Representations of the concept sphere "happiness" in O. Wilde's fairy tale "The Happy Prince"

Kretova Larisa Nikolaevna ORCID: 0000-0001-5257-7416 PhD in Philology Associate Professor of the Department of English Language, Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, 630133, Russia, Novosibirsk region, Novosibirsk, Vysotsky str., 41/4, sq. 230 kretlarisa@mail.ru

Chernobrov Aleksei Aleksandrovich ORCID: 0000-0002-3215-0578 Doctor of Philology Professor, Department of English, Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University 630126, Russia, Novosibirsk region, Novosibirsk, Vilyuiskaya str., 24, office 185 a.chernobrov@bk.ru

The theoretical basis was the work of such researchers as L. G. Babenko ^[1], U. A. Vezhbitskaya ^[2], O. M. Verbitskaya and E. L. Gavrilyuk ^[3], S. G. Vorkachev ^{[4, 5]}, A.V. Zvyagintseva ^[6], V. I. Karasik ^[7], E. N. Kovtun ^[8], V. N. Komissarov ^{[9, 10]}, E. S. Kubryakova ^{[11, 12]}, D. S. Likhachev ^[13], Z. D. Popova and I. A. Sternin ^[14], Yu. A. Prokhorov ^[15], V. V. Sdobnikov ^[16] G. G. Slyshkin ^[17] and others.

The material for our research was Oscar Wilde's fairy tale "The Happy Prince" ^[18] and its translations into Russian by K.I. Chukovsky ^[19] and P.V. Sergeev and G. Nuzhdin ^[20].

The concepts of "concept" and "conceptosphere" belong to the cognitive linguistics section, and cognitive linguistics, in turn, is part of cognitive science, or cognitive science. This scientific direction includes several scientific disciplines, but all of them study the processes responsible for obtaining, processing, storing, using, organizing knowledge, as well as the processes of formation of these structures in the human brain. Cognitive science is closely related to such disciplines as linguistics, neurology, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, mathematics and logic. Currently, cognitive science adheres to the consistent study of linguistic manifestations of human consciousness activity in order to solve problems arising during conceptual analysis ^{[21, pp. 34-38]}.

Individual concepts are diverse. These include individual author's (artistic) concepts. They are expressed in the key words inherent in one or another writer, philosopher ^{[22, p. 90]}. G. G. Slyshkin also speaks about the artistic concept, understanding by it the individual experience of the author of the work, as well as indicating the main function of the artistic concept – the formation of new meanings and associations. Artistic concepts make up a unique individual author's picture of the world or the conceptual sphere of a literary text ^{[23, p. 32]}.

D.S. Likhachev draws attention to the fact that, despite the individuality of the concepts, they also differ in universality, without which the communication process would be impossible. Moreover, concepts, since they are potentials of meanings, facilitate communication. Each concept can be deciphered in different ways depending on the momentary context and cultural experience, the cultural identity of the concept carrier" ^{[24, pp. 4-10.]}.

Linguists Z. D. Popova and I. A. Sternin note that the concept is a unit of the conceptual sphere. These scientists understand the concept sphere as a mental sphere that generalizes various signs of the surrounding world, which consists of concepts expressed in the form of mental pictures, diagrams, concepts, frames, scenarios, gestalts, abstract entities ^{[25, p. 23]}.

In cognitive science, researchers quite often compare certain national conceptual spheres with each other. Such studies help to identify the national specifics of the conceptualization of similar phenomena by the consciousness of different peoples and to detect non-equivalent concepts and conceptual gaps ^{[26, p. 59]}.

A.V. Zvyagintseva notes that the conceptual sphere of the text gets its expression at the lexical and compositional-thematic levels of the message ^{[27, p. 6]}.

The structure of the conceptual sphere consists of a core and a periphery, it is discrete, indissoluble and integral in a set of basic elements – semantic spheres and semiospheres. The concept sphere can be connected with other concept spheres by its individual elements. Also, all separate and "moderately" independent conceptual spheres make up the conceptual space ^{[28, p. 79]}.

In our study, we will be based on a narrow understanding of the term "conceptosphere", when concepts from one conceptosphere are connected to the content through common meanings, and this is expressed in language structures common to concepts. Language structures embody a system of "representations, images and associations that are born with a conscious or unconscious mechanism of perception" ^{[29, pp. 4-10]}.

The concept of "happiness" is one of the most important elements of the worldview of any nation. The theme of happiness is very often reflected in works of art, since the problem of its definition and search affects almost every person in one way or another, so it is not surprising that many researchers have been striving to define happiness for a long time. The abstractness and ambiguity of this concept has led to the fact that the interpretation of this concept is extremely numerous and diverse, which is also reflected in dictionaries, where you can find many variants of the definition of the word "happiness".

So, for example, S. G. Vorkachev mentions the opinion that happiness is such an individual representation that there are as many definitions of it as there are people, but immediately Vorkachev remarks that this point of view turns out to be incorrect upon careful consideration, since individual representations can be typed, and the number of representations of happiness can be indicated by the number of concepts happiness in any particular ethno-linguistic society ^{[30, p. 41]}

Russian Russian and English linguocultures carried out a definitional analysis of the concept of "happiness" showed the following: the concept of "happiness" in the Russian language is represented by the lexeme "happiness", as well as a number of other components. Thus, in the central part (nuclear zone) of the concept "happiness" are placed neutral lexemes related to the main meanings of the word "happiness" – satisfaction, contentment, pleasure, joy, bliss, luck, success. These words can be attributed to the center of the concept, since their semantic components do not differ much between each other. In the near periphery we will include associations to the word "happiness". We will be based on information from the associative dictionary ^[31] – there is, love, grief, mine, misfortune, big, life, family, good, money, no, huge, good, trouble; a lot, will be, fun, eternal, bright, was, far away, long-awaited, home, friends, great, peace, wonderful, family. We have excluded those associations that are already indicated in the nuclear zone, and those that are closely related, being of the same root.

In the composition of the far periphery, we have included synonyms for lexemes from the nuclear zone and the near periphery. As a result, the structure of the concept of "happiness" in Russian linguoculture can be visualized as follows, as shown in Figure 1

Fig.1. The structure of the concept of "happiness".

The structure of the concept of "happiness" that we have compiled is not final and, if necessary, can be expanded as a result of other types of analysis (phraseological, antonymic, and others), however, within the framework of our research, the collected structure is sufficient to get a general idea of the concept of "happiness" in the Russian language. In our work, we relied on the data of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language edited by D. N. Ushakov ^[32].

Now let's turn to English dictionaries and analyze the concept of ’happiness' in English. 7 English-English dictionary sources were analyzed: “Cambridge Dictionary” ^[33], “Longman Dictionary for Contemporary English” ^[34], “Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners” ^[35], “Merriam Webster Dictionary" ^[36], “Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary" ^[37], “Synonyms Thesaurus With Definitions and Antonyms" ^[38], “Thesaurus" ^[39].

The principles of the structure of the concept “happiness” in English correspond to the principles of the structure of the concept for the Russian language. The visualization of the English-language concept of “happiness” can be seen in Figure 2.

Fig.2 Structure of the “happiness” concept

During the comparative analysis, we also found out that the coincidence of the concepts of "happiness" in Russian and English is incomplete. For example, in Russian, you can observe words associated with the meanings of "luck" and "success", closer to the core. This is due to the fact that in Russian these meanings are distinguished as secondary in many definitions and are actively used in speech, while in English the meaning of “lucky" is already considered obsolete. In the Russian conceptual sphere, the vocabulary associated with home, family and love is more pronounced, while in the English conceptual sphere there are many abstract concepts that create a more sublime image of happiness: “heaven”, “paradise”, “moon”, “air”, “cloud” and so on.

Let's analyze how the concept sphere "happiness" is presented in Oscar Wilde's fairy tale "The Happy Prince", compare it with lexicographic definitions, and then find out how the analyzed concept sphere is transmitted in Russian translations.

Since the concept of "happiness" we are considering is presented in the title of the work in the form of the English adjective "happy" and obviously has conceptual significance, we will begin by analyzing the semantics of the title and its semantic radius in the text.

The word “happy” in combination with the word “prince” is used throughout the text 17 times. “The Happy Prince” is not only the name, but also the name of one of the main characters of the fairy tale, so such frequent repetition is due to the narrative. It is noteworthy that “happy” occurs out of combination with the word “prince” only 4 times and only once in the form of the noun “happiness". The total number of repetitions is 22 times. Since “the Happy Prince” is a key character, and the word “happy” is directly related to the concept we are considering, it is worth referring to the image of the Prince created by Oscar Wilde, and how the Happy Prince is perceived by other characters appearing in the fairy tale.

Oscar Wilde pays a lot of attention to the Prince's appearance from the first lines, he gives his appearance richness: “leaves of fine gold”, “two bright sapphires”, “large red ruby” ^{[40, p. 4]}. The image of jewelry and jewelry is found more than once throughout the work in the course of Swallow's stories about Egypt: “a chain of pale green jade”, “green beryls”, “the ruby shall be redder than a red rose”, “the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea”, “amber beads”, “a large crystal".

The beauty, but impracticality of the Prince is noted by the city councilor: “not quite so useful.” All the other characters in the story also pay attention to the Prince's appearance. In their understanding, the Prince and his luxurious beauty symbolize happiness. They are only interested in his image, not in the content, they are sure that he is happy on his own. The mother sets the Prince as an example to her son, saying that the Prince would not cry for any reason, which comes into direct contradiction with further events in the narrative.

The townspeople cannot know the reason why their Prince has become “little better than a beggar". They do not know that the Statue Prince, having distributed his wealth, helped and benefited others much more than during his lifetime. The ease with which the townspeople got rid of the Prince, who lost all his beauty, also speaks about their perception of only the external: “As he is no longer beautiful, he is no longer useful” ^{[41, p. 17]}.

Even the Swallow, having settled down at the prince's feet for the night, was initially guided primarily by practicality, and only then, looking into his saddened face, became interested in who he really was and why he was upset.

Now we will find in the text the words that are included in the English-language concept of "happiness" to find out how they are interrelated with the concept of "happiness" in the text of Oscar Wilde. We have the following list of words: pleasure, joy, enjoyed, good, bed, glad, sad, glow, high spirits, high, moon, air, dance, bright, merry, cloud, star, gold, wonder, laugh, warm, great, marvelous. Consider some of the words.

One of the reasons for the perception of the Prince as a symbol of happiness is revealed by the Prince himself in the Swallow's story about himself: “My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness” ^{[42, p. 7]}. The word “pleasure” appears here, which intersects with the main definitions of happiness given earlier, and is included in the nuclear zone of the concept of “happiness”, but in the context of Oscar Wilde's fairy tale, the understanding of happiness as pleasure is questioned.

The Prince himself, having become a statue, seems to have lost his personal understanding of "happiness" as such and in the phrase: "if pleasure be happiness" – expresses doubt that he ever knew, thought about and understood what it was. The carefree atmosphere of his past is emphasized in the sentence “Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful” ^{[43, p. 7]}.

Now the Prince from his column sees only human suffering and, even helping the suffering, he does not express unequivocal confidence that the jewels given to them will actually bring happiness to people: “I am covered with fine gold,” said the Prince, “you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always thinks that gold can make them happy” ^{[44, p. 15]}. In fact, the Prince, giving people the only thing he had, namely, his precious jewelry, was trying to create his own happiness – the opportunity to no longer see other people's suffering, to be useful to people.

The Prince sympathizes with them, but also finds something beautiful in their suffering. The whole text is filled with contrasts and contradictions, and in this desire not to see human sorrows, the Prince does not notice the hardships of his little assistant Swallow, who is closest to him. Another word included in the nuclear zone is “joy".

It is mentioned in one of Swallow's stories about his swallow friends and Egypt: “All night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent” ^{[45, p. 11]}.

This word is used in the phrase “cry of joy". The word “cry“ is often used in the story in two of its meanings, according to the Cambridge Dictionary: 1. to produce tears as the result of a strong emotion, such as unhappiness or pain; 2. to call out loudly ^[46].

In the combination of “cry of joy", the second meaning is presented, as in most other cases of use in the text. The first meaning, in the formulation of the definition of which there is a mention of the antonym that is the same root to “happiness” – “unhappiness”, is used only in relation to the boy at the beginning of the fairy tale, in relation to the sick boy, to the girl with matches and in relation to the Prince himself.

The phrase “cry of joy” creates an image of happiness expressed in joy, which it is impossible to restrain and which you want to loudly declare. Swallow's stories about Egypt are full of warm colors: “yellow linen”, “green jade”, “yellow lions”, “green beryls”, “green palm-trees”, “pink and white doves”, “red ibises". They depict the carelessness and joy of life, which find expression in the phrase “cry of joy". Also, the word “enjoyed”, which is the same root of the word “joy”, is used in relation to the Swallow: “Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped, and said to each other, “What a distinguished stranger!” so he enjoyed himself very much” ^{[47, c. 10]}.

The Swallow, her tales of distant lands, her infatuation with reeds, her frivolity, her ability to fly and mix freely represent the complete opposite of the Statue Prince. The word “bed” is included in the near periphery of the English-language concept of “happiness". In the fairy tale there are many words referring to the state of sleep: dream, dreaming, bedroom, sleep, asleep, sleepy, slumber, including the word “bed".

The swallow flew to the Prince's feet to sleep, the children dream of angels, the King sleeps in the tomb, the mother of a sick child fell asleep from fatigue, the boy, when the flapping of the swallow's wings made him feel better, also falls asleep, and finally, the Swallow in the last sentence before his death, is also sent to sleep, moreover, she hints at the similarity of the concepts of "death" and "sleep": "It is not to Egypt that I am going," said the Swallow. “I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?” ^{[48, c. 16]}. Sleep seems to be a kind of state free from life experiences, both physical and moral, and also correlates with happiness.

Oscar Wilde uses words that are mainly part of the near periphery of the conceptual sphere, compiled by us, the words included in the nuclear zone are also present

To model the conceptual sphere of a work of art, we will use the algorithm proposed by L. G. Babenko ^{[49, pp. 63-67]}. Its general structure coincides with the structure of the concept sphere from the previous paragraph. Let's start modeling the concept sphere. 1. The word “happiness” will be in the core. 2. In the nuclear zone, we will include the most typical and most used lexical representations of the concept of "happiness". To do this, we need to consider the concept of "happiness" from different perspectives. In Oscar Wilde's fairy tale "The Happy Prince", the Happy Prince himself, a sick child, a young writer, a girl with matches, poor boys, townspeople and a swallow act directly from the position of the subject of happiness. These are the main carriers of the idea of happiness.

From the position of the predicate of happiness, the statement about happiness is expressed in the Prince's direction: “My courtiers called me the Happy Prince...”, “quite happy”, as well as in the episode with the young writer: “he looked quite happy”. From the point of view of the source of happiness, that is, from the position of the cause, each subject will have its own source. For a Happy Prince during his lifetime, the reason for happiness is pleasure and ignorance, for a Happy Prince–statues - the absence of suffering and helping others, for a sick child – the opportunity to sleep peacefully, for a young writer – the opportunity to warm up and finish the play, for a girl with matches, happiness is to bring money home so that her father does not beat her, for poor boys – it's bread and an opportunity to warm up, and for the townspeople – the beauty of wealth and practicality, for the swallow – love. In most cases, the source of happiness is closely interrelated with material well-being. The poor suffer, the rich feast, but this principle is destroyed by the Prince, who, having a rich decoration, is still unhappy.

The change of an infrequent state to a happy one is observed in children who are helped by a Swallow and a Prince. We see such manifestations of happiness as laughter, dancing, games, which correlates with the image of a Happy Prince during his lifetime, and that image is indirectly characterized by Wilde as happiness–pleasure, but all these components are also suitable for the image of happiness-carelessness. In other cases, Oscar Wilde does not focus on the manifestations of happiness, the main focus remains on the manifestations of unhappiness.

3. The nearest periphery consists of figurative nominations of happiness. This includes lexemes that are used by the author to describe images of happiness. The author turns to sustainable images of happiness: happiness as pleasure; happiness as wealth and money; happiness as the absence of worries; happiness as love. There are also author's images of happiness: happiness as beauty; happiness as warmth; happiness as usefulness and help to others; happiness as a dream. Oscar Wilde does not create an unambiguous image. Beauty can always fade, warmth is always followed by cold, helping others requires self-sacrifice, and sleep is the "brother of death".

4. The further periphery includes subjective-modal meanings, which can be distinguished from the system of figurative means, as well as from the emotional-evaluative words encountered. In the fairy tale "The Happy Prince", happiness is presented as a subjective feeling or state that is difficult to grasp and measure.

From the outside, happiness is assessed with a touch of uncertainty and inferiority: “who is quite happy”, “he looked quite happy”, this emphasizes the subjectivity of the feeling of happiness. What may be happiness for one person will be an everyday reality for another. The happy Prince did not know about the misfortunes, living his carefree life. The queen's lady-in-waiting, for whom the mother of a sick child embroiders flowers on a dress, has no idea about the problems of a seamstress. For a rich lady, she's just lazy.The author builds a story on the contrasts of happiness and unhappiness. Oscar Wilde highlights in the narrative the moment when the image of a beautiful Happy Prince created by him before is replaced by a saddened and unhappy Prince: “But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, and saw – Ah! what did he see?” ^{[50, c. 6]}. Such emphasis helps us to understand that external happiness is not always equal to internal. Using adjectives such as “marvellous thing”, “Mystery so great”, Oscar Wilde describes suffering in the words of a Prince as something amazing and incomprehensible. Such a description is more characteristic of happiness than of the manifestation of unhappiness, which indicates the relationship of these concepts in Wilde's worldview and adds inconsistency.

Guided by the algorithm of creating a conceptual sphere for works of art, we obtain the following structure of the concept of "happiness" in Oscar Wilde's fairy tale "The Happy Prince", which is shown in Fig. 3

Fig. 3. The concept sphere of the word "happiness" in O. Wilde's fairy tale

If we compare the conceptosphere "happiness" of the work "The Happy Prince" and the English-language conceptosphere, compiled with the help of dictionary definitions, then we can see that some elements that were part of the near and far periphery of Wilde moved into the nuclear zone or the near periphery. However, there are completely new elements that make the concept sphere "happiness" of the fairy tale "The Happy Prince" special.

Due to the inconsistency and duality of the image of happiness that Wilde created, the concept sphere also includes words inherent in the antonym word “happiness” - “unhappiness”. The nuclear zone is the most numerous, and the far periphery is the smallest, which suggests that the concept sphere has a rather vivid expression and plays an important role in the narration of the fairy tale.

Let's analyze the accuracy of the transfer of the concept sphere "happiness" in the fairy tale "The Happy Prince" in Russian translations. For the analysis, we took the most popular translation made by Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky ^[51], which is considered a classic version of the translation, as well as a more modern translation made by P. V. Sergeev and G. Nuzhdin ^[52].

Let's turn to the lexical representation of the core of the "happiness" concept sphere, namely the word "happiness". Most often in translations, as well as in the original, the word "happy" and its various derived lexemes appear: Chukovsky has 35 times, of which 29 times in combination with the word "prince", and Sergeev and Nuzhdin have 23 times, of which only 16 times with the word "prince".

Also, the noun "happiness" itself is mentioned by Chukovsky – 3 times, and by Sergeev and Nuzhdin – 1 time. In both translations, there are cases of replacing parts of speech. So "happy" becomes the words "lucky", "happy", happiness". But nevertheless, we can say that the nuclear component of the "happiness" concept sphere is preserved in both translations.

Now let's consider the transfer of tokens from the nuclear zone. The word "pleasure" in translations is conveyed by the words "pleasure" and "pleasure". In the Prince's story about his former life, Chukovsky leaves the French "Sans Souci" unchanged and gives the author's comment in parentheses, translating it as "Carelessness". This is related to the fact that Oscar Wilde may be giving a reference to a real place. There are at least two palaces that have been named “Sans Souci". Thus, Chukovsky completely preserves the original image created by Wilde. Sergeyev and Nuzhdin have the phrase "the Palace of Sans Souci" translated as "The Palace of Joys", which somewhat changes the concept sphere, adding new expressions and associations to it that are not peculiar to the "happiness" concept sphere of the original. The word "enjoyed" in the phrase "so he enjoyed himself very much" in Chukovsky's translation is omitted, and the meaning expressed by this word is translated based on the context, and undergoes a holistic transformation: "... which was extremely flattering for her."

In the translation of Sergeev and Nuzhdin, the relationship with the conceptual sphere remains: "The Starling was very pleased with himself." Interestingly, in the version of Sergeyev and Nuzhdin's translation, the lexeme "joyful" often appears where it is not in the original. For example, "he cried" turns into "he exclaimed joyfully"; "the little girl cried" – "she said joyfully"; "they cried" – "they shouted joyfully". To begin with, it is impossible to convey the ambiguity of the English word “cry” in Russian by a full equivalent translation. It can be assumed that the characteristic of the action was added by the translators to enhance the imagery, because, based on the context, these heroes really should have been delighted to receive help from the Prince.

The word "joy" is used only twice by Wilde, various variations of the lexeme "joy" occur seven times in Sergeyev and Nuzhdin: "joyful sounds", "his thought made him very happy", "she said happily", "they shouted joyfully", "no one will take away joy" and other cases. The use of these adverbs, which are included in the nuclear zone of the "happiness" concept sphere, strengthens the image of happiness as joy, but happiness in Wilde's fairy tale is not only joy. Oscar Wilde builds an image full of contradictions and contrasts in his fairy tale, excessive use of certain stylistic means in translation can lead to a violation of the transmission of the original image, and therefore to a change in the conceptual sphere.

The concept sphere translated by Sergeev and Nuzhdin focuses primarily on the concept of happiness as joy. This is also evidenced by the use of the word "joy" in the very last sentence of their translation of the fairy tale: "no one will take away this joy from them," when this phrase is completely absent in Wilde's original.

All the carriers of happiness from the original fairy tale are preserved in translations. In most cases, the sources of happiness also remain, except in some cases. For example, the phrase "weighing out money" in the translation of Sergeyev and Nuzhdin "ringing with copper" loses its connotation of treating money as something that is cherished and highly valued. Chukovsky retains this shade: "weighing coins." Another more important element was lost when Sergeyev and Nuzhdin translated the word “useful". This word reveals one of the sources of happiness for the citizens. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “useful” is effective; helping you to do or achieve something ^[53].

In both translations, "useful" is translated into Russian as "more useful" and "useful". In the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian language by D.N. Ushakov, the word "useful" has two meanings: 1. beneficial (positive, beneficial effect, good result for someone or something); 2. suitable, necessary for some specific purpose; constituting that part of the whole that can be used for its intended purpose (spec.) ^[54]. The second Russian meaning is closer in meaning to the English definition. The first meaning in Russian implies actions that bring a positive result not only for the one who performs the action, but also for others.

For the second time, the word “useful” is used towards the end of the story and its use is not accidental, the word sends us back to the beginning to how one of the townspeople sees the Prince. In such cases, it is very important to maintain parallelism during translation, which can be observed in the translation of the phrase “no longer useful” According to Chukovsky, he uses the same root word "benefit" – "there is no benefit", and the translators Sergeyev and Nuzhdin translate this phrase as "no longer needed". The word "necessary" is synonymous with the word "useful", but the lexical relationship with the word "useful" used at the beginning of the fairy tale is lost, as well as the characteristic of the image of the Prince, because during the narrative the Prince and his actions benefit people. The word "necessary" does not carry such a meaning.

An important component of the conceptual sphere of "happiness" is the position of the manifestation of happiness, here you can also note some changes in translation. Sergeev and Nuzhdin translate the phrase "laughed and played games in the street" as "playing with each other and having fun pushing". The word "fun" is interconnected with the word "laugh", but the translated "pushing" is a case of individual interpretation. Also, the word “fun” and its derived lexemes, although they are included in the near periphery of the “happiness” concept sphere, described by us earlier, are not mentioned in Oscar Wilde's fairy tale in any way, and one of the positions of happiness manifestation – “laugh” – is lost. The same thing can be observed in the translation "she ran home, laughing" – "she ran home merrily". There is one case of losing the manifestation of happiness in Chukovsky: "the sound of dancing" – "the sounds of music", when, like Sergeev and Nuzhdin, concretization and expansion of meaning are used: "past the joyful sounds of the ball and dancing".

The sounds of music are not a way of expressing happiness in the context of the fairy tale "The Happy Prince", but dance is. A similar situation can be seen in the translation of another sentence: “In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall” ^{[55, p. 7]}.

Chukovsky translated the phrase "led the dance", simply as "danced". Translators Sergeev and Nuzhdin used the phrase "opened the ball", which conveys the meaning of the verb "led", but the verb "dance" is omitted.

In the same sentence there is another way of expressing happiness – the verb "played", which Sergeev and Nuzhdin translate by the equivalent of "played", and Chukovsky uses the word "amused". This word has a broader meaning of "having fun and pleasant time" ^[56] and is synonymous with the word "play". This translation transformation does not greatly affect the transmission of the conceptual sphere of "happiness" of the original story, as it still remains a manifestation of happiness experienced by a person.

One of the phrases included in the "happiness" concept sphere of the original presented a difficulty for transmission: "I never cared to ask". The word “care” has at least two meanings according to the Cambridge Dictionary: the first is to protect someone or something and provide everything necessary; the second is to be interested or worried about something ^[57]. In the general context of the fairy tale, both meanings are implied. During his lifetime, the Prince did not care about the happiness or unhappiness of other people. Chukovsky translates this phrase as: "I never thought to ask." Here the first meaning presented in the English definition is lost, but the meaning of the fact that the Prince did not even think about the lives of people on the other side of the wall is transmitted. Sergeyev and Nuzhdin's translation sounds like: "I didn't even want to know." Here it seems that the Prince deliberately did not want to know anything about the world outside his palace. None of the other descriptions of the Prince in the original characterizes him in this way. For a swallow, happiness is love for a reed and love for a Prince. The love for the reed is transmitted without distortion in both translations, but the love for the Prince, expressed in one of the sentences by the phrase: “... he loved him too well”, in the translation of Sergeyev and Nuzhdin is completely omitted without any substitution. Perhaps this is interconnected with the gender characteristics of the actors and this is what motivated the omission, but at the same time the phrase-a declaration of love from the Prince to the Starling (that is, to the Swallow), which occurs later in the narrative, was translated by them: "... for I love you" – "... because I love you". Anyway, the image of happiness as love in a fairy tale is fixed primarily for the Swallow and the exclusion of such a key phrase for the character is not motivated.

Of the 27 words and expressions that represent the nuclear periphery, 14, namely: jewel, fine gold, bright sapphires, red ruby, beautiful, wonderful, glad, delicious slumber, finish the play, bread, sleep, warm, good action – are translated without significant distortions of the conceptual sphere in both translations. At the same time, 6 words and expressions from this periphery were distorted in the translation of Chukovsky, and 8 in the translation of Sergeev and Nuzhdin.

In the near periphery there are figurative nominations of the concept sphere "happiness". Consider an expression that enters the near zone, the phrase “cry of joy". Chukovsky translates the word "joy" using the full equivalent: "joyful click", and the word "cry" was translated as "click" to avoid the negative connotation of the Russian word "cry". In the translation of Sergeev and Nuzhdin, there is an individual interpretation of "bitter moan", which creates an opposite image and loses one of the key words for the conceptual sphere "happiness". The expression “city of Gold” uses the word “gold”, which is an important part of the imagery of the fairy tale, moreover, this phrase can refer to myths. In the translations, both Chukovsky's "the shining hall" and Sergeyev and Nuzhdin's "The Heavenly City" omit the word "gold", losing this element in the final sentence of the fairy tale. Sergeyev and Nuzhdin retain the word "city". Chukovsky uses the word "hall", which is not equivalent to the word "city". Similar changes can be observed in the same sentence in the translation of the phrase “garden of Paradise". Chukovsky performs an equivalent translation, which preserves the lexeme from the concept sphere of Wilde's "happiness", while Sergeev and Nuzhdin interpret this phrase as "in My garden", removing the word "Paradise". Perhaps this is motivated by the fact that since we are talking about the garden of God, the reader can understand from the context that we are talking about the gardens of Paradise, but the connection with the conceptual sphere is lost in this translation.

In the fragment in which the Prince talks about how he sees life now, being a statue, two words from the nearest periphery are used – “ugliness” and “misery". Unfortunately, the ambiguity of these words in the context of the "Happy Prince" was only partially conveyed in the translations. Both translations use the words "sorrow" and "poverty". The word “ugliness” means something unattractive, ugly ^[58], and translators omit it in order to reveal the meaning of the word “misery”, but do not take into account the relationship with the theme of beauty present in this fairy tale.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines “misery“ as ”great unhappiness“ or as ”someone who is often very unhappy and is always complaining about things" ^[59]. Russian Russian word is an antonym for the word “happiness”, in Russian there is no full equivalent to this English word, it has the following translations in Russian: suffering, grief, torment, poverty, poverty. The word "sorrow" used by the translators, although it is synonymous with the word "grief", according to Ushakov's dictionary, among the first meanings of this word is the meaning of "extreme sadness, sorrow" ^[60] and most often this word is used in the context of loss. It turns out that the lexemes used in the translations convey the general meaning of the statement, but do not reflect the relationship with the rest of the figurative elements of the fairy tale.

A similar thing happens with the word “suffering” in the translation of Sergeev and Nuzhdin. They use a word with a narrower meaning – "grief". Special attention should be paid to the case when the phrase "the poor Prince" is translated using the same–root word "happiness" antonym - "unhappy Prince", while in the original it is not. The English word “poor” according to the Cambridge Dictionary has at least three meanings:

1. having little money and/or few possessions;

2. not good; being of a very low quality, quantity, or standard;

3. deserving sympathy ^[61].

In the context of a fairy tale, both the first and third meanings are suitable for the Prince. In Russian, the word "poor" is usually translated as "poor", but in both cases the translators translated "poor" as "unhappy". Such a substitution deprives the translation of the first meaning of the word “poor”, but emphasizes the change of the image of the Prince: from happy he became unhappy, but the change of the image of the Prince – from rich, he became poor – is not reflected. Eight words and phrases of the near periphery out of twenty-three lost touch with the conceptual sphere of the "happiness" of the fairy tale. As a percentage, this is less than the percentage of loss among the elements of the nuclear zone.

The elements of the far periphery, despite their remoteness from the center, were generally transferred in translations almost unchanged. However, we should pay attention to the word “quite” in the phrases “quite happy”. In the Cambridge Dictionary, there are two contradictory definitions of the word “quite”: 1. completely; 2. a little or a lot but not completely ^[62]. There is no Russian analogue with such a duality of meaning, so Chukovsky omits this word altogether. Sergeev and Nuzhdin translate this phrase based on the first meaning of the English word: "really happy", "the happiest person". Having studied the translation transformations in the translations of the fairy tale "The Happy Prince", we can conclude that the conceptual sphere of the word "happiness" of this work has undergone changes, which in most cases in the translation of Chukovsky lose the imagery and ambiguity of the original and are associated with the asymmetry of the English and Russian languages. In the translation of Sergeyev and Nuzhdin, there is a distortion of the conceptual sphere, individual interpretation adds meanings and shades not initially implied by the author.

So, a practical analysis of the concept sphere of "happiness" allows us to draw the following conclusions:

1. In Russian, the concept sphere of "happiness" includes: a state of contentment; a sense of contentment and joy; luck; success; favorable life circumstances. In English, the concept sphere of "happiness" includes the same elements, but the meaning of luck and success are on the far periphery. The Russian conceptosphere of "happiness" is distinguished by the presence of meanings associated with material goods, family and love relationships, and in the English conceptosphere there are many abstract concepts and detached images.

2. The concept sphere "happiness" in Oscar Wilde's fairy tale "The Happy Prince" differs from the English-speaking and Russian-speaking concept spheres, although it has some common elements, but often these elements are located in a different zone of the concept sphere. Also, in the structure we have obtained, there are new elements that create the uniqueness of the author's conceptosphere "happiness".

3. The lexemes that are part of the structure of the conceptosphere of "happiness", defined by us, in the translation of Sergeev and Nuzhdin were not accurately transmitted, which led to a distortion of the conceptosphere of "happiness" of Wilde's fairy tale, due to frequent recourse to individual interpretation. Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky's translation better conveys the stylistic features and imagery of the original, and the concept sphere of "happiness", although it loses some of its elements, is generally preserved.