Diversity in Verbalization of the Concept University in the English Educational Discourse

Abstract

This article discusses the diversity in verbalization of the concept UNIVERSITY in the English educational discourse. The definition of the notions “concept”, “educational discourse” have been revealed through cognitive linguistics. The analysis is based on the most common variants of the English language – British and American. The research has been conducted on the basis of the educational discourse of the leading universities of the UK and the USA, namely, 5 leading universities of the UK and 5 universities of the USA. In order to study the diversity in verbalization of the concept UNIVERSITY a frame structure has been chosen. This structure fully reflects the lexica‑and‑semantic features of the concept under study. The article presents a schematic view of the concept UNIVERSITY, where its components has been highlighted: subframes, slots and subslots. When examined the concept UNIVERSITY, component and conceptual analysis has been used, so that the vocabulary definitions of the verbalizers of the concept under study have been compared. The analysis has shown that the lexical unit “university” is a concept that includes a whole range of characteristics and associations. Different lexical units presented in the educational discourse have been examined on the basis of English-speakers’ perception. It has been stated that lexical‑and‑semantic structure of the concept UNIVERSITY is quite a complex and developed one. Significant differences in the use of lexical units that actualize the concept UNIVERSITY has been considered. The reason for this difference are linguocultural as well as historical features of the development of the two variants of the English language.