In the framework of anthropocentric and interdisciplinary approaches, the thesis provides the basis for a comprehensive research of linguistic and semantic cognitive features of the concept SELF-ALIENATION in the English language and culture as well as nominative units of contemporary English and iconic elements as means for the realization of the concept in twentieth- and twenty-first-century English-language science fiction. According to the scientific paradigm, self-alienation is defined as a process taking place within the person, his/her consciousness as an intrapersonal individual conflict which extrapolates on nature, social institutions, wealth, and spiritual values. In turn, this leads to depersonalization, lack of personal responsibility, dehumanization of human relations, the feeling of isolation, helplessness, and fear. In the English language world picture, the term self-alienation is used in philosophical, legal, psychological, sociological, and medical discourses. Anthropocentric comprehension of the problems of individual alienation, reasons, and consequences of interpersonal estrangement meant as a termination of close and friendly relations, inner disaffection and indifference, separation, lack of rapport, isolation of an individual from their social surroundings are defined to be the focus of study of a relatively new discipline – bioethics. The choice of twentieth- and twenty-first-century English-language science fiction was determined by the correlation of the issues considered by bioethics (the unity of biological knowledge and cognition of human values system) and those raised by “soft” science fiction. The questions of gene interference in a human organism by cloning and its unpredictable consequences considered in terms of the system of human values are debated as moral and ethical problems. The violation of the axiological basis of personal existence as a social being causes a lack of identity and individuality, depersonalization, or self-alienation. The concept in the research is defined as an abstract mental formation, complex cultural, mental, and language unit consisting of three components (conceptual, evaluative, figurative) in connection with language (the concept is revealed in language), culture (the concept is determined by culture) and consciousness (the concept is situated or lies in consciousness). It is found out that concept SELF-ALIENATION is a topical ontological object of linguo-cultural and linguo-cognitive investigations as a complex polyvalent construct of a human being and human consciousness. In twentieth- and twenty-first-century English-language science fiction, the SELF-ALIENATION concept is realized as a fiction multilevel cognitive construct which is emotively and expressively marked with special verbally explicated images.
