Profiling the concept of TRAUMA in English-language educational discourse
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26565/2218-2926-2026-32-07Keywords:
concept TRAUMA, profiling, educational discourse, cognitive linguistics, trauma-informed approach, frame model, metaphorical modelingAbstract
The article presents a linguo-cognitive analysis of the profiling of the concept of TRAUMA in English-language educational discourse. The relevance of the study is determined by the increasing role of traumatic experience in contemporary society and the integration of the trauma-informed approach into educational practices. The aim of the study is to identify the specific features of the actualization of the core and peripheral attributes of the concept TRAUMA within the institutional educational environment and to determine the cognitive mechanisms underlying its profiling. The theoretical and methodological framework is grounded in cognitive semantics, conceptual metaphor theory, discourse analysis, and linguoconceptology. The research material includes dictionary definitions, online courses, academic textbooks, and scholarly articles on trauma-informed education. The study reconstructs a multi-level frame model of the concept TRAUMA, encompassing the following profiles: prototypical (injury), clinical (diagnosis and symptomatology), neurobiological (embodied memory), therapeutic (recovery), pedagogical (educational environment), and socio-relational (disrupted connections). It is established that dictionary discourse fixes the medical-physical core of the concept, whereas educational discourse performs its functional re-profiling, from a category of pathology to a category of pedagogical responsibility, safety, and support. Within the trauma-informed approach, trauma is interpreted as a contextual factor that shapes communicative strategies, ethical standards, and institutional practices. The study demonstrates that the profiling of the concept TRAUMA is selective in nature: features such as regulation, resilience, empathy, and inclusivity are foregrounded, while purely clinical aspects shift to the periphery. Metaphorical models TRAUMA AS WOUND, BURDEN, JOURNEY perform both cognitive and pragmatic functions, enabling an empathetic reinterpretation of learners’ behavioral manifestations. The findings indicate a transformation of the semantic core of the concept TRAUMA in English-language educational discourse and its integration into the system of pedagogical ethics.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors, who publish with this journal, accept the following conditions:
The authors reserve the copyright of their work and transfer to the journal the right of the first publication of this work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which allows other persons to freely distribute a published work with mandatory reference to the authors of the original work and the first publication of the work in this journal.
Authors have the right to enter into separate additional agreements for the non-exclusive dissemination of the work in the form in which it was published by this journal (for example, to post the work in the electronic institutions' repository or to publish as part of a monograph), provided that the link to the first publication of the work in this journal is given.
The journal policy allows and encourages the authors to place the manuscripts on the Internet (for example, in the institutions' repositories or on personal websites), both before the presentation of this manuscript to the editorial board and during review procedure, as it contributes to the creation of productive scientific discussion and positively affects the efficiency and dynamics of citing the published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
