33
culture, a constituent part of the national conceptosphere [3, 5, 8, 9].
Despite some differences in approaches, as V.I.
Karasik points out, the
“lingiocultural and cognitive approaches to the notion of concept are
not mutually exclusive: concept as a mental unit in the mind of the
individual provides access to the conceptosphere of the society, while
the cultural concept is a unit of the collective cultural experience,
which becomes the cultural property of the individual” [4, p. 135].
A distinctive feature of the concept is its interlevel character,
i.e. concepts are verbalized with the help of various language units
referring to different language levels: lexical, word-formation,
phraseological,
syntactical, paroimiological. But a complete
reconstruction, actualization and decoding of the semantic and
cultural structure of the concept can be arrived at only on the textual
level. The concept in the text is foregrounded by various linguistic
units, the analysis of which in the light of the concept theory allows to
penetrate into the deep-lying content of the text [1, 7, 11, 12].
In this respect, the story “Outstation” by S. Maugham [15] is an
interesting illustration of the concept “
SNOB
”, one of the socially and
culturally signifi cant concepts in the English culture.
According
to dictionaries,
snob
is defi ned as 1) one who tends to
patronize, rebuff, or ignore people regarded as social inferiors and
imitate, admire, or seek associations with people regarded as social
superiors; 2) as a person having similar pretentions in matters of
knowledge and taste [13, 14, 16, 17]. The analysis of the associative
fi eld of the lexeme “snob” reveals a set of conceptual features
constituting the cognitive structure of this word:
pretentious, affected,
fashionable, modish, stylish, well-dressed, tasteful, gentlemanlike, well-
mannered, civilized, dandifi ed, well-groomed, artifi cial, unnatural,
vain, theatrical, stilted, hypocritical, arrogant, contemptuous, scornful,
disapproving, despising
, etc. So, the word
under analysis stands out
as an embodiment of both positive (
gentlemanlike, well-mannered,
well-groomed, etc.
) and negative characteristics of a person (
artifi cial,
unnatural, vain, hypocritical, arrogant, contemptuous, etc.).
The main personage of the story is Mr. Warburton who had
inherited a considerable fortune, threw himself into the gay life, then
lost all his wealth in gambling and went to a distant colony in Borneo.
34
The story contains a detailed description of Mr. Warburton’s previous
life. His way and style of life characterize him as a “dreadful snob”;
and this idea is explicitly presented in the story:
For Mr. Warburton was a snob. He was not a timid snob, a little
ashamed of being impressed by his betters, nor a snob who sought the
intimacy of persons who had acquired celebrity in politics or notoriety
in the arts, nor the snob who was dazzled by riches; he was the naked,
unadulterated common snob who dearly loved a lord.
Poor Warburton was a dreadful snob, of course, but after all he was
a good fellow. He was always ready to back a bill for an impecunious
nobleman, and if you were in a tight corner you could safely count
on him for a hundred pounds. He gave good dinners. He played whist
badly, hut never minded how much he lost if the company was select.
He happened to be a gambler, an unlucky one, hut he was a good loser,
and it was impossible not to admire the coolness with which he lost fi ve
hundred pounds at a sitting.
In spite of many a positive characteristic (
amusing, generous,
coolness, handsome, a certain simplicity of character, an ingenuous
prey, no complaint, pressed nobody, paid his debts
,
gave good dinners;
etc.) Mr. Warburton displayed snobbism in everything:
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