The Road as a Sphere-Source of Metaphorical Expansion in the Modeling of the Education System in the Russian Media Pedagogical Discourse

Mardanova Mariya Alekseevna PhD in Philology Lecturer, Department of Linguistics and Translation Studies, Surgut State University 628400, Russia, Khanty-Mansiiskii avtonomnyi okrug, g. Surgut, ul. Lenina, 1, of. 415 mv3006@gmail.com

In modern linguistics, much attention is paid to the problems of discourse in general, as well as to the analysis of the mechanism of interaction of various types of discourse. Media discourse is one of the main objects of study in the field of modern linguistic and cognitive research. The media react sensitively to events that attract public attention, assessing the situation in which various public institutions are located. At the same time, the growing role of the formative function of media texts is of interest. The formation of a certain attitude to reality in the addressee occurs due to the choice of specific speech structures ^[8].

According to many researchers, the expressiveness of language in media discourse is only increasing, since the authors of texts need to find new, vivid expressive means ^[10]. Among other means of expression, metaphor occupies a special place. Being a reflection of national consciousness and a "mirror" of political existence, the metaphor largely determines the development of one or another aspect of public and political life ^[11]. Thanks to the metaphor in the described situation, a transfer to a more familiar sphere is realized in order to influence the emotional-volitional sphere of the reader and form a certain attitude to reality ^[4]. By means of a metaphor, conceptualization of one phenomenon is carried out on the basis of an already known object or substance closer to experience, which allows us to interpret these entities and objects as discrete, belonging to the same type. This conceptualization allows you to combine metaphors into categories, create classifications and determine their number ^[5]. The formative and modeling functions are especially successfully implemented in a precisely chosen metaphor, since the latter has the strongest emotional impact and simplifies the mental operations necessary for decision-making ^[7]. Conceptual metaphors can be presented in the form of metaphorical models in the case when the target sphere is understood through the source sphere.

     The founders of cognitive linguistics, who published a seminal work on metaphor in cognitive linguistics, are considered to be J. Lakoff and M. Johnson ^[3]. Subsequent research in the field of cognitive theory of language in Russia and abroad is associated with the names of such linguists as A.N. Baranov, N.N. Boldyrev, V.I. Karasik, E.S. Kubryakova, I.A. Sternin, N. Chomsky, Ph.N. Johnson-Laird, Z. K?vecses, G.L. Murphy, F. Ungerer et al. In modern Russian cognitive science, metaphor and its functioning in the media discourse remains the subject of many linguistic studies, including in the works of E.V. Budaev, O.G. Skvortsov, O.A. Solopova, T.V. Chernyshova, A.P. Chudinov, and others ^{[2, 9, 12-20]}.

      Media and pedagogical discourses combine such common features as lability, the social nature of orientation, the impact on the recipient and the use of expressive means for this purpose, communicative interaction and high metaphoricity ^[13]. Thus, these types of discourse are globally similar in their characteristics, and their differences are primarily due to different types of social orientation (informational and educational, respectively). Common features allow discourses to detect certain characteristics necessary for merging, which determine the formation of a complementary two-component media pedagogical discourse. The process of permanent change in the role and place of the education system, its tasks, and the national educational goal runs in parallel with the corresponding changes in the speech equipment of the discourse agent, within which speech communication on the designated topic takes place. Thus, the media pedagogical metaphor reflects conceptual ideas about the current state of the educational system in the Russian picture of the world.

   The novelty of the research lies in the linguistic and cognitive analysis of metaphorical word usage, representing the conceptual sphere of "Education" on the basis of a hybrid media-pedagogical discourse, which was not previously the object of studying the considered conceptual sphere in the Russian picture of the world.   

        As a source of practical research material, the publications of the online publications Vestnik Obrazovaniya and Vesti Obrazovaniya containing metaphorical word usage with a representation of the conceptosphere "Education" for the period from March 2019 to February 2022 were used.

           In the course of the work, methods of cognitive-discursive analysis and metaphorical modeling were used. 203 examples of metaphorical word usage were selected for direct analysis by a continuous sampling method from the corpus of media texts. The analysis of examples showed that when representing individual concepts of the education system, nominations from such areas as "Road", "Nature", "Industry", "Sport", "Conflict", "Disease", "Crime" are used. Each of the source spheres serves to designate the most significant features of educational activity in the context.

Table 1. Main source areas and their activity in the Russian mass mediaBased on the identified source spheres of metaphorical expansion, it can be concluded that the most dominant is the source sphere "The Road".

Since the time of the ancient Slavs, the image of the road has been an important archetype in the Russian-speaking picture of the world and has an extremely extensive semantic field. By means of the image of the road, a metaphorical transfer is carried out to a large number of different social phenomena that presuppose the beginning and completion (outcome). The metaphorical model of LIFE IS A JOURNEY is based on the concept of a path that must be traversed to achieve a certain goal, and this model is implemented in various types of discourse ^[3,10]. As for the media discourse, the use of the road metaphor is conditioned by the desire to concretize and systematize abstract phenomena. At the same time, the agent of action (person) is implicated in the image of a traveler, the final goal is expressed by reaching the destination, the route acts as a way to achieve the goal, and life difficulties are obstacles. Thus, the road is a universal metaphor of the life cycle, and the values from the source sphere "Road" are transferred to the description of individual stages of both personal and social events. This transfer can be carried out unconsciously or purposefully and helps to identify an existing problem through an already familiar archetype. Images of paths and roads are closely related to changes in any socially significant structure, reflect trends, goals, prospects for its development and current transformations. In this regard, metaphorical expressions from the sphere of "Road" are suitable for describing any processes or phenomena that have an end point of development (the end point of the road), the choice of the direction of development (the choice of the road) and the presence of difficulties in the development process (the presence of obstacles on the way). With the help of the components of the nominative field "Road" in the media text, the attitude to the described phenomenon or event is also expressed. In turn, the repeatability of word usage with a certain emotional and evaluative component creates a bright familiar image in the recipient, which influences the perception of information from a certain angle, and thereby structures the attitude to the described phenomenon, forming a stereotypical representation.

The perception of events taking place in the field of education causes the actualization of such frames as "The right way", "The Wrong way", "Slowing down", "The end of the road". The image of the path, the purpose of which is necessarily a specific goal, is realized in the presentation of the teacher's work: "The guys who choose this path ... so that they have a comfortable entrance into the profession" (Bulletin of Education, February 2022); "Tatiana Vladimirovna always ... will tell you in which direction to move" (Bulletin of Education, February 2021); "After the theory, the guys will have to ... together with mentors ... go this way among the first in Russia" (Bulletin of Education, February 2022). At the same time, the teacher acts as a guide, and his students are travelers in the learning process. It is worth considering that various aspects of educational activities are implicated not only through the concept of the land route, but also other means of transportation. For example, students can be represented as swimmers: "Because ... without a permanent job, a child ... is used to swimming at the expense of his abilities" (Bulletin of Education, November 2020). The transport metaphor is also implemented in the representation of learning through the image of the right to travel: "Ticket to the future" starts in June" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 09/28/2020).So, in the title of the career guidance project "Ticket to the Future", the image of a particularly significant trip in the life of a student is transferred, the destination of which is adult life. Such a metaphorical transfer, based on which an educational institution or a specific event is presented as a vehicle transporting the subjects of the educational process forward, to knowledge, to success, to the future, is quite often implemented in educational slogans such as "Education is your road to the future! So go through it with us!", "Your reliable companion in the exploration of the world", "To knowledge - business class!" ^[1]. Such examples confirm the relevance of the metaphorical model "Education is a road" in pedagogical media discourse. Another example demonstrates the existence of a path for the teacher himself as an image of the development of his professional activity; "The teacher's path begins with student science" (Bulletin of Education, December 2021); "Class teacher: the path to the child" (Bulletin of Education, January 2022); "And I want to wish young educators ... success in an interesting endless journey through to the world of childhood" (Bulletin of Education, February 2020); "I advise those who are at the beginning of the path ... to remember respect and love for children" (Ibid.); "What steps should be taken to prevent unnecessary mistakes" (Bulletin of Education, March 2020)

The image of the road can be used when describing the activities of not only the teacher, but also all participants in the educational process: "We suggest taking small steps towards systematic work in distance learning mode" (Bulletin of Education, March 2020); "We, adults, can observe how children will learn these facets. So go ahead!" (Bulletin of Education, December 2021); "This is a standardized exam that is convenient ... for examiners. This is a locomotive for the driver" (Vesti obrazovaniya, 11/29/2021); "The Moscow Region has followed the path of diversity" (Bulletin of Education, March 2020). The proposed examples verbalize the "Right Way" frame. This frame can also be represented by the following examples: "Don't count the steps, climbing to the sky!" – such words accompany graduates; "And then we will be able to see ... those borders, that frontier to which most schools are moving today" (Vesti Educati, 12/20/2021); "Go back forward" (Vesti Educati, November 29, 2019). In these examples, the destination is the "sky" as an end point that does not exist in reality, thereby offering a metaphorical image of the infinity of learning, in which it is not the specific goal that is important, but the process itself. At the same time, when describing the activities of educational institutions, the "Right Way" frame assumes movement to a certain end point ("frontier"), which will indicate the achievement of the set goals in development. The oxymoron "back ahead" is an example of the "Right Way" frame in the metaphorical modeling of the concept of Russian education, since it illustrates the idea of borrowing the best from the Soviet education system and supplementing it with modern technologies. Also a vivid example of a true pointer on the way is the use of the lexemes "navigator" and "flagship": "Navigators of childhood were able to adopt the knowledge and experience of leading specialists in education" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 02/25/2022); "Summed up ... The All-Russian professional competition "Flagships of education. School" (Bulletin of Education, February 2022). Specialists in the field of education use a road metaphor in the name of professional skill competitions for teachers and draw a parallel between the teacher and the manager of the movement of a ship.

In the case when any difficulties arising in the educational process are described with the help of a metaphorical image of the road, the frame "Slowing down" is verbalized. A striking example of such an image is the lexeme "stumbling" when describing the interaction between participants in the educational process and government agencies: "The same stumbling ... appears behind the questions of children, parents and teachers, to which there is no single correct answer today" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 1.09.2021); Procrastination on the way is also described as a consequence of the rhetoric of additional education and tutoring, in which there is no improvement in knowledge, but "adjustment" is carried out to obtain certain points on exams: "The longer the education system goes forward, looking back like a cancer, the more it will stumble" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 4.02.2020). Another example of the mentioned frame is the lexeme "slows down": "The current management institutions in the education system are archaic and slow down development" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 19.11.2019). Thus, management institutions, which are understood as ministries dealing with education issues, act as a brake on the movement along the educational path or cause a slowdown along the way.

An illustrative example of the "Wrong Way" frame is the representation of the transition to distance learning in the image of a trip to space: "A year of transitions to the remote and back, as from space to Earth. Try to carry out dictation with sound lag!" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 12/14/2021).As can be seen from the example, the metaphor of space travel expresses the unjustified complexity and duration of the transition to distance learning and is used to negatively evaluate this practice. The lexeme "to return" may mean moving along the implied right path: "They are trying to cancel distance education and return children to schools" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 10.11.2020).In this connotation, returning to the right path implies the idea of following the old preferred traditions. However, the same token may imply the wrong direction if used in the text in the sense of a return to outdated principles and, as a consequence, lack of development: "Otherwise we will return to the glorious Soviet times" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 01/31/2022). According to the context and in view of the use of the adverb "otherwise", which opposes the desirable and undesirable in the sentence, there is a negative assessment of the possible development of events (refusal of the Unified State Exam without offering an acceptable alternative). Teachers acting as guides show their students the right way in the learning process: "It's good when there are people nearby who are able to ... not let you go astray" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 06/16/2021). The example describes the image of the "Wrong Path" on which a student finds himself without the help of a mentor, and as a result, experiencing difficulties. Examples illustrating the wrong actions of employees of an educational institution in relation to students are also of interest: "And such a school is scouring the desert in search of young people, and young people are all learning ... . They need media activity... to be independent of it. ... It is not necessary to drive children there" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 12/14/2021). The verb "to prowl" means to wander hastily, restlessly without a strictly defined goal, but in the hope of finding something, and according to this definition means moving along the wrong path. Another verb in the grammatical form of the imperfect form "drive" describes the current action with pronounced disapproval and also refers to the specified frame.  

The events taking place in the educational environment are directly related to the idea of competition, which is reflected in the metaphorical word usage from the source sphere "Sport". It should be noted that the concept of overcoming the path also includes the concept of competition, in which the main task is to overcome the path and reach the end point faster than the other participants of the competition. Thus, the verbalizers, which are common to the concepts of "Road" and "Sport", form the intersection of their nominative fields, obeying the concept of "Competition", as evidenced by the following examples. Such lexemes as a quick start, to the bitter end, to chase, accelerated, overtaken, at all speeds, etc. create a metaphorical image of this type of competition in which it is necessary to go a certain distance (running, racing, etc.). Quite often, students and their parents appear as participants in competitions: "The guys are always ready ... to go with their teacher to the victorious end" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 06/16/2021); "Mastered everything "at all speeds", made a lot of progress, significantly overtaking classmates" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 12/21/2021); "Don't chase for exorbitant school requirements that drive your child into a dead end of psychological slavery" (Vesti Obrazovaniya, 27.03.2019).Attention should be paid to the evaluation component in such lexemes as "race" and "chase". In the context of the metaphorical model under consideration, these implicators reflect a pronounced negative idea of the image of competition, which should not be present in the concept of education: "A hysterical race for the maximum score in the final exams ... . Those who do not participate in the race also do not lose – they do not care" (Vesti Obr