MODERN APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF THE IMAGE OF THE CITY IN ARTISTIC AND LITERARY DISCOURSE

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse contemporary approaches and methods of studying the image of the city in artistic and literary discourse in the context of determining the future prospects for research in this field in accordance with the latest theories of cognitive linguistics, which defines the relevance of the topic of the article.

As a result of analytical overview of numerous scientific studies examining urban themes in works of literary fiction, the following main approaches have been identified: interdisciplinary, literary, linguocultural and cognitive-conceptual, as well as various methods and principles of empirical analysis. Despite the productivity of research based upon the identified methodology exploring the image of the city in literature as a complex phenomenon, revealing the various aspects of human activity and the author’s artistic perception of the world, it has been stated that such studies do not draw sufficient attention to linguistic aspect, namely the role of language in shaping the analysed meanings. The most relevant approach is the cognitive-conceptual approach, which studies the concept of the CITY/ГОРОД/ҚАЛА as a mental construct consisting of several levels of structural complexity (radial structure, frame, gestalt, cognitive matrix) and as its linguistic representation, primarily at the lexical level. However, this approach requires the further examination of an entire set of cognitive models and schemes, as well as the corresponding linguistic mechanisms of meaning formation.

The scientific novelty of this study lies in the necessity of examining the concept of the CITY/ГОРОД/ҚАЛА in literary works in accordance with the cognitive theory of linguistic interpretation of the world as well as M. M. Bakhtin’s chronotope theory. M.M. Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope as the organizational centre of the novel provides a basis for the realization of the concept of the CITY/ГОРОД/ҚАЛА within a novel as a spatial component in the conceptual structure of the Space-Time-Continuum chronotope, integrating the SPACE-TIME-EVENT of a literary narrative.

The article used methods of comparative-contrastive and critical analysis, as well as the method of modelling.

The theoretical and practical significance of this study lies in the substantiation of further research prospects in this field on an integrative basis, from the perspectives of chronotope theory, cognitive linguistics, cognitive poetics and cognitive stylistics, as well as in the potential of further use of the results of the study for academic purposes.