Cognitive Coherence as the Element of Functional Valence in COVID-19 Terminological System

Abstract

Background. The relevance of the study is predetermined by the uniqueness of the communicative and discursive field formed during COVID-19 pandemic. The manifestation of COVID-19-related nominative categories occurs spontaneously and depends on pragmatic motives of social interaction at the global international level. The atypicality of COVID-19 terminological system development sets up the research course directed at both the process of diffuse terminological conglomerate formation and its conceptualization based on the mechanisms of cognitive activity implementation viewed through the cultural specificity revealed at the level of terminological functioning and terminological systemic unity. Objective. This article presents the results of a corpus-based research of cognitive and discursive features of COVID-19 terminological system development. Methods. The research material is a sample of Russian and English media texts selected via automatized algorithms of data parsing. Media discourse reflects short-term socially significant fluctuations in global information agenda directly related to semantic shifts in COVID-19 representation that are revealed through the variety of linguistic and extralinguistic discursive means and compared within the linguo-cultural communities under study. Results. As a result of content analysis and subsequent component analysis the peculiarities of COVID-19 terminological system development appear to be predetermined by the parallel structuring and transformation of COVID-19 semantic representation formed in the temporal perspective of pandemic waves on the basis of fundamental mechanisms of cognitive activity. The functional valence of COVID-19 terminological system is explicated through the convergence of cognitive components that result in terminological coherence and gradual formation of the denotative component of meaning through cognitive compilation of occasional semic characteristics. Conclusion. Cognitive coherence as the element of COVID-19 terminological system functional valence contributes to its gradual structuring and determines the features of semantic arrangement of COVID-19 conceptual field.

Keywords

• covid-19
• term
• terminological system
• semantic representation
• functional valence
• cognitive coherence