UDC

81.139:130.2

Authors

Fedorov Mikhail Aleksandrovich
Buryat State University 30 per. Tsentralnyy, Ulan-Ude, 670018, Russian Federation;
e-mail: fma1105@gmail.com

Abstract

The “time is a person” metaphor, which structures the concept of time, helps us single out two paradigms of time perception in British literature. In the first paradigm, time is portrayed as a superior being with extensive knowledge and ability to interfere, playing a role of an adversary or an umpire. The source of this paradigm, presented in the works by Shakespeare, Bunyan, Milton and Dryden, is either found in ancient mythology or a transformed idealistic philosophy. According to the second paradigm, time is seen as a natural course of events, its personification stressing the role of time as an activity resource affecting human life and relations with others. The most vivid examples of this paradigm can be found in the works by Bunyan and such Enlightenment writers as Defoe, Swift, Richardson and Fielding. The figurativeness of time in nineteenth-century literature is regarded as a synthesis of the two paradigms: on one hand, it turns away from the simplified worldview highlighting the human freedom to act as the key factor of using one’s time; on the other hand, the multi-vector nature of social existence, where individual freedom is limited by both the circumstances and actions of other people, is understood through the images deeply rooted in linguistic culture. The transition from the first to the second paradigm is interpreted from the viewpoint of human activity, and we can single out three features of the characters: their dependence on supreme forces, freedom to act, and dependence on external factors.

Keywords

cognitive metaphor, personification, English linguistic culture, category of time, self-perception

References

1. Fedorov M.A. Vospriyatie vremeni v russkoy i amerikanskoy kul’turakh [Perception of Time in Russian and American Cultures]. Ulan-Ude, 2011. 98 p.
   
2. Fedorov M.A. Reprezentatsiya obraznoy sostavlyayushchey kontsepta “time” v proizvedeniyakh U. Shekspira [Representation of the Figurative Component of the Concept of Time in the Works by Shakespeare]. Aktual’nye voprosy kognitivnoy lingvistiki i semasiologii [Current Issues of Cognitive Linguistics and Semasiology]. Cheboksary, 2011, pp. 116–122.
   
3. Fedorov M.A. Reprezentatsiya obraznoy sostavlyayushchey kontsepta “time”, predstavlennoy v perevode Novogo Zaveta Dzh. Uikliffom v 1382 g. [Representation of the Figurative Component of the Concept of Time in John Wycliffe’s Translation of the New Testament of 1382]. Inostrannye yazyki v Baykal’skom regione [Foreign Languages in the Baikal Region]. Ulan-Ude, 2010, pp. 80–83.
   
4. Fedorov M.A. Obraznaya sostavlyayushchaya kontsepta TIME: diakhronicheskiy aspect [Figurative Component of the Concept of Time: Diachronic Aspect]. Ulan-Ude, 2013. 160 p. 5. Gaydenko P.P. Vremya. Dlitel’nost’. Vechnost’. Problema vremeni v evropeyskoy filosofii i nauke [Time. Duration. Eternity. The Issue of Time in European Philosophy and Science]. Moscow, 2007. 464 p.