Tomniuk L. Modern German prison discourse (cognitive-semantic aspect)

Thesis is dedicated to the study of the cognitive-semantic dimension of modern German prison discourse and determination of the peculiarities of its realization through the conversational and literary forms of representation. Prison discourse is defined as a platform for the implementation of mental and speech activity of prison officers and convicts, during which concepts as the units of the linguistic resource of the convict’s individual consciousness reflect the mechanism of consciousness of all representatives of the criminal world. The concept GEFÄNGNIS is explored as a metachthon of the modern German prison discourse through the identification of its conceptual, figurative and value segments. The lexical-semantic dimension of German prison communication is determined, the concept systems of the literary and conversational prison discourses are reconstructed and the differences between the German-language author’s and real prison world views are distinguished. Key words: prison discourse, domain, concept system, cognitive map, concept, lexical-semantic field, nominative field, metaphorical potential, associative field.