Semantic Field “Power” In’s Novel “The Arc for the Uninvited” by Vladimir Maksimov

The article presents a comprehensive description of the semantic field ‟Power” in the novel by the well-known Russian prose writer of the 2nd half of the 20th century, Vladimir Yemelyanovich Maksimov. The purpose of the study is to identify the structural and semantic features of the field, the communicative and pragmatic properties of its nuclear components, which are semantic dominants of the text and actively participate in organising the artistic narrative, depicting characters and events, and explicating the conceptual content of the study. An analytical review of the main linguistic studies devoted to the study of the phenomenon of authority in Russian culture and linguistic consciousness, and the scientific description of semantic fields in the system of language and speech is carried out. Modelling the field structure of the novel is based on the principles of discourse analysis of the text, and it is determined by the specifics of the writer’s linguistic personality, the individual originality of the artistic picture of the world, the genre-stylistic and plot-compositional features of the work, and the linguacultural situation of the depicted era. The component composition of the field, its core, centre and periphery, and microfields are consistently characterised. Semantic connections and intersections of field components are determined with contextual conditionality of additional meanings revealed. The semantic field ‟authority” combines four microfields: the central part of the field structure includes the microfields ‟state authority” and ‟God power”, the peripheral zone includes the microfields ‟family authority” and ‟authority and power of natural elements”. The core of the field includes the key lexemes of authority, power and the leader. The semantic dominants of the text, being components of the analysed field structure, contribute to the development of action in space and time, create narrative polyphony, reflect the author’s position, and convey the bright features of the writer’s linguistic personality.