THE MODELLING OF THE DOMAINS OF THE EXPRESSION OF THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE IN THE BRITISH PUBLICISTIC DISCOURSE ON THE BASIS OF THE CHI-SQUARE CRITERION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the modelling of domains which express the concept of LANGUAGE in the British publicistic discourse on the basis of the χ2 criterion. A domain is a cognitive model that contains a set of features that are revealed when the concept name is combined with accompanying words. To determine the domains of the expression of the concept under study, the adjoining words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) are analyzed in one syntactic frame together with the nominative lexeme

„language". Accompanying nouns, verbs and adjectives to the concept name of LANGUAGE are grouped by common thematic features and divided into lexical-semantic classes (LSCs), representing the spheres of concept expression: nouns constitute forty LSCs, verbs account for thirty-five LSCs, adjectives amount to twenty-six LSCs. The statistic-linguistic method of the χ²-test was employed to determine the lexical-semantic classes (LSCs) of adjoining lexemes associated with the name of the concept that are predominantly used in publicistic discourse and thus establish the most relevant areas of expression of the concept in the articles of the British publicistic discourse.

On  the  basis  of the  dominant  LSCs  in  accordance  with  the  χ2  criterion,  domains  of the

expression of the concept of LANGUAGE were identified. Fourteen domains („linguistic features of language”, „purity of speech”, „origin and territorial functioning of language”, „the existence of language and attitude to it”, „people as native speakers”, „education / science”, „communication / emphatics  in  relation  to  language”,  „political  and  military  spheres”,  „modern  technologies”,

„religion”, „social spheres (Economics, Law, Sports) ”, „art / mass media”, „time”, „body language”) were determined.The broadest domain is the domain of „linguistic features of language”, which contains eight lexical-semantic classes. Such domains as „body language”, „the origin and territorial functioning of the language”, „purity of speech”, „people as native speakers”, „social spheres (Economics, Law, Sports)”, „education / science”, „modern technologies” are quite numerous in the discourse under study, since they make up six LSCs. The least used are the domains of „art / mass media”, „time”, „religion” (only two LSCs).