CONCEPTUAL INFORMATION IN LITERARY DISCOURSE

SCIENCE AND INNOVATION INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL VOLUME 4 ISSUE 12 DECEMBER 2025 ISSN: 2181-3337 | SCIENTISTS.UZ 50 CONCEPTUAL INFORMATION IN LITERARY DISCOURSE M. Askarova 1st year PhD student at Alisher Navo`i Tashkent state university of Uzbek language and literature https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17963155 Abstract. The emergence of new paradigms has made it possible to combine human factor and his affect on linguistics to analyze language generation and its use. This article discusses the importance of concepts in analyzing literary texts and conceptual information to reveal true meaning of literary works. Conceptual information and its verbalization in literary discourse has been illustrated in the sample of conceptual metaphor in 20th century English literature. Keywords: concepts, conceptosphere, conceptual information, conceptual metaphor, implicit information, stylistic devices, cognitive processing Introduction Originally, structural analysis of language units could not reveal potential power of language. For this reason, the further research studies focused on how linguistic units are chosen and used. These studies led to analysing human factor in language use and cognitive approaches emerged as a result. These changes resulted in a new paradigm which will focus on human power in language generation and new linguistic directions emerged. The paradigm was called anthropocentric paradigm. Nowadays thanks to the superiority of anthropocentric paradigm in linguistics, human and the factors around him have become a center of linguistic analysis and language learning. As a result of this paradigm new trends of linguistics, such as Gender linguistics, enthnolinguistics, Linguacultural linguistics and Cognitive linguistics and so on. This paradigm has made it urgent to combine several fields to carry linguistic analysis considering human factor in it. As the human is the focus, the fields related to him and his life have gained importance and as a result, interdisciplinary feature of linguistic analysis has emerged. Therefore, nowadays linguistic analysis combine psychological, cultural, pragmatic and other features of human life in language use. Their main focus is on the role of human culture, background knowledge, social experience and personal thinking and the impact of these combination on generating language and choosing linguistic units. As proponents of anthropocentric paradigm believe words are just signs we see but the signals we are unaware, analyzing literary discourse, which is wider notion than text, has focused on implicit layer of it, where human factor is readily available. Discourse is the notion that can combine both written and oral communication types and considers extralinguistic factors, which are considered important to analyze anthropocentric features. Concept is one of the notions that can prove human factor plays an important role in language generating. As M. Gallieva mentioned (2021) concept is the unit of different fields that put human factor in the center such as cognitive linguistics, linguoculturology, philosophy, linguoconceptology and others. Galinsky and Pitch believes that concept is a unit of thinking. They argue that concepts are linked with human background knowledge and their activation is carried out by the concepts. Their verbalization often goes to stylistic devices, which will enable the author to use different ways to attract readers’ attention. Main part SCIENCE AND INNOVATION INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL VOLUME 4 ISSUE 12 DECEMBER 2025 ISSN: 2181-3337 | SCIENTISTS.UZ 51 Concept is defined differently in different studies. Linguocultural studies consider concept as a unit of culture. Cognitive linguistics consider concept as a human cognition that can show human world picture and his beliefs, worldview and thinking. However, as the human factor is the center, these two study fields have some in common in terms of concept. The reason is that human culture and background can reflect in his thinking, beliefs and views. For this reason, analysis of concepts require interdisciplinary approach to illustrate everything related to it. A. S. Askoldov (1928) was the pioneer of the notion of concept and he suggested psychological approach to analyze concepts. He differentiated cognitive concepts and literary concepts. D. S. Likhachev suggested the description of concept as “algebraic scheme of possible meanings and their reference”. He believed that the extension of concept is strongly linked to human’s rich culture, personal knowledge and experience. E. Makhova (2019, p. 48) describes concept as “mental and psychological resources of consciousness and the informative structure that reflects a person’s knowledge and experience. A concept is a multilevel phenomenon: it belongs simultaneously to logical and intuitive, individual and social, conscious and unconscious domains”. Moreover, she links concepts to words, action or gestures that can show “a set of ideas, notions, images and associations”. There is another term which is relevant to the notion of concept - conceptosphere. Conceptosphere is the collection of ideas, beliefs and views of the people in one culture and readily available in their mind. It can be described as the basis of all common cultural-mental concepts. In terms of conceptual information, this is the type of information which is differentiated by different scholars (A. I. Novikov, N. S. Bolotnova, I. R. Galperin) among other types of information such as factual, emotive, esthetic, implicit, stylistic and others. As concept is linked with psychological and cognitive processes, conceptual information is mainly hidden in implicit layer of literary discourse. Literary discourse is the main source of languages to show its all potentials and cultural background. For this reason, we have chosen literary discourse to illustrate our analysis. Conceptual information is mainly verbalized by different stylistic devices and their meaning is expanded by cognitive analysis of these devices. Implicit meaning is exposed by combining linguistic and extralinguistic features around it. To achieve intended aims, the writers refer to stylistic devices in literary discourse as a main tool to attract readers’ attention and make the hidden information parts visible to notice. Primary stylistic device is conceptual metaphor. This device associates two different objects and combines target domain characters with the source domain. The process can be explained with the example derived from the short story of V. Woolf titled “The mark on the Wall”. The story is about just a mark on the wall and possible assumptions of the lady about it. However, while thinking about this mark, she thinks about different issues in her life and her philosophy about life is expressed. She rounds about different ideas but then comes to the mark again and this process is continued until his husband tells her it is a “snail”. So, the thought of the lady goes like a “spiral” like a snail and the truth of snail is linked lexically to this reference. Therefore, the author makes the reader experience different issues according to her view and suddenly comes back to the mark, as a beginning point of another topic. SCIENCE AND INNOVATION INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL VOLUME 4 ISSUE 12 DECEMBER 2025 ISSN: 2181-3337 | SCIENTISTS.UZ 52 The truth is a snail and all assumptions goes down, so the author links knowing truth to death, thinking to life. In the story the author repeats it by lady’s unwillingness to stand up and see what it is as once she knows what it actually is, she stops thinking - living: “But for that mark, I’m not sure about it; I don’t believe it was made by a nail after all; it’s too big, too round, for that. I might get up, but if I got up and looked at it, ten to one I shouldn’t be able to say for certain; because once a thing’s done, no one ever knows how it happened. Oh! dear me, the mystery of life; the inaccuracy of thought! The ignorance of humanity! To show how very little control of our possessions we have …” So, in this story main focus is life and death and their comparison to different things. For example, the lady believes life is journey and she describes it as a parcel delivery. Once you get your owner “God”, you even do not have a hair pin and naked. She tried to refer to helplessness and hopelessness. Moreover, she described life as race and flying hair back to illustrate how rapid life is: “With one’s hair flying back like the tail of a race-horse.” So, when the reader combines all thoughts and links it to life and death, there will appear unusual metaphorical expression of them and they are described with every-day objects and events happen around people. The following diagram will illustrate this metaphorical information with their comparison: In terms of parcel, the basis of the comparison is coming and going with what you have originally. It means that the wealth and property people earned is left and you will be delivered like a parcel to the origin where you were sent. In the second comparison main factor is the speed. The author compares life to a race and described the view in which high speed is highlighted. So, flying time and getting older can make people think that life goes faster than they think. For this reason, with the dominance of speed two objects are compared and abstract one is explained with every-day objects. In the last conceptual metaphor, the author described her views on life. As for the author, thinking and trying to know the truth is the meaning of life and it is equalized to life. For this reason, during the story the lady (in the story “Mark on the wall”) repeats that if she stands up and sees what the mark is, then she stops thinking and when people do not think, they are considered dead according to the writer’s viewpoint. Cognitive linguists believe that human memory capacity is limited, for this reason writer/speakers use background knowledge people have and triggering them they can achieve more unique meanings of some abstract notions. For this reason, conceptual information is integrated into the text or communication with the help of stylistic devices. As conceptual information is expressed in implicit layer of the text, stylistic devices will help activate knowledge structures and guess the meaning behind words. For this reason, in the story the writer used familiar objects for the expression of abstract notions to show how she views the world. Moreover, the author, V. Woolf, as a member of modernist literature, used uncommon narrative style and swarmed her ideas about life, social situations in her time, male and female issues around one mark on the wall. The SCIENCE AND INNOVATION INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL VOLUME 4 ISSUE 12 DECEMBER 2025 ISSN: 2181-3337 | SCIENTISTS.UZ 53 mark on the wall was the symbol of truth which people think more and live more to find it. Once thinking is stopped, people literally die. Conclusion In conclusion, the current article discussed the issue of conceptual information in terms of cognitive and stylistic views. The analysis of the story reveals that conceptual information activates concepts and mental models to decode hidden information and intentions of the writer. For the current studies, mental models and frame analysis are important analyzing methods to reveal cognitive characteristics of language use. Moreover, the analysis showed that conceptual information is hidden in literary discourse and cognitive analysis, conceptual analysis of the discourse can reveal what is hidden. Both linguistic and extralinguistic factors are necessary to carry this analysis as human factor is mostly illustrated with extralinguistic factors and showed with linguistic units, which refer and activate these factors. As the authors try to refer their readers’ background available knowledge and experience so that they can find meaning in conceptualised objects. Conceptual information is important for revealing true meaning behind literary works. These analyses can reveal cognitive aspects of stylistic devices, language choice, principles of distributing information in the discourse, the author’s style and others. These issues will be discussed further in the following research papers. So, this analysis can be considered as an important part of translation studies and modern linguistics where human plays a central role in analysis. REFERENCES 1. Askoldov S.A. Concept and word // literature. From the theory of literature to text structure. Anthology. M.: Academia, 2007. pp. 267-279. 2. Galieva, M. (2021). Verbalization of the Concept Word in Lexical Level (the English, 3. Russian, Uzbek Languages). Bulletin of Science and Practice, 7(6), 537-542. https://doi.org/10.33619/2414-2948/67/70 4. Likhachev D.S. Conceptosphere of language // News of Academy of Sciences. Ser. lit. and language 2003. pp. 4-10. 5. Monakhova, E. (2019). Cognitive and pragmatic approach to using stylistic devices in English literary discourse. Training, Language and Culture, 3(1), 37-52. doi: 10.29366/2019tlc.3.1.3 6. Новиков А.М. Семантика текста и её формализация. —М.: Наука, 1983. — 215 с.