Metaphorical representation of connection between “silence” and “speech”

The article is devoted to the interconnection of two fragments of a verbal situation - silence and speech. It describes their metaphorical representation, outlines directions for analysis of interaction between metaphoric images in denotatum. The emphasis in the study is shifted to the interpretation of silence. This is due to the fact that, with the ontological evidence of the denotative sphere of silence, its phenomenology is to a certain degree secondary and, as a result, less studied. The authors focus on metaphorical conceptualization of denotatum. In the article, the holistic way of presenting sounding speech, including a representation of the speech-silence interaction, correlates with reversible gestalt psychology figures, actualizing the complex relationship between the background and the figure. The analogy leads to the search for a representation of one (core) or several images of the interaction of speech (figure) and non-speech, silence (background). A spatial metaphor concretized in different directions and generating other images is considered a core image representing the interconnection of speech and silence. The logic of the study leads to the conclusion that while non-metaphorical language means shift the emphasis to the field of speech itself, a metaphorical understanding of the interaction of speech and silence ontologizes both phenomena. The image of space is crucial for the representation of this aspect of a speech event. It generates, first of all, correlation of the images of emptiness - darkness - silence as well as the images of space and its overcoming (moving in space).