Тузы (aces) in linguistic consciousness of 19th-century Russians (within the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A CARD GAME)

The article explores the use of the lexeme “туз” ‘a man’ in 19th-century texts chosen though continuous sampling in the Russian National Corpus. The aim of this work is to provide a basis for the research into the evolution of the concept of “туз” in Russian linguistic consciousness. Analysis revealed a stereotypical view of the noun “туз” among native Russian speakers of the 19th century and showed that it is related to the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A CARD GAME. The stereotypical view of “тузы” (aces) of this period includes the main seme ‘influential’, as well as ‘main’ and ‘important’, which initially formed the basis of the metaphorical transfer “a playing card – a man”, and hidden, potential semes associated with card games. The latter form the basis for the appearance of extended metaphors and contextual variations of sayings and idioms in texts. The scientific novelty of this research is defined by the fact that, despite the long-standing interest of scientists in studying the conceptual CARD GAME metaphor, the word “туз” became the subject of a special study for the first time. As a result, the structure of the stereotypical view of “туз” among 19th-century Russian speakers has been revealed, and it has been shown how the connection between the figurative meaning of ‘a man’ in the word “туз” and the metaphor LIFE IS A CARD GAME is expressed in the texts of this period.