Absolutely True Happiness: The Actualisation of the Concept of Happiness In the Novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie

The article is devoted to identifying the specifics of the representation of the concept of happiness in Sherman Alexi's modern English-language teen novel "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian". The scientific novelty of this article is determined by the application of an integral model combining frame-semantic analysis and an updated paradigm of speech acts. The four-tier scheme of the happiness frame, consisting of the experiencing subject, trigger, emotional reaction and value result, has been reconstructed, and additional slots "value conflict" and "breaking of happiness" have also been allocated, reflecting the cultural binary character of Indian Junior. For him, the ability to see a ray of light in the dark, to hold a brief moment of joy, even if it does not eliminate the background of pain, is happiness. The field environment of the concept is classified into five semantic groups, and the high cognitive plasticity of the category is recorded. An important pragmatic tool is comedy, which is used to revise traditional ideas about happiness and serves as a counter-discourse. A pragmatic analysis revealed the dominance of evaluative expressives and softened directives, which indicates a teenage strategy of masking positive feelings. In the novel, the specificity of the representation of the concept of happiness lies in the honest and ironic depiction of all shades of happiness. The results obtained expand the understanding of the functioning of teleonomic concepts in artistic communication and form the basis for further comparative literature research for young readers.