Semantics of festivities in “Christmas Carol” by Ch. Dickens

Abstract

The article concerns the language units, forming the semantics of festivities in one of the most popular works by Charles Dickens - the great English writer of Victorian Era, namely A Christmas Carol (1843). This work has been the subject for a lot of research, the story however is not investigated within the framework of some allied sciences. An attempt to use linguistic, linguistic culture and literary criticism approaches has been made to analyze the story. The eleven theme groups were found and the linguistic units were picked up. Those units create the unique picture of Christmas festivities. The examples from the text are analyzed. Around one thousand language units describing Christmas are analyzed. The conclusion is made that the writer created the morally important, educating work. At the same time, he attracted attention to Christmas in Britain, criticizing the drawbacks of the society as well as in Victorian England. The palette of stylistic and language means is rich and wonderful.

Keywords

• charles dickens
• artistic text
• holiday
• humanism
• semantics
• thematic groups