Comparative analysis of verbal and non-verbal representations of the concept of fear (using the gospel texts and Chingiz Aitmatov's novel The Scaffold)

The relevance of the following article lies in the fact that Chingiz Aitmatov’s novel The Scaffold has never been studied before from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. For the first time the author carried out a comparative analysis of the verbal and non-verbal means of representing the concept of fear in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as well as in evangelic episodes in Aitmatov’s novel The Scaffold. On the basis of the existing studies in the field of cognitive linguistics around concepts in general and the concept offear in particular, an attempt was made to study the above-mentioned concept in Aitmatov’s literary discourse. Using component-based and structural analysis, as well as comparative data from linguistic and encyclopedic dictionaries, the structure of the concept offear was identified and described: the nuclear and near-nuclear zones are represented by the nominate fear and its synonyms, such as angst, panic, alarm, and horror. The peripheral and near-peripheral zones of the concept are verbalized using quasi-synonyms, such as passion, timidity, fear, trill, horror, and cowardice, as well as metaphors and epithets, respectively. The analysis of textual fragments revealed that linguistic means explicating the nuclear and near-nuclear zones of the concept offear in the compared sources actually coincide, while when describing the peripheral and near-peripheral zones, significant differences were found in the use of linguistic means in the compared sources.