LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC ORGANISATION OF THE CONCEPTUAL FIELD ‘GRATITUDE' IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

The article defines the lexical and semantic organisation of the conceptual field ‘GRATITUDE’ in the Russian language, clarifies the scope of interpretations of this concept and its status. The investigated field reflects different types of gratitude (formal and informal, official and unofficial, material and non-material, etc.) and social types (personal (intimate and friendly, business and household) and professional, etc.) of interpersonal relations and are included in the sphere of the cultural context of society, forming its ethical shell. In the Russian language, GRATITUDE is represented by a variety of lexical means reflecting various aspects of conveying gratitude and respect. The conceptual field is formed by the words: thank you, I am grateful, appreciate, heartfelt thanks, express my gratitude, from the bottom of my heart I thank you, etc., as well as various phraseological expressions reflecting the degree and intensity of gratitude. These lexical means make it possible to describe the full picture of the concept usage in various contexts of the Russian language, reflecting both formal and informal aspects of expressing gratitude. Various scientific and lexicographic sources (dictionaries, linguistic works and corpus data) were used to analyse the conceptual field ‘GRATITUDE’.