| Abstract [eng] |
The present master‘s thesis “ Light in the Lithuanian/English View of the World” focuses on the analysis of theoretical issues of the term concept, its national specifics, principles of light concept analysis in the theoretical part of the work and the empirical part focuses on the investigation of concepts of light in Lithuanian and English languages. The research materials are the Corpus of Lithuanian language – Donelaitis and the corpus of English language - British National Corpus. 1000 Lithuanian sentences and 1000 English sentences from the literature/fiction section were taken having the hypothesis that literature can reflect the pecularites of the languages the best. The data of analysis of the concept light in both languages showed that prototypically light is understood in the same way in Lithuanian and English languages. The attention was payed to some more similarities of the prototypical meaning, like the colour of the light and its positive and negative descriptions. But it also revealed a great number of cases when the term light is used metaphorically. The analysis has revealed the importance of the symbolic meaning of the concept light as well. In Lithuanian language the concept of light is usually realized as the objects of a light source: FACE IS THE SOURCE OF LIGHT, EYES ARE THE SOURCE OF LIGHT, LIGHT IS THE ACTIVITY, LIGHT IS LIQUID, LIGHT IS A THING, THE TRUTH IS LIGHT, LOVE IS LIGHT, THE DEATH IS LIGHT. In English language the concept of light can be LIGHT IS A LIVING BEING, LIGHT IS THE FORCE, LIGHT IS A COLOR, FACE IS LIGHT, THE TRUTH IS LIGHT. The concept of light also includes characteristics of symbolic meanings for both languages such as “the green light” symbol, symbolic expression \"light at the end of the tunnel”, GOD IS LIGHT, A MAN IS LIGHT symbolic identification. But only English language in its view of the world contains the symbolic usage of the red light. Also in English language a symbolic expression of new/positive/negative/bad light is often used. However, it can be concluded that the light in both languages is perceived in a similar manner. |
