Paliichuk E. Linguistic and Conceptual Peculiarities of Human Trafficking Situation in Modern English-Language Media Discourse

This thesis focuses on linguistic and conceptual peculiarities of the human trafficking situation as seen in modern media discourse. The research has revealed the cobweb iconic construal of the human trafficking conceptual model, which emerges due to the focalization of actants’ semantic roles. The correlation between this model and the system of metaphoric projections, whose image-schema is compatible with the cobweb megametaphor, has been elucidated. Within the discourse these metaphoric projections are manifested through micrometaphors and other stylistic means, as well as through axiological lexical units and stylistically neutral grammatical and syntactic constructions. Empirical research has helped to discover the readers’ response to metaphoric projections verbally presented in media texts that refer to the human trafficking situation.