The aim of this article is to study the linguistic representation of the
“pseudo-healing” anticoncept by means of various figures of speech on the material of Russian translations of the poem “Death and Doctor Hornbook” by Robert Burns performed by S.Ya. Marshak, N.N. Novich (Bakhtin) and S. Sapozhnikov. The urgency of this study is demonstrated by the attention of scientists to the existing bioethical problem of pseudo-healing in modern world, and particularly the attention of linguo-conceptologists paid to the issue of linguistic analysis of the phenomenon of the anticoncept. The novelty of this is seen from the fact that the value component of the “pseudo-healing” anticoncept, expressed with the help of figures of speech in Russian translations of the poem “Death and Doctor Hornbook” by Robert Burns, has not been an object of special linguistic analysis yet. The authors of the article conduct a deep analysis of the notional component of the anticoncept
“pseudo-healing” and provide a detailed description of the explication of the axiological component of the “pseudo-healing” anticoncept in the texts of Russian translations. The article concludes that metaphor, hyperbole, antithesis, sarcasm, grotesque, expressive colloquial-reduced and evaluative repressive words as the means of secondary/indirect nomination are dominant in verbalization of the “pseudo-healing” anticoncept in the texts of Russian translations of the poem “Death and Doctor Hornbook”. To achieve the aims of the research, the authors turned to such linguistic methods as conceptual analysis, axiological analysis, contextual analysis and analysis of dictionary definitions. The results of this research can be used for further study of linguistic verbalization of anticoncepts on the material of Russian translations of other foreign writers’ works. The practical value of this research lies in the possibility to implement its results in courses of cognitive linguistics, stylistics and text interpretation, in special courses of linguopoetics and linguoconceptology.