NATIONAL AND CULTURAL PECULIARITIES OF THE MENTAL STRUCTURE ‘THOUGHT’ IN RUSSIAN, ITALIAN AND ENGLISH

Abstract

The article models the mental structure “Thought” in the Russian, Italian and English language pictures of the world. The task of the authors’ comparative cognitive study is to identify the national and cultural specifics associated with the metaphorical understanding of mental actions and their results. Parts of the corresponding semantic fields are taken as language material. The center of each field are the nouns мысль, pensiero and thought, as well as verbal and attributive metaphors, combined with mental names and representing the interaction of a person and his thoughts. In addition to the three universal “traces” of the movement of thought, numerous other types of movement are discovered, having their own vector in different languages i.e. speed, environment of movement, as well as the presence/absence of control from outside or from within. The conceptual structure under study is complex, the “packaging” of information about the thought can be different: a concept-image, a mental script containing information about the situation of interaction between a person and his thoughts. The conceptual signs that the reseaarchers have identified indicate that, on the one hand, the process of thinking is beyond the control of a person, on the other hand, in a situation of a thinking process, a person is presented as the master of the situation.