Semantic aspect of morality deconstruction (based on the material of the German language)

Abstract

The study aims to determine the semantic features of the transforming morality and its discourse. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the author’s approach to identifying and describing the semantics of morality and moral discourse, taking into account the most typical collocations of the keyword ‘Moral’ acting as a subject. As a result of the study, it was found that metaphors, metaphtonymies and intertextuality serve as the semantic markers of the transforming morality as a subject in the type of discourse under consideration. The analysis of examples of moral discourse, in which ‘Moral’ acts as a subject, has shown that intertextuality is manifested in the use of precedent phenomena in moral discourse referring to moral issues. Aphorisms can undergo formal transformations and receive occasional components without changing the negative axiological vector of moral discourse. It is determined that the sports metaphor ‘auf der Strecke bleiben’, which is based on the metaphorical model LIFE is A SPORTS COMPETITION, is actualised in moral discourse. The conceptual vector of rivalry reflects the real worldview and the place that morality occupies in it: morality appears as a loser, a player who has lost the race, who has conceded victory to politics, art, profit and economic progress. The metaphtonymies ‘Moral verlangt’, ‘Moral herrscht’ have negative evaluativeness. Metaphors and metaphtonymies in moral discourse emphasise the secondary nature of morality at the present stage of societal development.