Abstract:
Language is the main instrument of cognition. Present-day Cognitive Linguistics considers the notion of concept as one of the most widely used and controversial. Although it has become a “household name” for many researchers, its content varies in different scientific schools and has got a variety of interpretations by individual scholars. The point is that the concept is the category of thinking, it is an aspect of thought and it gives plenty of room for its interpretation. Today the category of concept appears in the studies of philosophers, logicians, psychologists, and it bears traces of all these extra linguistic explanations. The topicality of the investigation is in exploring text processing taking into account cultural, language and psychological characteristics and in necessity to define verbalization of the concepts LIFE and DEATH in Emily Dickinson’s poetry. As we know language is an integral part of cognition which reflects the interaction of cultural, psychological, communicative and functional considerations and which can only be understood in the context of a realistic view of conceptualization and mental processing. The cognitive analysis of our paper includes the structural characteristics of natural language categorization and the relations between language and thought. This analysis provides useful information on the concept of life and death in Western cultures. It also enhances the readers’ understanding of the life and death poems written by Dickinson. The aim of this paper is to define and analyze the textual and linguistic embodiment of the concepts LIFE and DEATH in the poetical language of Emily Dickinson.
