Semantic structure of the concept "patriotism" through the prism of linguocognitivistics

Shagbanova Khabiba Sadyrovna Doctor of Philology Professor, Department of Philosophy, Foreign Languages and Humanities, Tyumen Institute for Advanced Studies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia 625049, Russia, Tyumen region, Tyumen, Amurskaya str., 75 khabiba_shagbanova@list.ru Other publications by this author

The concept of "patriotism" is one of those mental structures whose semantic behavior again and again attracts the attention of specialists in culture, sociology, history, philosophy and linguistics. In the space of the Russian language picture of the world, the presented concept reflects the system of moral and spiritual values and is a significant social dominant, as well as captures the processes of self-identification. Language units, as is known, fix native speakers' ideas about the surrounding reality ^{[19, p. 4]}.

In different historical periods, this concept has undergone some changes in terms of content or the system of associative connections, motivated by such extralinguistic factors as belonging to public or political forces, involvement in activities to protect the interests of the Motherland in the domestic arena or outside the country ^{[9, p. 371]}. In this regard, it is advisable to consider the studied unit of the language through the tools of the synchronous-diachronic method. The linguocognitive direction of the science of language demonstrates high demand within the framework of a set of studies devoted to human activity.

The concept of "patriotism" is ambivalent in its content nature, since, on the one hand, it reflects a set of ideas and meanings peculiar to the Russian system of worldview, and on the other hand, it illustrates the phenomenon of mastering an international language unit. Since early antiquity, the concept of "patriotism" has been used in the meaning of loyalty to one's state and people, selfless service to the Motherland, understanding one's place of birth and place of residence as particularly important and especially valuable dominants of the individual level ^{[11, p. 295]}.

The problematic component of the concept "patriotism" represents this unit of language as an element actively involved in the process of nominating socially important phenomena. The plan of expression of the presented vocabulary unit is determined by synonymic-antonymic processes within the context characteristic of social and cultural discourse.

The realization of the semantic potential of the concept of "patriotism" serves as a marker of both the socio-cultural situation as a whole and the appeal of an individual, groups or the whole society to certain mental and moral constants. The nominative function of the concept "patriotism" represents the logical and semantic content of this abstract name, which in the conditions of a specific speech situation is developed on the basis of conversive, partitive, generic and other types of relations and connections between families.

The value potential, represented in the relations of contextual and linguistic synonymy, raises the meaning of a hyperseme (or one of the derivatives of semes) both to combinations of words of a stable nature and to collocations ^{[1, p. 174]}. Explication of the semantic scope of the word patriotism registers the emergence of various shades of content that represent the derivational nature of the concept. Despite the high variability of the semantic component, the number of derivatives produced by the dominant is not infinite: educated words expand or narrow the original, original meaning and develop it historically. The derivative patriotism nominates a certain materialized quality, the choice of the soul, a property of the inner world of the individual. Being an elusive, intangible entity, the meaning of the lexeme patriotism as a secondary, derivative value can be determined in the empirical practice of communication.

The synonymous convergence of patriotism and patriotism fixes new facets of the conceptual structure that form the semantic field of the concept "patriotism". In states with a monarchical form of government, sema patriotism comes into contact with the synonymous space of sema loyalty, since both mental units presuppose loyalty to the sovereign and readiness, if necessary, to stand up for the ruler and the state. The antonymic manifestation from a formal structural position is carried out at the level of one- and multi-root antonymy, as well as at the level of word combinations (for example, infidelity to the ideals of caring for the good of the Fatherland).

The usual implementation of the lexeme patriotism in its variants allows us to declare those connotative and semantic manifestations that are actualized in terms of interaction with partner words, but are not fixed in dictionary entries. The ambivalent structure of semantic education patriotism demonstrates the readiness of this unit to transform according to the models of metaphorization and metonymization.

A specific feature of the perception of an abstract name is its reflection in a naive picture of the world as a universal that changes its plan of expression depending on the worldview and value system of the society in which it is used. Abstract cognitive object patriotism is used in sayings, proverbs, in literary and song creativity, acts as a genre-forming dominant in fine art and cinema, the semantic projection of which allows you to form mentally tangible boundaries of the actual meaning of the word.

The metaphorical embodiment of the concept of "patriotism", according to the culturologist and journalist M. Knyazeva, is as follows: "Patriotism is an active participation in the fate of one's people. It is patriotism that builds factories, paves streets, erects buildings, and holds the state. Patriotism attaches importance to human life, and importance to man" ^[7]. In the process of metaphorization, its involved sema acquires signs of creative influence not only in the aspect of building infrastructure, but also the formation of stability at the national level and strong motivation at the individual level. In the above case, the transformation of the absolutely abstract meaning of the designation leads to the perception of the concept as a participant – urban planner or organizer of the development and improvement of locations and a motivator of personal and professional growth.

One of the prominent modern historians, M. Krom, notes that already in the XV century, the fact of invoking blessings "for those who want good", i.e. for people who are jealous of the good of the Motherland, was attested, thus, already in the Middle Ages in Russia there was an analogue of the concept of patriot - do–gooder, first used in relation to those who want good. the city, and later – the entire Russian state ^[8]. This case of nomination is presented as a word capable of acting as an explicate and explicandum, i.e. both being attributed, accompanied by a partner word, and itself acting as an attributing component in a combination of words.

The sema patriotism, as well as its derivatives, represent the priorities of the addressee in one or another type of discourse. Thus, when using this unit of language, the speaker, firstly, illustrates the fact of orientation in the system of cultural and moral coordinates, and secondly, performs an operation of an evaluative nature, where he nominates a model of behavior as correlating with the logical and semantic content of the language unit patriotism, neutral or antagonistic in its relation ^{[18, p. 33]}.

The circle of values, translated by the lexeme patriotism, allows you to record the acceptance or non-acceptance of the system of implications surrounding this word. Thus, in the statement "We are patriots, and we are responsible for the future of the country", the speaker describes a certain community of people united by one idea – the idea of belonging to a state united by history, traditions and culture, and also demonstrates the implementation of a binary opposition divided on the basis of loyalty to the Motherland: i.e. those who consider themselves patriots, are opposed to those who do not consider themselves as such and, accordingly, do not share views on the system of moral priorities and spiritual values.

Reconstructing the semantic structure of the concept of "patriotism", it should be noted the associative space of this mental construct, correlating with something positive or negative, depending on the context. Thus, the idea of a patriotic act refers the recipient to the primary meaning of "love for the Motherland", from which, in turn, the secondary develops. The primary value is modeling, while the secondary value – based on subject-feature relationships – is modeled. The fact of the semantic shift makes it possible to determine the implicitly present structural elements that find expression in the logical-content space of this concept ^{[13, p. 56]}.

The component of anthropocentricity indicates the central subject of thought around which the development of the basic meaning of the concept under study takes place. The implementation of various connotations allows you to shift the focus of attention from one plane of expression to another. So, in the phrase "I would prefer to convey that Your Excellency has shown himself to be such a great patriot that they are ready to sacrifice their own desires for the good of Russia and agree to serve under the command of General Denikin" ^[2] illustrates the possibility of the concept of "patriotism" to be characterized by magnitude: "such a great patriot", which brings this abstract name closer with materialized names and demonstrates a predisposition to metaphorical transference (of course, mental education itself cannot be measured in metric units, but the result of the manifestation of patriotism serves as a kind of indicator of readiness to follow the value system associated with it).

The semantics of size in relation to the lexical-semantic derivative of the concept of "patriotism" is manifested in two ways: the phrase great patriot sounds appropriate and organic in the Russian language picture of the world, but it is unlikely that anyone will call anyone a small patriot in the literary norm, thus the shift in semantics caused by the attribute great motivates perception in the key of a positive assessment. The positive connotation of the adjective great is partly due to the fact that the sign great against the background of compatibility with other units of the language, as a rule, characterizes the word partner in relation to the scale of the occupied area (e.g., great lake), historical experience (great people), the level of achievements (great discoveries), etc.

In this regard, it is advisable to single out such a component of the semantic structure of the concept of "patriotism" as varying in intensity. The mechanism of determining its axiological weight in a particular case is manifested on the basis of a metaphorical transfer in a word-feature. The actual meaning of the tropeism patriotism is modeled in a subject-attribute bundle with an adjective motivating idiomaticity, immersed in the implication space and communicating to the phrase a shade of a prototypical situation with outcomes in a number of directions: a great patriot is a courageous person, a great patriot is a brave figure, a great patriot is a worthy son of the Motherland.

The interference realization of the tropeic values of the hyperseme patriotism is characterized by a multi-stage development. "Such excellent patriots turn out to be those who do not burn in the fire, do not drown in the water" ^[14]. The nuclear meaning of the patriot lexeme nominates not so much a specific person as a type of behavior, the character of a person who is especially deeply aware of his responsibility to the Fatherland and the people. In this sentence, there is a derivational relationship between the stable expression “they don't burn in fire, they don't drown in water”, which determines and formalizes the semantic development of the basic meaning.

The typical dependence of the prototypical component of a language unit, in addition to the main commonly used meaning, is accompanied by a phraseological turnover that enhances the original content of the word: excellent patriots – expressively attributed education, emphatically shifted to a new subject area, consistently appealing to a chain of qualities (does not burn in fire, does not sink in water – a sign of exceptional personal abilities).

Object-characteristic bundles fix differentiation in terms of associative reconstruction in the process of comprehension, where the unit of the language is excellent patriots can be interpreted both as individual people who have shown themselves resolutely and bravely, and the type of citizens for whom one of the highest values is love for the Fatherland, i.e. there is a detailed semantic structure. Here, the concept of "patriotism" demonstrates meaningful dynamism due to the phenomenon described above. Just like the great patriot, the excellent patriots complex is provided with a descriptive, emphasizing the predisposition of the nuclear meaning to variability and a significant semantic amplitude ^{[6, p. 119]}.

The attribution component serves to motivate the signs of intentionality. Considering the lexeme patriotism and its lexico-semantic derivatives within the limits of everyday use, it is necessary to characterize the functioning of these units of speech in artistic discourse. The goal-setting of the author of a literary work in the construction of specific plot elements directly affects the meaning, which may be close in meaning to the same lexeme, but used not in a literary text, but in everyday speech, however, the probability of absolute semantic correspondence in both cases is low ^{[3, p. 331]}.

The problem of the content potential of the concept "patriotism" is expressed in the formation of a mental product, where the unit of language allows such an interpretation of the sign and the plan of its expression, which is due to the mechanisms of semantisation. The formation of semantic space takes place within the framework of the constitution – the mutual influence of the meanings of words on each other, where within the syntagma some segments of the semantic structure become marking, functional, and others either occupy a peripheral position, or because of the loss of relevance leave the semantic-content space of a particular seme ^{[5, p. 127]}.

Let's consider another example: "The program is based on a personality–oriented approach to the student, providing pedagogical means for the free process of development and formation of a conscious citizen and patriot of his country, possessing ecological culture, critical thinking, willingness to give strength, energy, talent for the benefit of society"^{[16, p. 5]}. In this fragment of the text, the development of the meaning of the patriot token is motivated by a number of personality qualities such as culture, thinking and willingness to contribute to the strengthening and development of the Fatherland in a particular field of activity. At the same time, the intensional does not undergo significant changes, however, the possibility of semantic derivation determines the range of customary meanings formed under the influence of extralinguistic factors.

The allusive component supported by the context characterizes the context of the use of the semantic variation of the concept, in the space of which the word usage is carried out ^{[15, p. 62]}. The realization of the semantic potential of a word is associated with the actualization of a number of correlate associations acting as implicators of the actual semantic meaning. So, in the above example, the patriot lexeme is unambiguously interpreted at the invariant level (as a person devoted to the Motherland), but as a tropeism it is endowed with a number of features that make its expression plan unique in relation to all possible semantic embodiment. I.e., the addressee, perceiving this syntagma, involuntarily builds semantic-derivational connections between the word-concept and units -signs: a patriot is a person with an ecological culture (here, of course, the compiler of the text appeals not so much to the movement for ecology, the purity of the planet and the salvation of animals, as for the fact that a patriot in the true sense of the word can be called a person whose culture is based on the cornerstone moral principles, referring to the metaphorical transfer technique) ^{[20, p. 364]}. The sema patriot, and after it the sema patriotism, turns out to be interconnected and influenced by the partner words "ecological culture", which create the condition for an unambiguous interpretation of the presented lexeme.

Despite the fact that the expression itself in this case is isolated from the fabric of the text, the interpretation of the word patriot in question is quite definite: it is passed through the connotative prism of the narrative and is represented by a semantic overtone. The register to which the author of the statement refers is rather atypical and nontrivial. The formal structure of the patriot tropeism demonstrates the support of the meaningful component of the semantic structure by an inventory of semantic properties and a register of parameters that give expressiveness and completeness.

Meaning generation becomes the result of deciphering implicit supporting elements that form the explicit contour of a language unit ^{[12, p. 161]}. Describing the concept of "patriot", the author, along with concretizing the qualities of a patriot (ecological culture, critical thinking, willingness to give strength, energy, talent for the benefit of society), recreates an explicit picture, essentially registering the reaction of the intensification to interaction with the structure and components of the utterance, which selects certain features relevant to the attribution of a particular situation ^{[17, p. 350]}.

The implicational of the concept of "patriotism" refers to the extensional by means of subject-logical conditions, dependencies, consequences and components involved in interaction within the framework of mental activity ^{[4, p. 74]}. The dependencies and consequences of the use of the name (in this case, patriotism and its derivatives) are based on the retrospective manifestation of variants of a specific unit of language, the use of which in the communicative space fixed both unambiguous projections of the semantic and content structure of the seme of the word, and on the basis of unambiguous actual spectrum of potential meanings attributed to one sign ^{[10, p. 269]}.

Thus, the hyperseme patriotism explicates its semantic potential in derivatives that support the derivational nature of the concept through the expansion or narrowing of the meaning of the invariant. The set of explicit meanings performs descriptive and representative functions that allow identifying and characterizing cases of word usage with the indication of a number of features of the semantic space. The examples given in this article illustrate the correlation of the tropeisms of the lexeme patriotism with the set of features reflected in this name. As a component of social activity, the concept of "patriotism" is presented as one of the key motivating factors for the development and strengthening of the state. The patriot derivative is predisposed to synonymous contact with the content space of the seme loyalty, unstable in the scope of the concept being expounded, variable in the logical structure. Through attribution, the name patriot can vary in intensity – a great patriot, a set of personal qualities – as a person with a certain culture, thinking and willingness to act for the good of the Motherland.