M. P. Shishkin’s image of Switzerland through the lens of the conceptual metaphor

The article studies the role that the conceptual metaphor plays in reconstructing the image of Switzerland. On the material of the literary and historic guidebook The Russian Switzerland by M. P. Shishkin the semantic and stylistic features of metaphors, which are peculiarly encoded definitions of the author’s conceptual meanings, are described. The goal of the paper is to identify the techniques of how the image of Switzerland is conceptualized in its Russian representation. The metaphor’s modeling role is considered on the language and concept levels, a special meta-meaning of the image of Switzerland is registered; it is related to the author’s self-awareness in the space of the foreign culture, to his attempt to comprehend the history of the 20th century through the lens of the conceptual dialogue of cultures. The author’s metaphorical range was analyzed by means of continuous sampling; further, the systemic character in using metaphors in creating the image of Switzerland was revealed. The connection between metaphor and meta-poetic principles of work is noted, the functioning of metaphor in different discourses, related to the history and culture of Russia, is considered. This research is relevant due to the interest of the philological science to the phenomena associated with the thought processes, in particular, on the example of texts that generate artistic and journalistic elements, an interconnection between the author’s thought and the specific nature of the linguistic representation of conceptual meaning of history and culture can be observed. The author’s principle of “coupling” and “combining” is addressed not only in the organization of the textual space (as a genre feature), but in creating a number of conceptual metaphors, which are essential for the thorough understanding of historical reality, its reference points, truth and fallacies through the lens of a certain individual. In the context of M. P. Shishkin’s oeuvre the meta-literary component of the metaphorical models has a special value (space, mirrors/deflection, artefact metaphor).

CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR, metaphorical mapping, semantics, stylistics, meta-poetics