REPRESENTATION OF THE CATEGORY “DOCTOR” IN RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE PRECEDENT TEXTS OF HUMOROUS GENRES

Abstract

Throughout human history, human well-being has been inextricably linked to the skills of healers. That fact was reflected in literature through the creation of diverse images of doctors of various specialties. The aim of this article is to identify the characteristics of concepts within the category DOCTOR in Russian-language precedent texts of humorous genres. The study reveals that surgeons, cardiologists, dentists, pathologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists are the most frequently featured professionals in comic discourse. The scientific originality lies in the use of precedent humorous texts as a source for reconstructing mental units. The analysis uncovers uneven representation of these concepts, reflected in the frequency of their mentions across works and the set of characteristics. The authors describe the category’s structure and highlight key aspects of representation: professional activity, level of competence, patient fears, and professional deformation. Particular attention is paid to the correlation between the emotional connotation of humor and the frequency of references to the image of a specific specialist.