THE EVOLUTION OF CHARLES DICKENS’S LEXICO-SEMANTIC REPERTOIRE: FROM EVERYDAY COLLOQUIALISM TO PHILOSOPHICAL ABSTRACTION

This article examines the evolution of Charles Dickens's lexico-semantic repertoire throughout his literary career: from his early works, rich in colloquial and everyday vocabulary, to his mature novels with a pronounced philosophical-abstract semantics. The study traces the writer's movement from concrete-nominative word usage toward multi-layered symbolic imagery. The analysis is based on the novels “Oliver Twist”, “Bleak House” and “Great Expectations” employing methods of linguistic stylistics, semantic analysis and the semantic field method. The findings demonstrate that Dickens's lexical transformation is not incidental but systematic, conditioned by a combination of biographical, socio-historical, and artistic factors