The concept HOUSE in Penelope Lively’s The House in Norham Gardens

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Institute of Foreign Languages of Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

The concept HOUSE in Penelope Lively's the house in Norham Gardens

Ekaterina V. Nagornova

Yana A. Volkova

Moscow

Annotation

lively house concept lexeme

In this paper, the verbalization of one of the key concepts in the English sphere of concepts, HOUSE, in P. Lively's novel The House in Norham Gardens is analysed. The research is based on a three-layer model of a concept developed by V. I. Karasik, as well as the method of linguo-conceptual analysis which involves the following steps: 1) definition and etymological analysis of the lexeme house; 2) analysis of the lexical and phraseological units representing the concept in the language, 3) contextual analysis of the corpus of contexts in which the lexeme house is used. The traditional, “cultural”, verbalization of the HOUSE is compared with the author's individual one, which is derived through a similar analysis of the author's contexts. In the novel, a certain extension in the meaning of the core components is traced -- the concept HOUSE acquires the basic features of the concept HOME. The method of linguo-conceptual analysis allows us to reveal the variety of images connected with the idea of the house. The metaphorical models “the house is a museum”, “the house is life”, “the house is a dinosaur/monster” employed by the author add to the conceptualization of the house as a major value of English culture. This concept is based on the archaic understanding of the house as “one's own”, internal, mastered space, which confronts the strange, external space of chaos. The analysis allows us to assume that the procedure of the linguo- conceptual analysis of the individual author's concepts opens up prospects for further study of the individual author's concepts in modern English literature, followed by a comparative study in the intercultural dimension.

Keywords: author's worldview, cognitive linguistics, concept HOUSE, cultural concept, Penelope Lively.

Àííîòàöèÿ

Íàãîðíîâà Åêàòåðèíà Âàëåðüåâíà Ðîññèéñêèé óíèâåðñèòåò äðóæáû íàðîäîâ, Ðîññèÿ, Ìîñêâà

Âîëêîâà ßíà Àëåêñàíäðîâíà Ðîññèéñêèé óíèâåðñèòåò äðóæáû íàðîäîâ, Ðîññèÿ, Ìîñêâà

 ñòàòüå èññëåäóåòñÿ âåðáàëèçàöèÿ îäíîãî èç êëþ÷åâûõ êîíöåïòîâ àíãëèéñêîé íàöèîíàëüíîé êîíöåïòîñôåðû ÄÎÌ/HOUSE â ðîìàíå Ï. Ëàéâëè «Äîì íà Íîðýì-Ãàðäåíñ». Èññëåäîâàíèå îñíîâàíî íà òðåõêîìïîíåíòíîé ìîäåëè êîíöåïòà, ðàçðàáîòàííîé Â. È. Êàðàñèêîì, à òàêæå ìåòîäå ëèíãâîêîíöåïòóàëüíîãî àíàëèçà, êîòîðûé âêëþ÷àåò â ñåáÿ ñëåäóþùèå ýòàïû: 1) îïðåäåëåíèå è ýòèìîëîãè÷åñêèé àíàëèç ëåêñåìû house `äîì'; 2) àíàëèç ëåêñè÷åñêèõ è ôðàçåîëîãè÷åñêèõ åäèíèö, ðåïðåçåíòèðóþùèõ êîíöåïò â ÿçûêå; 3) êîíòåêñòóàëüíûé àíàëèç êîðïóñà êîíòåêñòîâ, â êîòîðûõ èñïîëüçóåòñÿ ëåêñåìà house. Òðàäèöèîííàÿ âåðáàëèçàöèÿ êîíöåïòà ÄÎÌ/HOUSE ñîïîñòàâëÿåòñÿ ñ èíäèâèäóàëüíîé àâòîðñêîé, êîòîðàÿ âûâîäèòñÿ ÷åðåç àíàëîãè÷íûé àíàëèç àâòîðñêèõ êîíòåêñòîâ.  ðîìàíå ïðîñëåæèâàåòñÿ îïðåäåëåííîå ðàñøèðåíèå çíà÷åíèÿ îñíîâíûõ êîìïîíåíòîâ -- êîíöåïò ÄÎÌ/HOUSE ïðèîáðåòàåò îñíîâíûå ÷åðòû êîíöåïòà ÄÎÌ/ HOME. Ìåòîä ëèíãâîêîíöåïòóàëüíîãî àíàëèçà òàêæå ïîçâîëÿåò âûÿâèòü ìíîæåñòâî îáðàçîâ, ñâÿçàííûõ ñ èäååé äîìà. Èñïîëüçóåìûå àâòîðîì ìåòàôîðè÷åñêèå ìîäåëè «äîì -- ìóçåé», «äîì -- æèçíü», «äîì -- äèíîçàâð/ìîíñòð» äîïîëíÿþò êîíöåïòóàëèçàöèþ äîìà êàê âàæíåéøåé öåííîñòè àíãëèéñêîé êóëüòóðû. Èññëåäóåìûé êîíöåïò îñíîâûâàåòñÿ íà àðõàè÷íîì ïîíèìàíèè äîìà êàê «ñâîåãî», âíóòðåííåãî, îñâîåííîãî ïðîñòðàíñòâà, êîòîðîìó ïðîòèâîñòîèò ñòðàííîå, âíåøíåå ïðîñòðàíñòâî õàîñà. Âñå ýòî ïîäòâåðæäàåò íàëè÷èå â êîíöåïòå ÄÎÌ/HOUSE ÿðêî âûðàæåííîãî öåííîñòíîãî êîìïîíåíòà â àíãëèéñêîé ëèíãâîêóëüòóðå. Ïðîâåäåííûé àíàëèç ïîçâîëÿåò ïðåäïîëîæèòü, ÷òî ïðîöåäóðà ëèíãâîêîíöåïòóàëüíîãî àíàëèçà èíäèâèäóàëüíûõ àâòîðñêèõ êîíöåïòîâ îòêðûâàåò ïåðñïåêòèâû äëÿ äàëüíåéøåãî èçó÷åíèÿ èíäèâèäóàëüíî-àâòîðñêèõ êîíöåïòîâ â ñîâðåìåííîé àíãëîÿçû÷íîé ëèòåðàòóðå ñ ïîñëåäóþùèì ñðàâíèòåëüíûì èññëåäîâàíèåì íà ìåæêóëüòóðíîé îñíîâå.

Êëþ÷åâûå ñëîâà: àâòîðñêàÿ êàðòèíà ìèðà, êîãíèòèâíàÿ ëèíãâèñòèêà, êîíöåïò ÄÎÌ, êóëüòóðíûé êîíöåïò, Ïåíåëîïà Ëàéâëè.

Introduction

This study is a part of a project investigating the core values of English culture reflected in modern English literature.

“House” can be regarded as a fundamental value of many world cultures, and English seems to be no exception [Easthope 2004; Parsell 2012; Saunders 1989, et al.]. English grand country houses have always attracted fiction authors of all epochs, from J. Austen to modern writers. The American novelist Henry James paid tribute to the importance of this concept in the English mentality with the following words:

Of all the great things that the English have invented and made part of the credit of the national character, the most perfect, the most characteristic, the only one they have mastered completely in all its details, so that it becomes a compendious illustration of their social genius and their manners, is the well-appointed, well-administered, well-filled country house [James 1905: 292].

Modern novelists are drawn to the concept of the English stately house, and P. Lively is a good example. In The House in Norham Gardens Lively P. The house in Norham Gardens. Cit. ex: [Lively 1974]. (Henceforth -- The House.) (1974), the concept HOUSE plays a central role; it is carefully thought through and verbalized, eventually becoming a major character. The lexeme house is placed in a strong position -- in the title of the novel. From the very beginning, the readers realize that all events, actions, relationships are connected with the house. It correlates with all the other topics and notions represented in the novel: history, memory, time, family, multicultural society, continuity of generations, and others. Thus, in the novel, we can see a large old house on a quiet road in an ancient city. The house is filled with relics from the past, trophies from expeditions to the Stone Age of New Guinea. Clare, the fourteen-year-old protagonist, lives with her two great-aunts in this three-story spacious Victorian house. The house has been in the family for many years. Like the castle in Dodie Smith's novel I Capture the Castle (1948), it is altogether too big for its occupants. With its breakfast rooms and flower rooms, it is impractical: a relic, stuffed with old letters, and photographs, and the fruits of colonial expeditions made by Clare's great-grandfather. At fourteen, Clare is responsible for her great-aunts' health and the finances of the house, and despite her contentment with all the history and the eccentricity, the atmosphere of doom hangs over it all, unspoken and perhaps unacknowledged. Everything is poised, hushed, almost breathless, between several kinds of time, several different worlds. There are many other types of houses and homes which are described or just mentioned by the author. They complete the perfect setting for the book. Houses create a special atmosphere of a place, reveal the characters of people living in them, become parts of a family histories, country history, and national culture. All these explain our interest in the concept HOUSE in Lively's novel, thus making the book the subject of research.

Also, it is necessary to speak about Lively's creative work in general. Since the publication of her first novel in 1970 (a children's book entitled Astercote), Lively has developed into a writer who is both prolific and wide-ranging. She is the author of over forty novels, short story collections, young adult fiction, and children's fiction. Lively's work appeals to both a youthful, popular audience keen on finding escape within a good yarn, and to an academic audience interested in her experimental narrative techniques and her creation of what postmodern scholars sometimes refer to as “historiographical metafiction”. Lively's slight attention to the traditional means of creating characters does not mean that she completely abandons this category. The writer uses other, often indirect means to create her characters' images, their inner life. Lively's novels reflect many aspects of the image and lifestyle of the English. Her experimental narrative techniques make it possible to explore the characters' inner speech, which, unlike the external one, is less dependent on the communicative situation, social roles, and conventions, and allows for observing the linguistic personality in its immediate manifestation.

Lively is especially concerned with the relationship between the past and memory, a concern that can be traced back to her years as an undergraduate when she read modern history. Speaking on the subject of memory, Lively says she is interested in “the ways in which the physical world is composed of memory, the way in which it's an encumbrance and the ways in which is an asset... I can hardly decide which it is. But it is something that I'm constantly aware of and constantly seeking new ways of exploring fictionally” Penelope Lively. https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/penelope-lively (accessed: 21.04.2018)..

The study of the concept HOUSE in its implementation in the novel The House in Norham Gardens makes it possible to identify the features of the concept HOUSE in English linguistic culture through the author's individual worldview.

The study utilizes both cognitive [Kubryakova 1999; Popova, Sternin 2003; Barsalou 2017; Pelletier 2017; Compositionality 2017] and linguo-cultural [Smolicz 1981; Vorobyev 1997; Karasik, Slyshkin 2001; Vorkachev 2004; Mendez 2011] approaches to the study of cultural concepts. The linguistic representation of the concept HOUSE is analyzed in Lively's The House in Norham Gardens (1974). Particular attention is paid to the writer's worldview, which is non-accidental, since individualized speech is more responsive to changes in both linguistic and socio-cultural environments. Furthermore, the study of cultural concepts through the artistic text provides a basis for a comparative analysis of the universal and individual components of a cultural concept.

Theoretical framework and research methodology

The term “concept” as it is used in this article is widely applied in modern linguistics to a range of cognitive, cultural, and literary data. Generally, it is understood as a complex mental formation which refers to the cognitive, spiritual or material spheres of human life, but becomes accessible through language. Thus, the cognitive and linguistic sides of the concept are closely intertwined. This idea, in fact, stems from Wilhelm von Humboldt's observation that language and thinking are inextricably linked. Each person has a subjective image of an object that does not completely coincide with the image of the same object another person has, and this view can be objectified only by making its way through the mouth to the outside world The translation of all Russian sources which are quoted in the article was done by the authors of the article. [Humboldt 2000: 168].

Much later, when the interrelation between language and culture was no longer called into question, G. Lakoff and M. Johnson observed that “language is a powerful social tool that coordinates the human flow into an ethnos that forms a nation through the preservation and transmission of culture, traditions, and public consciousness of the given language community”. [Lakoff, Johnson 1980: 180-181]. Russian linguist Yu. S. Stepanov introduced the idea of “a cultural concept”, which has a double-sided nature: on the one hand, it is “a cultural unit in the mental world of a human being”, on the other hand, it is represented, or materialized, only through language [Stepanov 2001: 288-306]. According to the scholar, cultural concepts are represented by lexical units, idiomatic expressions, and/or texts. Since then, numerous attempts to create a consistent and coherent “conceptual” picture of the world have been undertaken, including a series of studies in lin- guo-cultural concepts [Anthology 2007; Karasik 2002; 2015; Goddard, Wierzbicka 2014; Underhill 2012; Vorkachev 2016; Wierzbicka 2011; 2016; 2017a; 2017b] and wide-scale research on emotion concepts [Kövecses 1990; 2006; Emotions 2001]. Each of these studies touches upon the correlation between the universal and cultural components in the concept, which allows us to see that though the biological nature of some phenomena is the same, each concrete culture chooses its own linguistic way of verbalization. Moreover, modern research results indicate that the same or similar concepts are evaluated differently in different cultures. The results open broad prospects for intercultural comparative linguistic study of this cultural-linguistic phenomenon.

What does not seem to have received much attention so far is the way in which the universal and cultural components are interrelated with the individual one. Individual reflection is creative, and it allows us to speak about an author's individual worldview. As L. G. Babenko notes, “the author's artistic worldview combines elements of a national worldview and individual representations. Each literary work embodies an individual author's way of perceiving and organizing the world, i. e. a particular version to conceptualize the world” [Babenko, Kazarin 2004: 58-59]. Thus, concepts in a literary text, on the one hand, reflect the traditional, within a particular culture, perception of the reality, and on the other hand -- add individual, even unique, features. The degree of correspondence between the universal/cultural and individual knowledge in the artistic worldview in a literary text can be different: from complete identity to complete divergence. Though some scholars state that concepts of the artistic worldview can hardly be defined and described clearly and unconditionally, we believe that it is their verbalization in the literary text that allows us to trace the interrelation between the universal and the particular, to define the true value of a concept in the culture, which turns a regular lexeme into a cultural concept.

In the article, the concept is defined as a multidimensional mental formation that has figurative, conceptual, and value components [Karasik 2002]. The principal provisions are as follows: the concept is a unit of consciousness; it is verbalized in various linguistic forms and possesses cultural specificity. In general, the concept description involves the study of the totality of the language representing it, including the paradigmatic and syntagmatic links of the core lexeme, which denotes the concept.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the verbalization of the individual author's concept HOUSE in Lively's The House in Norham Gardens, to compare the author's individual perception with the basic characteristics of HOUSE as an English cultural concept. We share the viewpoint that individual concepts function as a clue to understanding cultural specifics of an ethos [Charyikova 2001; Litvinova 2009; Vyistropova 2013]. To study the concept HOUSE in Lively's novel, we applied the three-layer model of a concept developed by V. I. Karasik as well as the method of linguo-conceptual analysis which, in this research, includes the following steps: 1) definition and etymological analysis of the lexeme naming the concept, specifically house; 2) analysis of the lexical and phraseological units representing the concept in language; 3) contextual analysis of the corpus of the contexts in which the lexeme house is used [Karasik 2002]. Therefore, the first step involves a semantic analysis of the core lexeme house in various explanatory dictionaries checking its etymology, which contributes to revealing the value of the concept to the culture. At the second stage, we reveal and explore a wide range of language units, paroemia, set expressions, and stylistic devices used to speak about the house. They include conceptual metaphors as well. As a result, we can see what images are associated with the house in English culture, whether the concept HOUSE is valued or not, i. e. its axiological potential. After that, the traditional, “cultural” verbalization of the house is compared with the author's one, which is derived through a similar analysis of the author's contexts. The text of the novel amounts to 52,864 words. With the continuous sampling method, 450 text fragments containing the lexeme house were selected. They were subjected to a thorough contextual and interpretative analysis in order to reveal various semantic and stylistic links of the core lexeme house. 97 examples of contexts containing the core lexeme were taken from various English dictionaries to provide material for the “cultural” interpretation of the concept. Finally, the concept HOUSE in English culture was compared with the concept HOUSE in Lively's artistic worldview, which revealed both universal and individual characteristics and attitudes to the concept under study.

Results and discussions. The concept HOUSE in the English language

This work is based on the three-layer concept structure which includes notional, value, and figurative components.

Following Karasik [Karasik 2002], S. M. Bogatova [Bogatova 2006] attributes the concept HOUSE to semantic doublets. Respectively, we conduct an analysis of the semantics of the lexemes house and home, identify the basic cognitive layers, cognitive features, and the differential characteristics of these lexemes. We analyze the dictionary definitions of the lexemes house and home The study analyses in detail the semantics of the lexemes house and home, identifies the basic cognitive layers and cognitive features represented by these lexemes, and also identifies the differential signs and points of contact of their conceptual content. The following dictionaries were used in the research: [LDCE 1995; LDELC 1992; Hornby et al. 1995; OCDE 2002; ODE 2003; ODSA 1999; RHWSOT 1995]..

The notional component of the concept HOUSE in the English language

The main cognitive layers and characteristics represented by the above-mentioned lexemes were identified. Although there are some obvious similarities in the content of these conceptual layers, the house and home still have a unique core and a set of cognitive features. The conceptual layer house includes two cognitive layers: (1) a building for people to live in, a building for animals or goods: a hen house, a warehouse, a building in which children live at a private boarding school, a theatre, concert hall, or auditorium: a vaudeville house, the building in which a legislative or official deliberative body meets, residence of a religious community; (2) the people living in such a house, the household, the important family, especially noble or royal: The House of Windsor is the British royal family, the people watching a performance in a theater, concert hall, the audience, the members of the law-making body: the House of Commons, the members of a religious community. Thus, the external aspect of the structure and the principle of grouping people according to the external circumstances are emphasized. The conceptual layer home in its core is determined by the cognitive attributes “place”, “uniqueness”, “one's own/strange”, which introduces the category of a subject and relationship into its semantics and serves as a basis for delimitating the conceptual layers house and home. The conceptual layer home includes the cognitive layers: “the house, flat, etc. where a man lives”, “the place where a man was born or habitually lives and to which a man usually has emotional ties”, “the family, the place in which one's domestic affections are centered”. The basis for distinguishing between these two conceptual layers is an attribute “one's own/strange” which permeates and unites all the cognitive features of the lexeme home: “permanence of residence”, “emotional attachment”, “comfort”, “family”, “security”, “privacy”, “solitude”, etc. To conclude, the conceptual layer house appears in its core as a material object, and home as a spiritual object, allocated on the relationship basis. The results obtained through the definition analysis are supported by the study of the paradigmatic links of these lexemes (see: [Bogatova 2006] for an extensive analysis).

The value component of the concept HOUSE in the English language

The study of the value component confirms the fact that this concept is a key one for the English linguistic culture. A house, a home for the English people living in a densely populated country is a place where they can relax and be themselves [Girouard 1992]. Therefore, the Englishman needs a house-fortress, to hide not so much from the weather as from other people's views. This feature of national character connects this concept with another dominant of English culture -- privacy [Easthope 2004]. “In general, the English house is a micromodel of the island: a blind fence that rails off the outside world, and a piece of lovingly cultivated land -- small, well-groomed” [Tsvetkova 2001: 168]. In the heart of the English notion “home” is the idea of isolation, separation from the rest of the world and isolation in its small, comfortably equipped space [Parsell 2012].

The analysis of lexical compatibility, phrase-combinations, and paroemia allows us to reveal the concept additional cognitive features. The value layer, represented by the lexeme house contains features that, in the English language worldview, are related to the house's exterior aspects, its physical characteristics: exterior, beauty, safety, stability. The value layer objectified by the lexeme home reflects some other aspects of the English house such as the psychological atmosphere; internal security; the tenants' social status and includes additional cognitive features: an individual's inner world, consciousness; limit, edge; sense and mental health. It is obvious that in the English language the value layer “home” is the cultural dominant [Saunders 1989]. It reflects the connotations of emotional attachment, Lares and Penates, house-fortress.

Many aspects for interpreting the space have a mythological basis, which necessitates separating the mythological layer of the concept HOUSE in the language.

The house in the archaic consciousness is associated with the internal, mastered space, which confronts the strange, external space of chaos. The house symbolizes security, permanence, shelter, stronghold, dwelling, corner; family, family nest, clan, dynasty; fatherland; human body. The mythopoeic motives of building a house are connected with developing and cultivating a new space [Lotman 2000].

The archaic consciousness perceives the destruction of the house as a reference point in the surrounding world. In the mythopoeic consciousness, the motive for the destruction of a house is associated with the abolition of habitual sense-distinguishing landmarks; as a result, a person finds himself/herself in the space of absolute non-being.

The figurative component of the concept HOUSE in the English language

The conceptual ideas in this study belong to Lakoff. He examines different concepts, provides examples, and analyses the concepts HOUSE and HOME [Lakoff, Johnson 1980]. In Women, fire, and dangerous things [Lakoff 1987: 538-540] and Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson state that the human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. According to them, the conceptual metaphor is a system of metaphors that lies behind much of everyday language and forms everyday conceptual systems, including the most abstract concepts. A metaphor is “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” [Lakoff, Johnson 1980: 5]. Lakoff's theory of the cognitive metaphor reveals the relationship between metaphors: “A metaphor can be viewed as an experientially based mapping from an ICM (an idealized cognitive model) in one domain to an ICM in another domain” [Lakoff 1987: 411] which makes it possible to describe the metaphorical meanings of the concept HOUSE.

The concept HOUSE in Penelope Lively's House in Norham Gardens

The study of the concept HOUSE in its implementation in the novel The House in Norham Gardens makes it possible to identify the concept HOUSE as an English cultural concept.

The notional component of the concept

An analysis of the novel's text allows us to make an assumption about the individual author's worldview, which is in some way different from the worldview represented in the national trivial consciousness. The layer “home” is inferior to the layer “house”. The lexeme home is found in the novel 45 times, house 142. A lower degree of relevance of the layer “home” for expressing the author's view is seen. This fact could be explained, first of all, by the important function of the house in the book, since, as we mentioned previously, it is one of the major characters. Also, it is a setting for the plot. It is the element which helps outline and understand other protagonists of the book as well.

The analysis of the substantial use of the lexeme home in the novel makes it possible to trace the realization of the basic cognitive features of this layer in the author's worldview, which are also revealed in the national language worldview.

In the following examples, in the layer “home”, the cognitive attribute “one's own / strange” is portrayed. It is explicable by the possessive pronouns (your, my): Not so funny. In my home we have ceremonial spears and my father's tribal dress, though he does not wear it any more.

`It's funny for North Oxford,' said Clare. `Where's your home?'

`Uganda. A little village one hundred miles from Kampala. John Sempebwa'. He held out his hand (The House. P. 61).

In this example, the cognitive feature “motherland” is foregrounded by indicating the character's nationality and a presupposition that he is in a foreign country, and home refers to his homeland. There is another example of this lexeme in the text: (2) “Where's that when it's at home? No, do not tell me -- it's near Australia”. (The House. P. 28).

The cognitive feature “family” is foregrounded when the lexeme home is realized in its basic meanings “a place of residence”, “a place of birth”:

1. She went into the museum with a feeling of coming home. It was a place she had always liked (The House. P. 59);

2. She went through the doors at the far end, down the steps, and into the Pitt Rivers Museum, where the feeling of coming home was stronger still (The House. P 59);

3. She thought of John, leaving home for three years (The House. P 110).

In each illustrative example, home symbolizes in the character's mind not so much the image of the house itself, but the family living in it, the special atmosphere of warmth and mutual understanding, and traditions and customs inherent in it. Therefore, it can be concluded that the feature “emotional attachment” in Lively's worldview is closely related to the feature “family”. At the same time, the cognitive feature “comfort” in the content of the layer “home” is not vividly explicated and expressed by other means. Here are some other examples:

4. She took him into the kitchen. `Sorry about the mess'.

`Not at all' said John. `It is homely'. He pulled a chair out of the table and sat down (The House. P 83);

5. Home, she toured the house, as though she had been away for a long time and needed to make sure that everything was all right and in its proper place (The House. P 142).

Along with a few substantive implementations, in most cases, the lexeme home functions in the novel as a component of the collocation at home. The most frequent is the meaning “the place where a man lives” and “the place of birth, origin”, for example:

6. Mrs. Cramp asked if she was feeling better, and hoped she had rested at home yesterday. `Yes,' said Clare, `I rested at home yesterday, and I am quite all right now.' ( The House. P 108);

7. `We have those at home,' said John, pointing. A bright, patterned snake lay against the glass, basking in the sun of a sixty-watt bulb (The House. P. 112).

Thus, the layer “home” in the novel represents the following cognitive layers included in the national concept: “the place of living”, “the place of birth / motherland”, and “family”. This conceptual layer contains the same basic cognitive features of the corresponding layer in the national language image: “one's own / strange”, “emotional attachment”, and “family”.

The conceptual layer “house” implemented in the novel includes the following cognitive layers of a nationwide concept: “a building;” “a place of living”, “residence”, “family”, and “dynasty”.

The first layer -- “house as a building” does not serve to foreground the functional features of the house as a place of living or a shelter. The cognitive feature which is foregrounded is house -- “a physical object” that is the house is perceived as an object occupying room in space and possessing some physical characteristics (the indication of belonging is absent):

8. Belbroughton Road. Linton Road. Bardwell Road. The houses there are quite normal. They are ordinary sizes and have ordinary chimneys and roofs and gardens with laburnum and flowering cherry... They are three stories high... neatly grouped in threes with flaring brick to set them off. They have nineteen rooms and half a dozen chimneys and iron fire escapes (The House. P. 1);

9. It was a very grey dusk, quite colourless, like a photograph -- white snow and grey houses and blue-grey sky and black trees. Here and there an uncurtained window made of an orange square within the dark and solid outline of the houses (The House. P 24).

In these examples, the word house is used as a “building”, usually when describing the cityscape, so the spatial and physical characteristics are the defining ones. This cognitive layer is used by the author to create the context of a wider life environment for the characters. The lexeme house is used here to create a general image of the city and the epoch. In a spatial sense, house is included in the relationship “house -- streets -- Oxford”.

The attributes that describe the lexeme house in the novel serve not for the immediate characterization of the protagonists, but for modeling the artistic space of the novel as a whole:

10. Outside, snow fell on North Oxford: on the Parks and the river and the old, dark laurel in the gardens and the brick and iron of the big houses (The House. P 15);

11. Believe it or not, the fronts of the late-Victorian gothic houses have fewer than twenty-one windows, counting each panel of the attic ones as a single window (The House. P 18).

The second cognitive layer coincides with the first dictionary meaning of the lexeme house -- `a place of living (building), residence' Insomuch as this cognitive layer of the concept represents the external features of the object, the use of the lexeme house in this meaning is usually associated with an indication of certain physical characteristics of the house, it includes elements of its external and internal description. In Lively's novel, the description of the house fulfills the characterizing function: (14) “Gosh. You are lucky. Living in weird house like this. Ours is the same as the next door and the others”. (The House. P. 30).

The following example indicates the fact that the house as a place of living is a characteristic attribute of the protagonist's life:

(15) `Actually,' said Clare, `it isn't dull at all. I like this house being cold and dusty and peculiar and I think the aunts are the most interesting people I've ever known. If they are out of touch, like you said, then I think I'd rather be too, if being in touch is what I think it is. I've always liked living with them and I wouldn't like to live anywhere else.' (The House. P. 75).

In another example, the description of the character's house is the basis for emphasizing the heroine's inner state: (16) “Later, lying in bed, with the house, the huge and silent around her, everyone stowed away into separate rooms, the aunts, Maureen, cousin Margaret having a bath, with sounds of distant splashing, she opened the diary and began to read”. (The House. P. 76).

The evaluation is expressed by the attributes huge and silent. Even though the evaluation is of an indirect nature, since it refers to the characteristics of the house, this assessment is transferred to Clare and it emphasizes the girl's loneliness. This cognitive layer is the basis for modeling the characters' space.

The next layer of the concept HOUSE -- “family”, “dynasty” fulfills the cognitive feature “a group of people connected by hereditary relations with a certain house / estate”. This meaning is widely represented in the novel, which can illustrate its importance in the author's model of the world. In this sense, the lexeme house refers to a noble family:

12. By the time you get to Norham Gardens they have tottered over the edge into madness: these are not houses but flights of fancy. They are three stories high and disguise themselves as churches. They have ecclesiastical porches instead of front doors and rounds of norman windows or pointed gothic ones, neatly grouped in threes with flaring brick to set them off. They are reek of hymns and the Empire, Mafeking and the Khyber Pass, Mr. Gladstone and Our Dear Queen... A bomb could not blow them up, and the privet in their gardens has survived two World Wars. People live in these houses. Clare Mayfield, aged fourteen, raised by aunts in North Oxford (The House. P 1).

It is possible to paraphrase: Clare Mayfield belonged to one of the noble families, those which have a long history and rich traditions. The reference to belonging to a noble dynasty is given by the characters to emphasize their social statuses as well. Belonging to the tradition has a special value in English linguistic culture, which is expressed by the substance of the names of the rooms in the house:

13. They were always in the library at half-past four. They migrated slowly through the house during the day: from their bedrooms to the breakfast room to the study to the dining-room. I am the only person I know, Clare thought, who has a special room for having breakfast in. And a pantry and a flower-room and a silver cupboard and a scullery and three lavatories (The House. P 2).

The value component of the concept

Let us turn to the value component of the concept HOUSE in the novel.

First, we consider the implementation of the conceptual layer “home”. The analysis of the predicates, combined with the lexeme home in Lively's text, allows us to reveal the features of conceptualization of this concept [Langacker 2010]. Home mainly functions in the text as an adverb in combination with verbs of directional movement, for example: go home, come/coming home, leave home, and cycle home.

14. She went into the museum with a feeling of coming home (The House. P 59);

15. Maureen had a phone call from Weybridge, to say that her father was ill. She took a couple of days off and went home to see him (The House. P. 127);

16. She could go home in a day or two, when the doctor had seen her again (The House. P. 140).

Thus, home is perceived not so much as a place of living (the place where some events occur). It is a place of attraction, the center of family and personal life that a person leaves, and where he constantly returns (compare the archetypal notions about the house as the world center).

The conceptual layer “home” in the novel differs significantly from the ideas embodied in the general language worldview. It differs, first, in the frequency of objectification, and in the variable value. For an average Englishman, the notion “home” is one of the main cultural dominants and is endowed with considerable value. In the novel, Penelope Lively pays more attention to the embodiment of the conceptual layer “house”, and “home” appears only as the birthplace and/or residence of the person and the family; the place to which he/she is emotionally attached and where the person feels comfortable.

A feature of the novel is its detailed development of the conceptual layer “house” versus the less relevant conceptual background layer “home”. In the writer's worldview, the layer “house” which designates the external spatial characteristics of the structure, along with the person's physical orientation, represents a person's social and psychological position in relation to culture and tradition. It is very important for the novel's plot.

Thus, the house as someone's residence, the place of living is itself a sign, a source of information about the past and the present for the novel. Accordingly, two additional cognitive layers of the author's concept represented by the lexeme house can be distinguished in the novel: the house as a measure of success in life and the house as an artistic space of the protagonist's life.

The cognitive layer “house as a measure of success in life” in addition to the cognitive feature “success” also portrays the feature of “social status”. The house is one of the features of social success, self-realization in life for the Englishman. The very fact of owning a house is an indicator of a person's social status and, therefore, a value in itself [Nordby 2008]. So, the feature of high social status, actualized in the novel, is the possession of a house in Oxford -- the cradle of education and science. Norham Gardens was developed from 1860 onwards as part of the Norham Manor housing estate. Most of its houses are large Victorian Gothic villas designed by famous architects. It is a well-known fact that the Sanskrit scholar, Max Müller lived at No. 7 from 1848 until his death in 1900. When he was Regius Professor of Medicine (1905-1919), Sir William Osler lived at No. 13 with his wife, Grace, who remained there until her death in 1928. A number of houses in Norham Gardens are now used by the University of Oxford (mainly the Department of Education) and its colleges; one of the houses is an ecumenical postgraduate student hostel run by the Society of the Sacred Heart.

Thus, the quality of the house indication shows the home owners' social status -- a house with nineteen rooms:

17. The house squatted around them, vast, empty, unnecessary and indestructible. You had to be a vast busy Victorian family to expand enough to fill up bases and passages and conservatories and attics. You had to have an army of booties and nurses and parlourmaids. You had to have a complicated, greedy system of living that used a lot of space and people just in the daily business. You had to multiply your requirements and your possessions, to activate that panel in the kitchen-DrawingRoom and Master Bedroom and Library -- keep going a spiral of needs and people to satisfy the needs (The House. P. 5).

The context can include explicit characteristics of the buildings in similar areas: (23) “The aunts have always had the back ones and I like this one because it looks out over the Parks” (The House. P. 30). In this example, the cognitive features “success” and “high social status” are actualized by the house's location: to look over the Parks. As a standard of success in the context, the house with a park view is shown. The definite article and capitalization indicate the idea that it is not any park, but Oxford University Parks.

An additional feature of success in life and a high social status marker is the house interior -- furniture, things, décor items: (24) “Three cups on a tray. Crown Derby. Very valuable” (The House. P. 3).

The listed objects serve not so much to describe the interior as to indicate the social status of their owner. (25) “Clare's visitors always wanted to see the hats, along with the lift and the china collection in the drawing room and the old photograph albums in the study desk. `It's super coming here,' they said happily” (The House. P. 31).

The profession of the former house owner is emphasized in the novel. Clare's greatgrandfather was a well-known anthropologist: (26) “`They'll be something to do with my great-grandfather,' said Clare. `He was an anthropologist. He went to queer places and brought things back'” (The House. P. 13).

But many items lost their value over time, became unnecessary, useless. The people living in the house now do not have the status and prosperity their relatives had fifty years ago, this is no longer necessary. Time makes its own adjustments to the way of life, changing the line of human values:

18. ...then a house like this became a dinosaur, occupying too much air and ground and demanding to be fed by new sinks and drainpipes and a sea of electricity. Such a house became a fossil, stranded among neighbours long since chopped up in flats and bed-sitting-rooms, or sleek modern houses that had a suitable number of rooms for a correct living in the late twentieth century. It, and its kind, stood awkwardly on the fringes of a city renowned for old and unbeautiful buildings: they were old, and unbeautiful (The House. P. 3);

19. The house squatted around them, vast, empty, unnecessary and indestructible (The House. P. 5).

Lively models several worlds in one novel. Changing the viewpoint, the writer allows the reader to see the reality created by her from different sides, gives a versatile assessment of the phenomena under consideration.

In the above example, the author's negative attitude toward the prevailing cultural stereotypes is noted. The metaphors -- to squat, to be fad, a dinosaur, a fossil, a sea of electricity; attributes and epithets -- stranded, awkwardly, old, unbeautiful, empty, unnecessary, and indestructible; antithesis -- emphasize the pretentiousness and irrelevance of the building, and its internal content, discontent and irritation from the problems that it causes.

According to the author's intention, Clare's aunts differ from their mother and are an example of the opposition of the traditional materialistic system of values and spirituality, poetry. They inherited these qualities from their father:

20. Clare's great-grandmother, unlike her daughters, Aunt Anne and Aunt Susan, had been a lady of fashion. While her husband roamed the world in the search of primitive peoples, and, back in Oxford, shut himself away with his books to puzzle out the relevance of their mysterious lives, great-grandmother attended garden parties and theatres and entertained her friends to luncheon and afternoon tea and dinner in the evening. The equipment that had been necessary for all these activities, the dresses and capes and gloves and boots, and, above all, the battery of elaborate hats, feathered, ribboned, and flowered, lay still in trunks in the attic. The aunts had never needed such things (The House. P. 32).

Material values and social status markers are represented in this example by the substances: garden parties, theaters, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner in the evening, the equipment, activities, the dresses, capes, gloves, boots, the battery of elaborate hats, as well as polysyndeton, reflecting the endlessness and diversity of these things. The opposite value system is objectified by the description of the great-grandfather's occupations, which implicates spirituality and creativity. In its turn, the description of the house emphasizes the fact that spirituality does not bring wealth and luxury:

21. The curtains were faded in stripes, and the William Morris wallpaper had brown marks on it, and damp patches. The silk cushions had holes in them. The aunts' lives had not been spent in a drawing room. They were people who lived in libraries or studies (The House. P 21).

Thus, with the help of the concept HOUSE (its attributes “housing quality”, “location”, “interior”, generating the secondary modeling system with the components “success in life”, “social status”, “value system”), Lively portrays two life settings that correlate with two life positions: “to have” or “to be”. This opposition can only be regarded as a subtle reproach, but not criticism of English society because P. Lively as the bearer of traditions herself shares the assimilated system of values, although she recognizes the existence of alternative attitudes.

In the novel, the house is not so much a means which characterizes the protagonist as it is a self-valuable image. Lively models two significant localities, contrasting with each other, creating two images of the same house: the first image is the image of the house at the beginning of the twentieth century, when Clare's great-grandfather and great-grandmother lived in it; the second image is the house in which the heroine and her aunts live. The distance of time separates these two images. The past image is closely connected with the present image. The past is in every house corner in the present. There is not much in the house that has changed. Furniture, books, dishes, decor -- everything has been left in its place for many decades. The idea of the past is marked by the past predicates: had always been, had become, held, needed, had tipped, had been once, had survived, and had called:

22. The house, which had always been their base, had become also their shell. It held everything they needed and they seldom went beyond it (The House. P 10);

23. There was a blob of wax on the page at this point, as though great-grandfather had tipped the candle over. The next entry was nearly a week later (The House. P. 78).

The house's space is significant for the main character and is associated in her mind with the uncertainty she is experiencing. Time has slowed down in this house for her, for her aunts. But beyond its walls, it continues its running. Clare is in anticipation of change and further movement. But she is not quite sure what she is waiting for, what should happen. Here are her feelings and reasoning about this:

24. Clocks ticked, the fire sighed and shifted. If there was a world beyond Norham Gardens, where urgent and consuming things went on, it seemed very far away. Clare thought: I am like the aunts, we are both at a time when nothing much is happening to us. They have finished having things happen to them, and I haven't started yet. We just wait. The aunts think backwards mostly, because that suits them best. Perhaps I should think forwards, but I can't because there is nothing to be seen for certain except O levels and August in Norfolk. I don't know what I will be, any more than I'm sure what I am now. I am like a chrysalis, turning into something: not knowing what is frightening, sometimes (The House. P. 26).

The following example reveals another aspect of the house's space showing its great importance and value for the girl:

25. Lying in bed that night, in the hinterland between being awake and asleep, when things slide agreeably from what is real to what is not, it seemed to her that the house itself, silent around her, was a huge head, packed with events and experiences and conversations. And she was part of them, something the house was storing up, like people store each other up. Drifting into sleep, she imagined words lying around the place like bricks, all the things people had said to each other here, piled up in the rooms like the columns of books and papers in the library, and she wandered around among them, pushing through them, jostled by them (The House. P. 38).

When Clare describes the atmosphere in the house, she compares the house with a mythical creature consisting of brick words. She compares it to a sort of encyclopedia full of information of all kind.

In general, as can be seen from the examples, the house's space is a symbol of history, a bulwark of traditions, protected from external unrest and change; it is a temple of knowledge and science.

The conceptual meanings “traditionalism” and “continuity” are expressed in the time dimension of the house's space, which is related to the concept of the cyclic time, while all external to the house's world, experiencing changes, lives in linear time. As E. S. Yakovleva writes,

in the native speakers' cultural paradigm the ideas of natural cycles, endless returns and repetitions of the same events and human destinies on all circles are connected with the notion “cyclic time”; with the notion “linear time”, such characteristics as “originality”, “uniqueness”, “singularity” of events, and irreversibility of the life process itself are associated [Yakovleva 1994: 100-101].

The cyclic time in Claire's house manifests itself not only in the absence of change, but also in certain repetitive actions of the main characters -- their habit of moving around the house. The process of moving around the house is expressed by the predicate “migrated slowly”, which can be seen in some previous examples.

The mythopoeic thinking traits can be traced in the novel, which can be probed by the erecting-and-destroying-the-house motives in the notional component of the concept.

Through Claire's work on appropriating the house, familiarizing with tradition is expressed as it may seem, in insignificant things: decoration, things, and furniture arrangement:

26. She tidied her own room, excavating drawers and cupboards, filling cardboard boxes with rubbish, laboriously, with one hand, arranging books according to subject and author. She threw out the chair she had always used at her desk and asked John to help her bring up the one from the study, a heavy, dark brown thing with a leather seat that swiveled on its base (The House. P. 142).

In the novel, when creating the house's space, the archetypal motives for the house's destruction are clearly highlighted. The motive for the destruction is figuratively related to the slowing or stopping of time. The reason for the house's destruction is objective nature of matter and time: over time, things are shattered under the influence of external natural factors. The only obstacle to the inexorable destruction of the house is a person guarding the house from destruction or restoring the already destroyed house. The image of the destroyed house is created by using the words with the seme `dilapidation': rack, faded, brown marks, holes, etc.: