Shkoruta I. Psychotherapeutic discourse in English-language prose by Irvin Yalom: cognitive-linguistic perspective.

The investigation of Irvin Yalom’s psychotherapeutic discourse within the domain of linguocognitive and cognitive narratological studies is timely, given the increasing scholarly interest in discourse and the phenomenon of psychotherapy in both Ukrainian and international linguistics. The research represents a significant contribution to the cognitive narratological analysis of literary language and facilitates a deeper understanding of the ways in which the experience of psychotherapy is cognitively objectified in narrative literary discourse. The object of the study is the prose of the contemporary American psychotherapist and writer Irvin Yalom, whose works integrate features of literary, scholarly, and professional (psychotherapeutic) discourse. The subject of the study is the linguocognitive parameters of psychotherapeutic discourse in the prose of Irvin Yalom. The aim of the study is to investigate the parameters of psychotherapeutic discourse in Irvin Yalom’s prose from the perspective of the linguocognitive approach. The methodological framework of the study is grounded in the theoretical and methodological approaches developed within the following branches of cognitive linguistics: cognitive stylistics and poetics, cognitive narratology, and frame semantics. The practical component of the study was carried out with reference to the theoretical and methodological apparatus of mental space theory, conceptual integration theory, narrative theory, script theory, frame theory, and conceptual metaphor theory. Research methods. The study employs general scientific and specialized linguistic methods of analysis. Scientific novelty of the study. The present dissertation constitutes the first comprehensive academic investigation of psychotherapeutic discourse in Irvin Yalom’s prose from linguocognitive and cognitive narratological perspectives. The theoretical significance of the study is determined by its contribution to the development of cognitive linguistics and cognitive narratology. In particular, the findings contribute to further elaboration of the concepts of narrative perspective, narrative mental space, narrator and narratee within the framework of mental space theory and conceptual integration theory. The analysis of metaphorical scenarios of psychotherapy, taking into account their typical and deviant realizations in discourse, expands the methodological apparatus of conceptual metaphor theory. The combined cognitive narratological methodology for the analysis of the event concept PSYCHOTHERAPY proposed in this dissertation constitutes a contribution to linguoconceptology, specifically by extending the methodological apparatus for the analysis of concepts objectified in narrative discourses. The comprehensive and multifaceted study of psychotherapeutic discourse in Irvin Yalom’s prose will contribute to further scholarly research in the domain of psychotherapy discourse. The practical significance of the study is determined by the possibility of using its theoretical propositions and results in specialized courses in cognitive linguistics (including “Cognitive Narratological Studies of Concepts,” “Conceptual Integration Theory,” “Conceptual Metaphors and Metaphorical Scenarios”) and cognitive narratology (“Narrator and Narrative Perspective,” “Theory of Narrative Mental Spaces and the Reconstruction of the Narrator’s Point of View”). The findings obtained in the study may also be employed by undergraduate and postgraduate students in their research activities.