SUBCONCEPT PRODIGY AS A STRUCTURAL PART OF CONCEPT GENIUS (BASED ON THE ENGLISH BIOGRAPHIES)

Abstract

Introduction. According to Z.D. Popova and J.S. Sternin, representatives of the semanticcognitive approach, concept is a basic unit of human mental code, which has an internal structureconsisting of conceptual features; it is the result of the individual and social learning of the world.Conceptual features contain comprehensive information about the corresponding object orphenomenon, as well as the interpretation of information of public consciousness and the treatmentof the subject or phenomenon. Thus, the representatives of this trend treat language as one ofthe main tools of cognition and conceptualization of the world. The study of concept throughthe language isthe most reliable way of linguistic analysis which allows to detect conceptual featuresand to work out the model of the concept. Purpose. The article is dedicated to the investigationof the peculiarities of verbalization of the concept GENIUS in the English language and speech,namely its structural part – subconcept PRODIGY. Methods. To achieve the aim of the workthe following methods of linguistic analysis have been used: componential, contextual andconceptual. Results. Any analysis of the concept starts by detecting language units that representa given concept, their interpretation and vocabulary speech contexts. The research presents mainaspects of the study of the phenomenon of genius in philosophy and psychology; analyzesdefinitions of the lexical units “genius” and “prodigy” in the English dictionaries; singles outconceptual features of the analyzed concept in the popular-science biographies ofWolfgang AmadeusMozart and other child prodigies. Conclusion. The following conceptual features of PRODIGYhave been singled out on the basis of dictionary definitions: young age; intellectual power, talent,extraordinary / superior. The following conceptual features of the subconcept PRODIGY havebeen singled out on the basis of popular-science biographies: young age, extraordinary talentand creative power.