A REPRESENTATION OF THE CONCEPT WOMAN IN J. LONDON’S“THE LITTLE LADY OF THE BIG HOUSE”

Abstract

Aim. The article aims to analyze the body of lexical means verbalizing the concept WOMAN in Jack London’s “The Little Lady of the Big House” and reveals its denotational, evaluative and figurative conceptual features in the literary work under study. Methodology. The paper employs a complex system of methods including componential and contextual analysis combined with narrative inquiry. Under the technique of continuous sampling, the body of recurrent linguistic means constituting the nominative field of the concept WOMAN was selected enabling the author to define the semantic elements accounting for the construction of the lexicalized concept in the literary work. Results. The findings of the study reveal the individual connotations attached by the American author to the concept WOMAN as well as the range of its metaphorical representations in the novel under analysis. Research Implications. The article contributes to a better understanding of the multi-layer structure of the concept WOMAN by providing relevant culture-specific knowledge verbalized in a literary text, and aims to recreate a specific fragment of the American linguistic worldview.