LANGUAGE REPRESENTATION AND COGNITIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONCEPT IMAGINATION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the verbal representation of the concept IMAGINATION and the identificationof its cognitive characteristics. The analysis of definitions of the noun imagination in English lexicographic sources madeit possible to identify the main motivating features that reflect the very mechanism of formation and further developmentof the concept.The nominative field of the concept which includes its nominations – the keyword and its synonyms was constructed. The implementation of lexemes representing the concept in the text was traced. The discrepancy between the createdimage and the actual state of affairs is realized in the constructions only in smb's mind, in smb's imagination: Imaginationcan be characterized according to the criteria big/small,little; narrow/wide.Adjectives describing imagination demonstrate the degree to which this ability is formed in a person, characterizethe degree of realism of the image formed by a person, and indicate the good or bad work of imagination.The images with which a person operates in his/her mind are not limited to the reproduction of directly perceived,although previous experience can be the impetus for imaginary pictures. It was revealed that a person can see in imageswhat he/she did not directly perceive, and what was not there at all, and even what cannot be in such a concrete form inreality:Thus, not every process occurring in images can be understood as a process of reproduction. Transformation becomesthe main characteristic of the imagination.The cognitive features of the concept include: “construction”/”the process of creating new images”; “to imaginesomething”; “control”, “the ability of the mind to be creative or inventive”.The analysis of language material demonstrates various emotionally colored connotations of the concept. IMAGINATIONas a concept receives such a predicative characteristic that qualifies it as the ability to create object-sensual picturesand images.The concept IMAGINATION is an actual and communicatively relevant concept of the English-speaking conceptualsphere and is represented by a numerical nominative field and a three-dimensional cognitive structure.