METAPHORIZATION OF RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS IN NEOATHEIST WORKS

The aim of this paper is to provide a cognitive analysis of metaphors used by new atheists to describe religion-related concepts and to achieve their own communicative goals, which allows to expand understanding of the ways of conceptualizing this phenomenon from the atheistic point of view. The study revealed that neoatheists most often use such source domains as AGENT OF POWER, DISEASE, and WAR. In addition, there were found unique source domains, which can be explained by the peculiarities of the author’s oratorical style, attempts to explain an abstract concept through another abstract concept, and a tendency to modify source domains with reliance on the theory of evolution, as well as to use mixed metaphors. In general, the analysis of the language samples in the new field of the problem under study demonstrates that the metaphors of new atheists have a distinctively negative connotation, appeal to well-known concepts, and develop under the influence of scientific and media discourse.