Cognitive aspects of antonomy in the novel “A tale of two cities” by Charles Dickens

The article studies authorial antonymy-related sphere of concepts in Charles Dickens's novel “A Tale of Two Cities” from a philosophical-cognitive perspective. The research is aimed at looking into a great range of antonyms generated by specific contexts. It employs such methods as descriptive analysis of the test material with subsequent generalization of the obtained results and a cognitive map construction on the basis of antonym elicitation from the novel and identification of their conceptual characteristics. It is shown that antonymy is represented in the novel both by pairs of canonical antonyms and by lexical units not commonly recognized as such but used in binary contrast in the text. The article provides a detailed description of antonymous pairs configurating spatial (17 antonymous pairs in total) and temporal (11 antonymous pairs in total) concepts in the novel. The findings might be useful for further studies into antonymy as a clue for better understanding the systematic nature of language. © 2019 Tambov State University. All Rights Reserved.