The diachronic features of the formation of the semantic field of the linguocultural concept "American Individualism" (using historical and journalistic literature of the 19th-21st centuries)

The paper deals with the issues of the structure, content and development of the concept AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM from the historical perspective. The paper consists of four sections. The first one dwells on the topicality of the chosen topic, which is largely conditioned by the intensive development of lingocultural studies and the increasing interest in national specific cultural concepts witnessed today. Next, the author provides the results of the analysis of the definitions of the word representing the concept ("individualism") found in modern English monolingual dictionaries (including the ones specializing in American English), on the basis of which some conclusions are drawn concerning the key structural features of the concept as well as of its evaluative component. The findings suggest that in the native English speaker's consciousness, individualism is primarily associated with independence, personal freedom, self-reliance and prioritization of one's interests above those of a group. Some sources provide the meaning of the word which is close to the notion "egoism, selfishness", which goes in line with the original meaning of the word in the source language (French). The third section includes the etymological analysis of the name of the concept, which shows that the word "individualism" derives from the Indo-European stem "*width-" (to separate), and was formed with the help of the negative prefix in- and the prefix de- meaning "apart". Thus, the idea of integrity, indivisibility laid the foundation for the content of the concept INDIVIDUALISM. The fourth section, which is also the largest one, is devoted to the evolution of the concept from the point of view of its semantic and evaluative components. As has been noticed above, the word was borrowed from French, where it denoted such strongly negative phenomena associated with the Great French Revolution as lack of unity among people, disorder, anarchy, unfair competition, social stratification, generational gap. It is in this meaning that the word was used by Henry Reeve in the first English translation of the book Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. However, the publication of Tocqueville's book in the USA triggered numerous disputes in the journalistic discourse concerning the essence and specific character of American individualism and its place in the American life. These disputes largely contributed to the formation of the way the young nation perceived itself, its distinctive features as compared to the Old World and its uniqueness. The paper also includes various excerpts from journalistic and historical texts which reveal the peculiarities of the way American individualism has been perceived in different periods of time. The linguostylistic analysis of the selected passages allows to make some conclusions about the linguistic means through which the given concept is explicated in American journalistic discourse. The author concludes with the modern status of the concept AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM in modern journalism and research.

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