Frame-Conceptual Composition and Speech Impact Means of the American Popular Psychology Discourse

Introduction. The article analyzes the frame-conceptual structure of the American popularpsychological discourse and touches upon the means of speech influence used in it. This discourse is a set of semiotic works aimed at popularizing and introducing ideas/concepts related to issues of practical psychology. The purpose of the article is to describe in general terms the frame-conceptual composition of American popular psychological texts.

Methodology and sources. Methods of thematic and genre selection of texts are used, content analysis. The main method is interpretive: the gist of each text is reproduced, its meanings are extracted, frames and concepts are singled out. Materials range from popular science and scientific publications to popular psychological talks, TED talks, coaching, therapy lectures. In general, popular psychology in the United States comes from several sources, the most influential among which are the philosophy of “self-help”; psychotherapeutic/psychiatric models of humanistic psychology; transpersonal psychology, including mysticism, paranormal and religious experiences, practices of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Kabbalah, Theosophy, etc.

Results and discussion. it is found that the basic conceptual units of the American popularpsychological discourse are the conceptual frame PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING with the subconcept PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH and the subsubconcepts MINDFULNESS and EMOTIONAL HYGIENE; the conceptual frame ACTIVITY/WORK/STUDY with its subframes CORPORATE/OFFICE WORK (with the subsubframe WORK ORGANIZATION), INDIVIDUAL WORK/STUDY and subconcepts ATTITUDE TO WORK, RESULT/PERFORMANCE/ACHIEVEMENT; the concept of SUCCESS with different script-producing subconcepts; the concept OVERCOMING ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES with the script-producing subconcept TURNING OBSTACLES INTO OPPORTUNITIES. Popular psychological discourse is characterized by a mixture of styles, multiple addressees, publicity, narrativity, quasi-dialogue form, empirical exemplifications, and applicability to everyday life.

Conclusion. This discourse develops its own concepts and conceptual frames, has the potential for reframing the semantic constructs of recipients. It also generates scripts, for example, the concept of MINDFULNESS becomes the basis of modern American psychological and psychotherapeutic practices. This discourse demonstrates informative, argumentative, persuasive, illustrative (or allegorical) types of speech; it is logical, idiomatic, expressive which contributes to speech impact.

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