REPRESENTATION OF THE EXISTENTIAL COMPONENT OF LIFE IN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDIA NARRATIVES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/philspu/2025.12.4Keywords:
media narrative, media narrator, existential component, psychological media narrative, cognitive-semiotic construct, cognitive-semiotic analysisAbstract
The article examines the peculiarities of representing the existential component of life in English-language psychological media narratives through the prism of a cognitive-semiotic approach. Media discourse is interpreted as a multifaceted communicative-semiotic space within which the media narrative, narrator, and recipient interact. In the context of the contemporary anthropocentric paradigm of media studies, existential themes acquire the status of a key cognitive vector that interprets the fundamental dimensions of human existence – meaning, identity, freedom, choice, values, self-knowledge, and authenticity. Semiotic analysis of media texts has made it possible to determine that verbal and linguistic-visual components function within an integrated sign system, where the linguistic sign acts as a dynamic instrument for representing inner experience, psychological state, and worldview attitudes. The existential component of life appears as a cognitive-semiotic construct that reflects the processes of human understanding of their own existence and reveals the interconnection between individual and collective experience. It has been established that the semiotic organisation of the media narrative contributes to forming a multi-level perception model, where the cognitive, emotional, and axiological planes interact in text interpretation. The representation of life as a central existential concept in psychological media discourse occurs through a complex system of symbolic, cognitive, and pragmatic mechanisms that ensure the actualisation of value orientations, intentions of self-understanding, and the construction of a holistic identity. The study’s results deepen the understanding of the semiotic structure of contemporary English-language media discourse and outline the potential of cognitive-semiotic analysis for identifying patterns of meaning formation in psychological media narratives.
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