Abstract
The article is devoted to the study of the individual-author concept "Chert", represented in A. P. Chekhov’s creative work (based on the material of the National Corps of the Russian language and stories with relevant topics: “Talking drunk with a sober devil”, “Shoemaker and unclean power”, “Witch”). This concept did not use to be the subject of special consideration, which determines the novelty of our work. M. S. Vinogradova investigated the metaconcept "Devil" in A. P. Chekhov’s prose of late period. The devil, despite belonging to the "evil spirits", is opposed to the line as a cultural concept that has European roots. The relevance of our study is due to the importance for modern cognitive linguistics of the study of individually-authored concepts of the artistic conceptosphere. The purpose of the study is to identify the typical and specific content of the author's concept “Chert”. For the analysis of this mental formation, a layered linguoconceptual method developed by I. A. Tarasova is used. The description of the “Chert” individual author’s concept is based on the identification of the layers that make it up: subject, conceptual, figurative, associative, symbolic, value-appraisal. Layer-by-layer analysis of the individual-author’s concept “Chert” in A.P. Chekhov’s artistic conceptosphere showed that the cognitive differentiation of its different layers varies. The essence is the subject layer. The concept includes both typical and specific components. Bright specific components of the content of the “Chert” concept are in the subject, conceptual and associative layers. The figurative layer of the studied mental formation is represented by the usual “chert – man” metaphor. The value-appraisal level of the concept comprises an ambivalent assessment with a predominance of negative content. The practical significance of the article lies in the possibility of applying its results in the study of cognitive linguistics, linguoculturology, A.P. Chekhov.
Key words
Chert, concept, verbalization (representation) of the concept, individual author’s concept, artistic concept sphere, A. P. Chekhov.