Conceptualization of sacrifice: discursive vectors of evaluation

The paper deals with understanding a sacrifice in linguistic consciousness. The idea of sacrifice reflects the interaction between man and a higher power. The essence of this notion is the objective and ways of implementing sacrifice and the general direction of its understanding corresponds to its rationalization and, consequently, desacralization. The research material was taken from Russian and English dictionaries, National corpora of the Russian and the English languages, collections of aphorisms. The verbal explanation of the concept “sacrifice” includes five components: 1) the subject who performs a sacral act; 2) the object of sacrifice, usually a living being; 3) the objective of the action – propitiation of a supreme force or demonstration of veneration and awe; 4) the cause of action – understanding of one’s sins and the divine greatness; 5) the mode of action – giving a certain object or a living being by means of its mortification to a God. Four typical sacrifice subjects may be identified: the supreme force, which may coincide with people or ideas, the victim, the actor, and the audience. The idea of sacrifice is closely connected to the ideas of worship, trial, and heroism. Discursive vectors of conceptualization of sacrifice emphasize its sacral, or heroic, or habitual meaning. The imaginative (figurative) aspect of sacrifice shows its necessity and approval in religious discourse and its critical understanding in everyday communication. The evaluative dimension of sacrifice, as presented in aphorisms, stresses its moral importance (especially in the case of self-sacrifice) and its disputability in other circumstances.