The concept “medicine” in the internet discourse: Based on the comments on the social network “VKontakte”

Abstract

   Linguistic research is currently characterized by anthropocentricity where the main figure is a person, and the focus of study is their mental activity and representation of thought processes. The scientific interest in the human personality has become the starting point for the formation of cognitive linguistics as an independent trend of modern linguistics, within which cognitive linguists seek to show the linguistic picture of the world of individual groups of people, how language reflects the perception of the world and affects intellectual productivity. The term “concept” has become a tool for describing a person’s picture of the world and the key point in cognitive linguistics. This paper gives a brief theoretical consecration of cognitive linguistics issues, presenting the definitions of the concept, the key concept of mental linguistics. It also characterizes the social network “VKontakte” as a Russian-language discursive platform. We present the lexical content of the concept “Medicine”, based on the comments of the social network “VKontakte” users. Particular attention is paid to the emotional and intentional components of the concept representations.

   The purpose of this work is to find out how users of the Russian-language social network “VKontakte” “reify” one of the largest and most important concepts – the concept of “Medicine”.

   Our analysis of the Internet discourse in the studied social network showed that the concept of “Medicine” has an internal form: “a medical worker”, “a disease”, “health”. The given examples clearly reflect the emotional message of the commentators and the nature of the structural components of the concept “Medicine”.