The concept of a child's soul: a cognitive linguistic analysis of the discourse among Czech-speaking women
2020
Abstract
The author analyses the concept of a child's soul in contemporary Czech discourse of Czech speaking young mothers, pregnant women, and women who plan to become pregnant. The research is linguistically oriented and grounded in the cognitive analysis of data retrieved from the Internet.
Two understandings of the concept are discussed: the psychological soul and the "spiritual" soul. The psychological soul is typically seen as vulnerable, valuable and deserving protection, while the spiritual soul is viewed as a more complex phenomenon and its values are not so unified.