The Semantic Space of Concepts in Modern British Political Discourse

Abstract

The article examines the semantic space of concepts in modern British political discourse. The basic concepts of GOVERNMENT, POLITICAL EVENTS, CITIZEN and ECOLOGY in the British press are analysed, taking into account: 1) the main, dominant, feature; 2) additional “passive” features; 3) the actualization of the internal hidden form. It was determined that these characteristics allow the concepts to be updated on different levels, as well as to be perceived by carriers of different cultures in different ways. On the basis of the content-analysis of modern British media contexts and semantic network analysis, a field model of the political discourse of the modern British press was constructed. It is proved that all the presented sub-concepts are at the final stage of formation in British political language consciousness, which is indicated by the high density of political discourse lexemes that objectify these sub-concepts.

Keywords

• British political discourse
• semantic space of the concepts
• concept GOVERNMENT
• concept POLITICAL EVENTS
• concept CITIZEN
• concept ECOLOGY