Psycholinguistic Content of the Emotional Concept of «Fear» in the Contemporary English Language Picture of World

Abstract

In this article it is shown that in contemporary English language model of the world, the emotional concept of “fear” is one of the most commonly used by its self-identification. Fear is a universal base emotion that reflects the instinct of self-preservation and plays a leading role in providing human life. It is proved that the concept is a complex multilayer formation, the central part of which is the core. The core of the emotional-conceptual sphere is the mental representations of knowledge of the person about their own emotions as the facts of manifestation of the activity of the human emotional sphere. Its peripheral zone also includes information about all spheres of human existence that in one way or another predetermine its functioning or are interpreted through the prism of its existence. This fact testi0xFB01es to the imposition of the emotional conceptual sphere on other parts of the conceptual picture of the world of the person, and, consequently, on its determinant role in the consciousness of the individual: all concepts are «emotional» from the point of view that nothing can be comprehended (conceptualized and categorized) without direct or indirect intervention in the cognition of the emotional sphere of consciousness. So, emotions are the foundation that seems to «cling» to the conceptual picture of the world of representatives of any linguistic community. The analysis of vocabulary definitions of fear allowed us to distinguish the following main core features of the emotional concept of fear in the English language: fear is an unpleasant, painful emotion or feeling caused by the nearness or the possibility of impending danger to oneself or others who are important accompanied by a desire to avoid or to escape it. It is determined that in the semantics of the analyzed token, there is a generic semantic «emotion» or «feeling» that points to the corresponding denotative sphere of human consciousness, represented by the superordinate (the highest level of generalization) category of emotion. All other species of this lexical unit serve to specify the meaning of tokens. Among the species the main components are the following: the lexical unit «painful» that interacts with the semantic meaning  «negative» (unpleasant), «danger / threat», «desire to avoid or to escape it» –the desire to avoid or avoid the threat, «the nature of the impending danger» – inevitable: real / close, «the possibility of impending danger» – possible / inevitable, «oneself or somebody who is important» – the individual / people close to him. Consequently, in contemporary English categorically different aspects of lexical unit of fear are fixed by derivative word-building units, which explicate: the state of the person; features of the character of the person; negative evaluation of the object of the threat; manner of the behavior.