Lingua-Cognitive Structure of Portrait Feature Stories in Media Discourse: A Cross-Cultural View

This paper considers lingua-cognitive characteristics of the genre "a portrait feature story" which functions in American and Belarusian media discourse. We hold the view that the lingua-cognitive parameters for describing discourse genres are their typical semantic structures and conceptual dominants (key concepts) which are regularly represented in the discourse. The cross-cultural analysis of portrait features stories from modern American and Belarusian newspapers has shown the prevalence of common lingua-cognitive properties: They have the same prototypical superstructures "the portrait of the protagonist-background" and similar conceptual dominants of "success" and "work". The main differences lie in the discourse representation of the specific semantic categories and conceptual dominants, which are predetermined by the traditions of choosing by the journalists thematic and semantic structures of portrait feature stories in American and Belarusian media cultures.