ANALYSIS OF CONSEPTUAL FEATURES OF ARTISTIC CONCEPT CHILD BY MEANS OF VISUAL PERCEPTION

Artistic concept is a mental formation having a relatively ordered inner structure; it is a result of mental activity of a person or society carrying complex, encyclopedic information about a reflected subject or event, represented in the text by means of language units and that is capable to be the material while forming new artistic senses.

In different researches there are different approaches to artistic concept studying. We consider that artistic concept should be analyzed by 3 layers in its structure: notional (on the basis of dictionary analysis), figurative and valuable (on the basis of fiction analysis). This article presents figurative layer studying on the basis of visual perception of children’ appearance description: colour, form, size of body / parts of body.

Colour characteristics are used to describe face, eyes, hair, ears, hands, lips, eyebrows and forehead of a child, but the most commonly used are the characteristics of child’s face, eyes and hair.

Conceptual feature ‘colour of face’ is actualized by 4 groups of colours and their shades.

1. Shades of red colours (these colours are connected with such feelings as embarrassment, indignation, fear, shame, irritation, offense, hatred). For example: Filch’s pasty face went brick red (Rowling II, p.128); He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his usually bloodless face flushed, as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat (Rowling II, p.192); … Malfoy’s pale face went slightly pink… (Rowling IV, p.225).

2. Shades of white colours (as a result of fear, pain, great surprise, fright): Then he remembered the milk-white face of the screaming boy and realized with a jolt that he had died a year later (Rowling IV, p. 659); He was pale as smoke, and Harry could see right through him to the dark sky and torrential rain outside (Rowling II, p.122); …Harry tried not to smile, to keep his own face as blank as possible (Rowling IV, p. 43).

3. Shades of grey colours (such feelings as fear and pain): … The moment his eyes fell upon Ron, all other concerns fled Harry’s mind, for blood drenched the whole of Ron’s left side and his face stood out, grayish-white, against the leaf-strewn earth… (Rowling VII, p. 269); Both Neville and Justin were lying on the floor, panting; Ron was holding up an ashen-faced Seamus, apologizing for whatever his broken wand had done… (Rowling II, p.192).

4. Shades of green colours (great fear and excitement): Ron had gone a nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on the house (Rowling II, p. 32); … «Turpin, Lisa,» became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron’s turn. He was pale green by now. Harry crossed his fingers under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, «GRYFFINDOR!» Harry clapped loudly with the rest as Ron collapsed into the chair next to him (Rowling I, p. 122).

The image of child in given contexts is supplemented with colour features of eyes. While describing colour of eyes, the author uses not pure colours but their shades. For example: Malfoy’s pale eyes narrowed; he wasn’t fool enough to pick a fight right under a teacher’s nose (Rowling III, p.80); The eyes behind his glasses were bright green, and on his forehead, clearly visible through his hair, was a thin scar, shaped like a bolt of lightning (Rowling III, p.6).

While describing colour of child’s hair, J.K. Rowling uses such words as red, brown, black, blonde: Two girls were swinging backward and forward, and a skinny boy was watching them from behind a clump of bushes. His black hair was overlong and his clothes were so mismatched that it looked deliberate: too short jeans, a shabby, overlarge coat that might have belonged to a grown man, an odd smocklike shirt… (Rowling VII, p. 663); Malfoy’s head jerked forward as the mud hit him; his silver blond hair was suddenly dripping in muck (Rowling III, p.280); A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down… (Rowling I, p. 119).

Conceptual feature ‘size of body’ is represented through vertical opposition “tall – small” and horizontal opposition “thin – thick”.

The opposition “tall – small” is given in the text by means of adjectives tall, gangling, long / small, short in positive and comparative degrees of comparison: … Right in the middle of the picture was Ron, tall and gangling, with his pet rat, Scabbers, on his shoulder and his arm around his little sister, Ginny (Rowling III, p.8); Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky… (Rowling IV, p. 61).

The opposition “thin – thick” is observed in the usage of such lexical items as skinny, lanky / massive, large, huge, thick, porky, burly, stout: «There’s more in the frying pan, sweetums,» said Aunt Petunia, turning misty eyes on her massive son (Rowling I, p.1); The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite (Rowling I, p.247).

Lips, hands, teeth, noses and faces of children are depicted with the help of adjectives large, gigantic, long, broad with common seme ‘great size of something’: As half the class lumbered up to Snape’s desk, some weighted down with arms like clubs, others unable to talk through gigantic puffed-up lips, Harry saw Hermione slide back into the dungeon, the front of her robes bulging (Rowling II, p.187).

Small size of child’s mouth and eyes is conceptualized in contexts with such lexemes as thin, tiny, little: Aunt Petunia gave him a severe look, and then nodded pointedly at Dudley, who had already finished his own grapefruit quarter and was eyeing Harry’s with a very sour look in his piggy little eyes (Rowling IV, p. 37).

Artistic image of child’s appearance is created by describing their form of nose, face, eyes and hair: …A tall, skinny blond boy with an upturned nose was standing there, talking into the magical megaphone that had once been Lee Jordan’s; Harry recognized Zacharias Smith, a Hufflepuff player whom he heartily disliked … (Rowling VI, p. 296); «This is unbelievable,» said Ron, approaching the mirror and prodding Crabbe’s flat nose (Rowling II, p.217); Hermione’s hair was bushy again … (Rowling IV, p.473); Over his shoulder Harry saw Bill, who still wore his long hair in a ponytail, hastily rolling up the lengths of parchment left on the table (Rowling IV, p. 61).

So, the figurative layer of artistic concept CHILD on the basis of visual perception is orders with such conceptual features as ‘colour of face’, ‘colour of eyes’, ‘colour of hair’, ‘colour of ears’, ‘colour of hands’, ‘colour of lips’, ‘colour of skin’, ‘colour of eyebrows’, ‘colour of forehead’, ‘size of lips’, ‘size of hands’, ‘size of eyes’, ‘size of hair’, ‘size of teeth’, ‘size of body’, ‘size of nose’, ‘size of face’, ‘size of shoulders’, ‘size of mouth’, ‘form of nose’, ‘form of face’, ‘form of eyes’, ‘form of hair’.

LIST OF LITERATURE

1. Rowling J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Scholastic. New York. 1998. – 312 p.

2. Rowling J.K. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Scholastic. New York. 1999. – 341 p.

3. Rowling J.K. Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban. Scholastic. New York. 1999. – 403p.

4. Rowling J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of the Fire. Bloomsbury. London. 2000. – 800p.

5. Rowling J.K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Scholastic. 2004. – 870p.

6. Rowling J.K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Scholastic. 2005. –652p.

7. Rowling J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Scholastic. 2007. –784p.