System organisation of the "water element" in the novel Mary by V. Nabokov: In relation to the problem of cognitive context

Abstract

The author employs a new cognitive approach to interpreting a literary text by V. Nabokov, Russian writer-exile, in the article for detecting a specific nature of national mentality in a "threshold" situation - residing in foreign lands. The source of the study is the novel "Mary". The principal method - conceptualisation of the matter under investigation - is based on the output from the surface level of the text of contextual implementation of linguistic incarnation of WATER text dominant followed by identifying the cognitive base of forming semantic and conceptual space of the text. In order to solve the assigned tasks particular methods were used - descriptive method, which includes the observation, comparison, generalization of factual evidence and its classification, component analysis method, contextual analysis method. Illustrations in the text were obtained by a continuous sampling method. It was found that the cognitive approach is consistent with some fundamental ideas of the functional and structural-semantic approach, but in the author's opinion the main outstanding feature of the cognitive approach is the material applied: it stands a reason that a literary text can be considered as such. The semantic unit of WATER concept is a reduced implication, and it takes place upon activation of the semantic web, interacting with the units of TIME and LIFE, making a holistic framework for text interpretation. Implementation of the proposed algorithm of the study of the conceptual space of the text in the article materials may be useful for linguists dealing with problems of cognitive science, as well as for those interested in the works by V. Nabokov.