Semantic space of the concept of "money" (in the novel "Money: a suicide note" by M. Amis)

Modern age is the time of commercialism where money has become the dominant value both of a person and the society. The «Me» possessing money and all the benefits money can give is being set into the center of social existence. An attempt to consider the meanings of the concept of «Money» from a philosophical point of view in the context of the cognitive linguistic approach to semantic studies is being made in this article. The selected concept is analyzed in the text of a novel by M. Amis, a contemporary British author, and is a part of the modern English world view. The concept defined in the studied literary text by the only word «money» constantly changes acquiring new meanings and can be presented as a semantic space model. The semantic space of the concept of «Money» is a complex structure consisting of a number of the interrelated meanings - «life»; «pleasure»; «success»; «freedom of choice»; «power of people»; «medium of social interaction»; «freedom from money»; «power over people»; «love for money»; «mammon»; «economic evil»; «evil-disease»; «death». The meaning «life» is the main one comprising all the other meanings of the concept. In the model the meaning «death» is separated from the other meanings since in the philosophical explanation of the novel money is a suicide note, something that is between life and death and the only thing in the world left for people. The conclusion is that the designed semantic space model of the concept of «Money» proves the hypothesis that in view of its significance the studied concept contains a great number of important real life aspects.