CONCEPTUAL SPACE SENSE OF LIFE IN JOHN GREEN’S NOVEL "LOOKING FOR ALASKA"

Abstract

Academic researches of recent years have been carried out in the field of cognitive linguistics, in particular linguistic concepts, which gives the scientists a possibility to understand the processes of thinking more widely and deeply, which
results in the categorization and conceptualization of the world in human mind. The basic notion in the modern research of linguistic-cognitive paradigm is the concept. Modern cognitive linguistics considers the concepts as a way of forming knowledge about certain objects of the basic origin of the semantic scope of the language. The linguistic manifestation of universal categories of culture can reveal their distinctive features and axiological characteristics in a particular linguistic culture. This explains the gigantic range of concepts, among which the concept SENSE of LIFE plays an important role. The clarification of SENSE OF LIFE is constantly focused on humanitarian studies, namely, philosophy, psychology, sociology and cultural studies. The need for a comprehensive study of the concept SENSE of LIFE based on the material of John Green's youth novel "Looking for Alaska", the diversity of the issues in it, its popularity in the circle of readers, as well as multi-addressing, the focus on teenage and adult readers, determined the choice of our scientific work topic. The topicality of our investigation is determined by its involvement in a range of key issues of the cognitive-discursive paradigm of linguistics, based on the study of various versions of representation of the essence of human existence in the form of concepts. In addition, the relevance is reinforced by the orientation of the work to identify the ontological status of the concept of SENSE of LIFE, the reconstruction of its structure and the definition of the means of its figurative actualization in the discourse of John Green's novel "Looking for Alaska," which confirms the compliance with modern reconnaissance of artistic linguistic concepts.