of this study is the analysis of verbalization of the components of the hyperconcept OCCULTISM in English discourse and the identification of their figurative and associative features.