English phraseological units denoting deception (cognitive aspect)

Размещено на http://allbest.ru

ENGLISH PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS DENOTING DECEPTION (COGNITIVE ASPECT)

Nataliia Kartun,

Senior teacher of the Department of Humanities, National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”

Summary. Being a complicated interweaving of intentional, cognitive, and moral aspects, deception accompanies human communication and is realized in it. Deception as a concept is a component of the conceptual picture of the world and linguistic, in particular, phraseological means of objectification of this concept create a linguistic picture of the world. The relevance of the research subject is determined by the great significance of the concept of DECEPTION, objectified by the analyzed phraseological units for the English-speaking community, by the correspondence to the major directions of modern linguistic research, and by the need to identify the cognitive basis of phraseological units denoting deception for the reconstruction of conceptual and linguistic picture of the world. The article considers a cognitive aspect of the analysis of phraseological units denoting deception. The core of the phraseological units denoting deception was systematized and the specificity of phraseological units denoting deception in the cognitive aspect was defined. The analysis of the phraseological units representing the concept of DECEPTION is presented in the form of a frame consisting of slots, subslots, and components. First of all, we tried to analyze and differentiate the concept (meaning) of deception. To indicate the concept of deception a model of cognitive-semantic analysis of phraseological units which can be used in the study of other groups of phraseological units was proposed and substantiated.

The object of the study is English phraseological units denoting deception selected by the method of continuous sampling. The subject of the study is the cognitive characteristics of phraseological units denoting deception. The purpose set also considered the task to denote cognitive features of the concept of deception being represented by the phraseological units and denote the connection between the conceptual sphere of DECEPTION and other spheres that correspond to the concept chosen.

Key words: cognitive linguistics, phraseological unit, concept, deception, cognitive aspect, frame, slot, subslot.

concept deception phraseological

Англійські фразеологічні одиниці на позначення обману у когнітивному аспекті

Анотація. Будучи складним переплетінням інтенціональних, когнітив- них і моральних аспектів, обман супроводжує людську комунікацію і реалізується в ній. Обман як концепт є складником концептуальної картини світу, а мовні, зокрема фразеологічні, засоби об'єктивації цього концепту створюють мовну картину світу. Актуальність теми дослідження пояснюється, по-перше, великою значущістю концепту ОБМАН, об'єктивованого аналізованими фразеологічними одиницями, для англомовної спільноти, по-друге, відповідністю провідним напрямам сучасних лінгвістичних досліджень, по-третє, необхідністю виявлення когнітивного підґрунтя фразеологічних одиниць (ФО) на позначення обману для реконструкції концептуальної та мовної картин світу. Представлена стаття присвячена аналізу фразеологічних одиниць на позначення обману у когнітивному аспекті. Насамперед ми спробували проаналізувати та диференціювати поняття обману. Було систематизовано корпус фразеологізмів, які позначають обман, та виявлено специфіку фразеологічних одиниць на позначення обману в когнітивному аспекті. Аналіз фразеологічних одиниць на позначення обману представлений у вигляді фрейму, що складається зі слотів, підслотів та компонентів. Запропоновано та обґрунтовано модель когнітивно-семантичного аналізу фразеологізмів на позначення обману, яка може бути використана для вивчення інших груп фразеологізмів.

Об'єктом дослідження виступають англійські ФО на позначення обману, дібрані із фразеологічних словників методом суцільної вибірки. Предметом дослідження є когнітивні особливості ФО на позначення обману, які реалізуються у фразеологічному значенні. Поставлена мета також зумовила завдання виявити когнітивні особливості обману, репрезентовані англійськими ФО, та встановити зв'язок концептуальної сфери (КС) ОБМАН з іншими сферами, які слугували джерелом для цієї КС.

Ключові слова: когнітивна лінгвістика, фразеологічна одиниця, концепт, обман, когнітивний аспект, фрейм, слот, підслот.

Introduction. Phraseology as a science attracts more and more attention from linguists, linguistic researchers, historians, ethnologists, writers, art critics, teachers, and journalists because being similar to a language it is “the hiding place of human spirit”, a treasury of cultural achievements, aspirations, customs, hopes of the people and is one of the most important sources of research and reproduction of its past time. The article considers the cognitive features of phraseological units denoting deception. Research materials were about 70 English phraseological units denoting deception selected from phraseological dictionaries [2; 4; 7; 9] and based on the method of continuous sampling.

The problem of the study of phraseological units was raised by such researchers as V. Vinogradov, who studied phraseology separately from language activity highlighting the central position of his theory to identify the structural and semantic features of phraseology; N. Amosova proposed a concept according to which phraseology idioms were defined as units of a certain kind of permanent context; O. Kunin, who dealt with the research on level signs of phraseological units; V. Telia considered the meaning and use of phraseological units in various aspect (semantic, pragmatic, cultural) and others.

The purpose of the article is to systematize the core of the phraseological units denoting deception, define the specificity of phraseological units denoting deception in the cognitive aspect: denote the scope and frame modeling of the conceptual sphere of DECEPTION being represented by the studied phraseological units and define the conceptual spheres correlating with the concept of deception.

The significance of the study is that it proposes and substantiates a model of cognitive-semantic analysis of phraseological units denoting deception which can be used in the study of other groups of phraseological units.

Methodology/Methods. Research methods were chosen depending on the research purpose, tasks, and stages set. A critical analysis of the corresponding literature due to the subject chosen was performed during the first stage of the research. At the same time, the methods of generalization, comparison, classification, and systematization were used. Different views of scientists on phraseology and phraseological units were compared and summarized, common and distinctive features were classified in order to determine the terminological apparatus of phraseology, particularly, the phraseological meaning, and the model for future analysis was substantiated. The second stage of the research is devoted to research materials preparation. During this stage, the method of continuous sampling was used and phraseological units denoting deception were chosen from phraseological dictionaries. During the third stage which is considered analytical, according to the model formed the analysis of selected phraseological units was carried out. When studying cognitive features of the phraseological units such methods of cognitive analysis as frame modeling and the method of conceptual spheres comparison were used.

Results and Discussion. At the present stage of language unit research, cognitive linguistics comes to the fore as the science of language, as a means of acquiring, storing, processing, and using knowledge. The formation of this science is associated with such foreign researchers as J. Lakoff, R. Longacre, M. Johnson, E. Roche and others, and domestic scientists as E. Kubryakova, Z. Popova, V. Telia, and others. The subject of cognitive science research is cognitive categories being constructs of human consciousness that model our knowledge about the world and correlate them with the models of knowledge recorded in language structure.

Language is directly related to cognition. V. Telia suggests that language is the uppermost subject of cognitive science due to the thing that it reflects cognition being the main means of idea expression.

The definition of “cognitive” (from the Latin “cognition” - concept, representation) refers to perceptual, conceptual, and mental. The cognitive paradigm in cognitive linguistics is cognition, that is knowledge. The main attention is paid to the connection of language with cognitive processes and all the methods of obtaining and processing information about the world concerning language forms. A person's knowledge about the world and reality allows the processing of information.

Cognitive categories include concepts, frames, and gestalts. In this article, we use the idea of concept as ideal, abstract units, meanings which a person operates in the process of thinking. These reflect the content of acquired knowledge, experience, the results of all human activity, and the results of a person's knowledge of the world around them.

People think in concepts. Analyzing, comparing, and combining different concepts in the process of mental activity we form new concepts as the result of thinking. A more precise definition can be formulated as follows: a concept is a term that is used to explain the units of mental or psychic resources of human consciousness and the information structure that reflects knowledge of a person's experience.

Throughout the lifetime a person gets to know the world around, learns to know the world, correlates objects with each other, summarizes them, remembers a lot of information, and expresses its results in the process of speech. In this way, concepts are formed being combined into a system of knowledge about the world that consists of concepts formed indifferent ways. In cognitology these systems are called “Conceptual pictures of the world” and their distinctive parts are considered to be “Conceptual areas, spheres”.

The linguistic picture of the world has become the subject of studies by many researchers [1]. One of the main directions in the study of the concept sphere is the phenomenon of the mental world, a set of people's and individual views on the surrounding reality which is embedded in primitive units known as concepts.

One of the methods of structural organization of the picture of the world and conceptual sphere, in particular, is a frame. A frame is an organization of ideas, a set of assumptions about the structure of formal language to express certain knowledge.

Frame conceptions make it possible to model the perception of the world, and organize it as a whole, thereby our everyday behavior. Frames are represented as nodes and relations. The top levels of the frame are fixed and always correspond to things that are fair about a certain situation. Below these nodes are terminal nodes or slots, each of them indicates certain conditions to which its filings should conform. Such fillings are called subslots.

Phraseological units denoting deception appear in different languages and are widely used by speakers in the process of communication which indicates the great significance of the concept of DECEPTION for different language communities and the phraseological units representing this concept in particular. However, along with certain common conceptual features of this phenomenon, there are a lot of distinctions in the interpretation of deception in each language community that can be explained by cultural factors, such as historical, practical, social, and people's other experiences. In our opinion, phraseological units fix this experience to a large extent and therefore are direct access to define these distinctions and the scope of the concept of DECEPTION as a whole for a certain language community. It should also be taken into attention that even within the same community, deception acquires different interpretations depending on which science considers deception as the object of its research.

The concept of deception is associated with the awareness of mercenary motives, cunning, concealment, danger, persuasion, imposition, uncertainty, and negative manifestations/results which can be considered the main elements of deception [4].

In terms of cognitive linguistics, deception can be considered as a conceptual sphere and the specified elements as concepts that form this conceptual sphere. Thus, phraseological units are linguistic representatives of the conceptual sphere DECEPTION in general and its concept components in particular.

According to researchers, the definition of deception comes from the Latin “deception” - deception, lie. The concept was associated with significant negative manifestations of life situations for a long time.

The theoretical and methodological basis of the study of phraseological units denoting deception in the cognitive aspect is research studies on cognitive linguistics by foreign scientists [3; 5]. During the work, cognitive research of phraseological units is carried out in close connection with semantic direction, which is from the meaning of phraseological units to the contents of the concept that it verbalizes. This made it possible to carry out a frame modeling of the conceptual sphere of DECEPTION updated with English phraseological units. In the cognitive aspect, phraseological units denoting deception are linguistic representatives of the conceptual sphere of DECEPTION. This is one of the most significant concepts for the English-speaking community which is the subject of research in different sciences.

The next stage involves determining the scope of the conceptual sphere DECEPTION and its frame model reflected in the semantics of the studied phraseological units.

Phraseological units denoting deception represent the linguistic implementation of the conceptual sphere DECEPTION combining such concepts as MERCENARY MOTIVES, DECEPTION, DANGER OF DECEPTION, CONCEALMENT (SECRET), CONVICTION, SHAMELESSNESS, SUCCESS/DEFEAT OF DECEPTION, WRONG/FALSE OPINION (OBJECT OF DECEPTION) and SUSPICION (OBJECT OF DECEPTION). These concepts were defined based on the analysis of information about deception in psychological and linguistic research.

The concept of DECEPTION is primarily verbalized by lexical not only phraseological means of language. It is considered that the most essential conceptual characteristics of the concept are “fixed” in the semantics of lexical units which are linguistic representatives of the concept. Lexical representatives of the studied concept are lexemes deceive, deception, lie, mislead, swindle, cheat, and trick. The lexical units deceive and deception are chosen as the name of the concept. Referring to the definitions of these units in dictionaries we found out that deception is defined using the lexeme deceive which means:

- to cause to believe what is not true typically in order to gain some personal advantage;

- to cause someone to have a wrong idea or impression about someone or something;

- to catch by guile; ensnare [6];

- to get something from someone by deceiving them;

- to practice deceit;

- to give a false impression;

- be false to; be dishonest with;

- to give someone a wrong belief or opinion about something [9].

Deception as a noun deception is defined as follows:

- an instance of actions and/or schemes fabricated to mislead and/or delude someone into errantly believing a lie or inaccuracy;

- the act of deliberately making someone believe something that is not true;

- a thing that deceives [6];

- the inclination or practice of misleading others through lies or trickery;

- a ruse; a trick;

- the act of hiding the truth, especially to get an advantage [9].

Provided definitions confirm the presence of the selected concepts (MERCENARY MOTIVES, DECEPTION, DANGER OF DECEPTION, CONCEALMENT (SECRET), CONVICTION, SHAMELESSNESS, SUCCESS/DEFEAT OF DECEPTION, WRONG/FALSE OPINION (OBJECT OF DECEPTION) and SUSPICION (OBJECT OF DECEPTION)) within the conceptual sphere DECEPTION.

The meaning in the dictionaries represents deception as a general phenomenon or a typical situation based on mercenary motives of the subject of deception (to gain some personal advantage, get something from someone, to get an advantage), concealing real intentions (secret) (hiding the truth) and providing untruth (what is not true, a lie or inaccuracy, be false), guile, actions aimed at deception (actions and/or schemes), persuasion, imposition (cause to believe, making someone believe) and gives a result which is a formation of an incorrect, false opinion/ impression in the object of deception (cause someone to have a wrong idea or impression about someone or something, give a false impression, to give someone a wrong belief or opinion about something, to mislead and/or delude someone into errantly believing a lie or inaccuracy).

As we can see, the definitions of deception fix the information about the subject of deception, and such characteristics of the situation of deception as danger and suspicion, loss of trust being relevant to the object of deception, were not reflected in the considered definitions in dictionaries.

Defining deception as a situation made it possible for the conceptual sphere of DECEPTION in the form of a frame and separate components of the situation of success to be considered as slots of the frame which are represented by the corresponding concepts. Since we believe that phraseological units denoting success represent the linguistic implementation of the conceptual sphere of DECEPTION, the phraseological units verbalizing the concepts of this domain and activating (filling) certain slots of the frame were determined. English phraseological units represent such a frame structure of the domain SUCCESS:

¦ Slot 1 - Subject of deception. In other words, a person who deceives. Phraseological units directly verbalize the subject of deception: a snake oil salesman - someone who deceives people in order to get money from them); barefaced liar - someone who lies easily, with a total lack of shame; a daylight robber - an untrustworthy person; confidence trickster). The definitions of the given units fix such characteristics of deception as mercenary motive (in order to get money), the shamelessness of the subject of deception (a total lack of shame), unreliability, and untrustworthy.

¦ Slot 2 - Object of deception. A person who is deceived. Phraseological units that illustrate this slot: a leading lamb - a person that can easily believe anyone, a trusty sheep - a trustful person. The phraseological units mentioned fix such a feature of the object as over credulity that harms the object to a certain extent and leads to the results of deception.

¦ Slot 3 - Qualities and abilities of the subject of deception. This point describes the characteristic qualities and abilities of a person who deceives. Thus, we can distinguish the following subslots:

¦ ¦ Subslot 1 - Trickery which is an important quality to deceive. This slot is activated by the phraseological unit slippery as an eel - a crafty and cunning person, who acts illegally.

¦ ¦ Subslot 2 - Dishonesty, unreliability of the subject of deception. This can be illustrated by the following units: crooked as a dog's hind leg - a very dishonest person; fly-by-light - a person considered to be untrustworthy because of operating briefly and dishonestly.

¦ ¦ Subslot 3 - Lying as a constant feature of the subject of deception. The slot is presented by such a unit as a sticky person - someone who has a tendency to deceive and act illegally.

¦ Slot 4 - Aim of deception. There are two opposite directions in the activity of the subject of deception which cause the following subslots to be singled out:

¦ ¦ Subslot 1 - Expedient deception. This slot includes mercenary motives, that is deception to get something advantageous for the subject of the deception: self-affirmation, money, etc.: to pull a fast one - to trick in order to get an advantage; to feather one's nest - to take advantage of the position in order to obtain money to have a comfortable life. The phraseological unit to cook the books - to change financial accounts - has the meaning of obtaining money by dishonest means and a white lie - a lie that you tell someone in order to protect them or avoid hurting their feelings - represents deception for a good purpose.

¦ ¦ Subslot 2 - Unjustified, unmotivated deception without any rational basis, for example, to live a lie - to pretend that a situation is satisfactory when it is not, to go through the motions - to do something without effort or enthusiasm, because you have to, not because you want to.

¦ Slot 5 - Realization of deception. There are some subslots singled out from the slot:

¦ ¦ Subslot 1 - Actions aimed at hiding the intentions of the subject of deception: smokescreen - an action or tactic intended to conceal or divert attention from your real intentions or activities.

¦ ¦ Subslot 2 - Secret (hiding). They are the phraseological units representing confidentiality of the situation of deception: cloak and dagger - activities, which are done in secret, under the board - hidden, dishonest, and illegal activity.

¦ ¦ Subslot 3 - Specification of the scope of deception (game, sales/ purchase). The phraseological units activating this slot are to do a number on - to harm by cheating in a game or match; to sell someone a pup - to deceive in buying or accepting something.

¦ ¦ Subslot 4 - Humorous, not serious nature of deception: to pull one's leg - to tease about something, tell somebody something which is not true, as a joke.

¦ Slot 6 - Deception as persuasion, imposition: to spin the yarn - to tell a long story with distorted truths, lead someone up/down the garden path - to make someone believe smth that isn't true, to pull the wool over someone's eyes, give someone the benefit of the doubt - to choose to believe that the person is innocent and honest, because there is no evidence of the contrary, to throw the dust in somebody's eyes - to prevent them from seeing the truth, to tell a cock-and-bull story - an implausible story used as an explanation or excuse. The semantics of these phraseological units specify the means of persuasion - telling a long or implausible story.

¦ Slot 7 - Uncoupling of the situation of deception.

¦¦ Subslot 1 - Revealing of deception represented by such units as to have one's finger /hand in the till - to be caught stealing or doing smth wrong [8], to be caught red-handed - to be revealed while doing something dishonest or illegal.

¦¦ Subslot 2 - Suspicions. Suspicions can be considered as consequences of a situation of deception: to smell rat - to become suspicious, to have a hunch - to have a strong feeling of suspicion; to be fishy - to have arousing feelings of doubt and suspicion.

¦ Slot 8 - Evaluation of the situation of deception. Deception expresses a prognostic assessment of the probability of an unfavorable outcome of the developing situation (not finished yet). Deception is closely connected with a person's actions and self-evaluation.

Deception can be evaluated both by the subject of the deception and by a third person: it's your foot, a bit thin, to catch someone in a lie.

A situation of deception can be dangerous if the subject has to act in it, but such a situation is not necessarily dangerous. The same situation for different subjects acting under the same circumstances might turn out to be different, that is harm with very dangerous consequences of deception for one, but quite the opposite for another. Therefore, the concept of deception is closely connected to the action of the subject and can be defined as a characteristic of the action. The characteristic of action as dangerous is not an attributive, but an evaluative. Depending on the aspect of the evaluation of the situation of deception this slot can be divided into different variants.

¦ ¦ Subslot 1 - Evaluation of consequences in the future. The subject of the deception can evaluate the situation both as successful and unsuccessful. Therefore, in our opinion it is necessary to divide the subslot into the following components:

- Component 1 - Prospect of success (to have the game in one's hands - to succeed in deceiving).

- Component 2 - Prospect of defeat (to sow the seeds of suspicion - to be suspected of one's guilty; to have the cards stacked against someone - to have illegal things arranged to disadvantage).

¦ ¦ Subslot 2 - Refusal to deceive. This subslot represents the situation when the subject consciously refuses to deceive, thus acting truthfully and providing true information and intentions, for example, to put one s cards on the table - to speak honestly and openly about your feelings and intentions.

¦¦ Subslot 3 - Negative religious evaluation of deception: Deception is not from God therefore, it is a sin. Any action of deception is a sinful action, therefore, it is of evil. The following phraseological units represent this subslot: If you lie, you steal (He that will lie, will steal), Sin has many tools, but a lie is a handle which fits them all, Truth is God's daughter, Deceiving those that trust us, is more than a sin, A lie is the curse of God. Furthermore, we can distinguish such components of the subslot as:

- Component 1 - Expression and description of certain rules of behavior: Better speak truth rudely, than lie covertly.

- Component 2 - Constant life patterns manifestation: He that (who) deceives is ever suspected, A liar is not (never) believed when he speaks the truth.

¦ ¦ Subslot 4 - Negative evaluation of consequences of deception for the subject: Deception is a danger. Some time or other the situation of deception will be revealed and future consequences can be dangerous for the subject. We can single out several components which characterize the results in case of danger:

- Component 1 - Deception harms. Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.

- Component 2 - Deceiving others you deceive yourself. Liars begin by imposing on others, but end by deceiving themselves, He, who seeks to deceive another is, in time, deceived himself, who thinks to deceive God has already deceived himself.

- Component 3 - Loss of trust. A liar is not believed when he speaks the truth, He who lies once is never believed again.

¦ ¦ Subslot 5 - Negative social evaluation - deception is always condemned by society: A white lie leaves a black spot, Half the truth is often a great lie, It is an ill thing to be deceived but worse to deceive, It is better to be lied about than to lie, It is ill to put a blithe face on the black heart.

Conclusions. The analysis of the phraseological units denoting deception allows to determine the scope and the frame structure of the conceptual sphere of DECEPTION and demonstrates the development of this structure. The analyzed phraseological units demonstrate a close connection of the conceptual sphere of DECEPTION with such conceptual spheres as MERCENARY MOTIVES, DECEPTION, DANGER OF DECEPTION, CONCEALMENT (SECRET), CONVICTION, SHAMELESSNESS, SUCCESS/DEFEAT OF DECEPTION, WRONG/FALSE OPINION (OBJECT OF DECEPTION) and SUSPICION (OBJECT OF DECEPTION). The selection was carried out based on the analysis of psychological research data and confirmed providing the linguistic definitive analysis of the lexemes deceive and deception.

The situational nature of deception determined to consider the conceptual sphere of DECEPTION as a frame. Frame modeling was carried out and the main slots of the frame structure submitting the examples of appropriate phraseological units were singled out: 1) subject of deception, 2) object of deception, 3) qualities and abilities of the subject of deception, 4) aim of deception, 5) realization of deception, 6) deception as persuasion, imposition, 7) uncoupling of the situation of deception, 8) evaluation of the situation of deception. Some slots were divided into subslots to get an extended representation of the concept of deception.

REFERENCES

1. Brutyan GA Language and a picture of the world. NDVSH. Philosophical sciences. 1973. No. 1. Pp. 108-111.

2. Kunin A.V English - Russian phraseological dictionary. Moscow : “Russian”, 1984. 944 p.

3. Clausner T., Croft W. Domains and image schemas. Cognitive Linguistics, Vol. 10, No. 1. 1999. Pp. 1-31.

4. Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary. Collins, 2006. 497 p.

5. Langacker R. Foundatoins of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1. Theoretical Prerequesites. Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1987. 516 p.

6. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1974. 542 p.

7. Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners of English. Oxford University Press, 2006. 470 p.

8. Rocsh E. Principles of categorization. Cognition and categorization. Hillsdale (New York) : Erlbaum, 1978. Pp. 27-48.

9. Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language. Unabridged. New York, 1993. 690 p.

Размещено на Allbest.ru