The dissertation is devoted to the research of lexical and semantic peculiarities of colorants in the German language and to the revealing of regularities and peculiarities of the use of color designations in the work of W. Borchert.
The study provides a characteristic of the color picture of the world of the writer as an element of his individual author's picture of the world and, accordingly, a fragment of the linguistic picture of the world, which was formed in the general system of color designations of the German language during the 40s of the 20th century - one of the defining stages in the history of the formation of literary and linguistic tradition of the Germany.
An important criterion in determining the function of color name in the author's picture of the world of W. Borchert is its partial linguistic affiliation. Thus, in the color vocabulary of the writer, mostly nominal parts of speech are recorded with a noticeable predominance of adjective colors in the function of definition and predicate. The study proves that the author often uses color names not only literally but also figuratively, and along with the traditional figurative meanings recorded in most of the analyzed lexicographical sources, we also record occasional authorial variants, such as weltgrau (gray, like all postwar world).
The lexical and semantic features and regularities of the use of German color symbols through the prism of their use in the works of W. Borchert as the main representative of a group of young German writers of the new formation formed in Germany in the first postwar years (40s of the 20th century) are analyzed. The component analysis of values of color names is carried out, and features of their use by the author are revealed, having focused attention first of all on semantic changes which occur at the same time, namely, giving to color names of new shades of value which are not fixed in dictionaries.
The signs and main tendencies in the author's use of his own "color neologisms" are revealed and the special author's artistic technique of "color antithesis", which is inherent in the short prose of W. Borchert, is analyzed. In order to identify the author's peculiarities of color usage, based on the analysis of the influence of historical epoch and extralinguistic factors on the personality of W. Borchert, a comparative analysis of epidigmatic characteristics of color names recorded in German dictionaries, these symbols of color in the work of the writer.
The signs and main tendencies in the author's use of his own "color neologisms" are revealed and the special author's artistic technique of "color antithesis", characteristic for W. Borchert and represented in the author's short prose, is investigated. The study showed that in the artistic language of W. Borchert color names forms a complex but unique system. Features of the color palette, unpredictability of color tones and shades, as well as the author's methods of forming new color names, the author's own color symbolism contribute to the moral and psychological state of the hero and create vivid artistic images, powerful symbols that sharpen the reader's perception of the author's idea.
