Evaluative semantics of the metaphorical models “Man is a mechanism” and “Mechanism is a man” in the russian language picture of the world

Statement of the problem. This article analyzes the anthropomorphic image of a mechanism and the mechanistic image of a person in the aspect of evaluative semantics, reveals the axiological orientation of conceptual models, and presents the characteristics of the reversible correlation of the analyzed concepts in terms of their evaluative orientation. The purpose of the article is to analyze the metaphorical models “MAN - MECHANISM” and “MECHANISM - MAN” in terms of evaluative semantics, to identify the nature and axiological potential of conceptual metaphorical models. The study was carried out on the methodological basis of cognitive linguistics and was carried out on the material of the texts of the National Corpus of the Russian Language, Internet forums representing the semantics of the mechanism both as a target sphere and as a source sphere for the metaphorical interpretation of the image of a person. Research results confirm the functional-semantic asymmetry of metaphorical models, which appears in different evaluative orientations of the metaphors of the compared models. Thus, most of the lexical representatives of the “MAN is a MECHANISM” model is characterized by a negative evaluative connotation: a person in the image of a mechanism is characterized negatively or ironically. While the evaluative semantics of the metaphors of the correlated MM “MECHANISM is a MAN” is characterized by neutrality.