REPRESENTATION OF THE CONCEPT LOVE IN ENGLISH FAN FICTION

The article presents a comprehensive study of the representation of the concept LOVE in English fan fiction. The relevance of the research is determined by the growing role of digital literary discourse and the need to investigate the linguistic mechanisms underlying the representation of emotional concepts in contemporary English-language communication. The study aims to identify the specific features of the verbalisation of the concept LOVE in English-language fan fiction, determine the principal linguistic means of its representation, analyse its semantic models and pragmatic functions, and establish the specific features of its functioning across different fan fiction genres. The research material comprises 500 English fan fiction texts with a total volume of approximately 850,000 word tokens, selected from the Archive of Our Own platform and The Fanfic Collective. The study employs descriptive, contextual, conceptual, and discourse analysis, as well as elements of quantitative analysis. The findings demonstrate that the concept LOVE is one of the dominant concepts in English fan fiction and is represented through a wide range of lexical, phraseological, stylistic, and discursive means. The most frequent linguistic devices include nominative and evaluative vocabulary, fixed expressions, idioms, conceptual metaphors, internal monologue, dialogic constructions, and non-verbal descriptions. The study identifies the most productive semantic models of the concept as love conceptualised as an emotion, an interpersonal relationship, support, self-sacrifice, and a life value. It is established that the linguistic means representing the concept LOVE perform expressive, character-building, plot-forming, evaluative, and pragmatic functions, while their use varies according to the genre-specific characteristics of fan fiction. The practical significance of the findings lies in their potential application in cognitive linguistics, conceptology, discourse analysis, stylistics, literary text theory, as well as in the teaching of English, cognitive linguistics, and contemporary English-language literature.