This article highlights certain inconsistencies that exist in modern lexicography with respect to word meaning representation and proposes an alternative outlook on the nature of word meaning based on the principles of the functional linguo-anthropological theory. Through the case study of the lexeme bank, it has been demonstrated that word meaning can be presented as a more coherent structure if only the functional evaluative nature of language be taken into account more accurately while compiling a dictionary entry. The article defends the idea that the evaluative nature of human experience as a source of meaning in language determines the way lexical items behave in real texts and, therefore, demonstrates the necessity of abandoning basic principles of referential semantics (with its stress on objective features of referents as physical objects) in lexicographical descriptions.

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This study deals with the problem of ambivalence at the semantic level of word meaning. We argue that semantic ambivalence determines the whole structure of polysemy of certain English words and propose a method of establishing contextual markers indicating the presence of semantic ambivalence as the essential element of word meaning. Having studied a large variety of contexts for the word 'angel', we have identified three typical collocational patterns of its use in texts. Therefore, we suggest that this word has three main senses that are distinguished by their evaluative properties: ambivalent, positive and negative. In the ambivalent type of context 'angel' collocates with both positively and negatively charged words at the same time, which creates verbal sequences of high emotional tension. This fact proves the idea that certain words in the English language can convey simultaneously positive and negative aspects of human experience in a particular type of their usage as intrinsically inseparable from each other. Ambivalent word senses are referred to as archetypes, for they represent the legacy of the archaic syncretism of the human mind, which has been handed down to us in religion and poetry. Most modern monolingual English dictionaries do not take into account the distinction in the evaluative characteristics of collocational patterns when defining the word 'angel'. This leads to a number of problems in their lexicographic descriptions of this word. Taking into account its semantic ambivalence would contribute to a more coherent picture of its sense structure.

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This paper investigates the linguistic aspect of the phenomenon of secularisation, using as example the English word “dream.” Comparative analysis of the linguistic structure of the dream narratives in the Bible and in modern English texts allowed us to discern two major secularisation trends—humanizing the divine and mystifying the human. In the Bible, entering into contact with the divine while asleep is always evaluated ambivalently: one is fascinated by the great favour and fears for one’s life. In modern religious discourse, the growing number of dream narratives manifest the positive evaluation of the contact with the divine as comforting. The second tendency consists in the transfer of transcendental experiences from the religious sphere into the sphere of narratives describing human mind and emotions. Here, the ambivalent experience springs up from the mysterious depths of the subconscious. At the lexical level, both tendencies result in new senses of the word “dream” as well as in important changes in the narrative structure of texts relating dream experiences. In the end, we provide a dictionary entry for the English noun “dream”.