STEREOTYPICAL REPRESENTATION OF YOUTH IN THE MODERN ENGLISH LITERARY DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article reveals the stereotypical representation of young people, which is formed on the basis of the selection of individual, somewhat biased, axiologically marked subjective features and represents the spectrum of differential features of the actualization of the age concept YOUTH according to linguistic and cultural variability in the British-American literary discourse of the XXI century. To describe the axiological features we use the method of cognitive-discursive interpretation, which allows us to establish a number of implicatures (non-literal meanings) and explicatures (literal sense) of the concept under study. Actualization of cognitive features occurs on the basis of the establishing of different types of axiological marking: sensory, ethical, aesthetic and rationalistic. Their variation is manifested, respectively, by objective and subjective factors, indicating the presence of the subject of discourse, who usually evaluates a certain fragment of reality. On the textual level negative marking usually prevails. It proves the perception of youth as a bearer of problems and troubles. Despite the great responsibility put on young people nowadays, it is one of the most vulnerable age group and, which appears to be the subject to profound social upheaval. Along with the clear innovative potential, we also note the presence of a powerful latent deprivation of youth as the reaction to its status and function in society. Extreme manifestations of anti-social behavior are expressed in the modern literary discourse, involvement in drugs, alcohol, which gives serious grounds to classify youth as a group of high social risk. A positive connotation is inherent in only a small part of the discursive fragments. The emphasis is on the conflict of generations: on the one hand, it is a denial of the youth of the former standards, on the other - the parents' rejection of new values. All of the negative representations of the younger generation are perceived quite critically, since they are matched with the past, which for some reason is depicted as something incomparably better. Literary heroes often compare the present with the period of their youth, not realizing that the new generation always repeats the previous one.

Keywords

• the concept
• stereotypical representation
• axiological feature
• axiological marking
• implicature
• explicature