Intensification for discursive evaluation: a corpus-pragmatic view

The phenomenon of intensification is pervasive in natural language use. Previous research has extensively discussed what intensifiers are and how they are associated with semantic developments. Corpora prove to be a useful tool to examine the semantic dimension of intensifiers. What has been overlooked, however, is the internal structure(s) of meaning conveyed by “intensifier + adjective” constructions in naturally occurring text and speech. The semantic relationship between the intensifier and the modified adjective needs to be made more explicit to address the pragmatics of intensification. Using BNC Sampler (a part-of-speech tagged corpus of general English) this study examines the most frequently used adjective intensifiers in both written and spoken discourse. Concordance lines generated for the adjective intensifiers are used to illustrate evaluative expressions in context. The observation contributes to debates on the pragmatics of intensifiers for evaluative meaning construction and transmission.

Dynamics of Values in American Election Discourse

The article presents the results of a corpus-based analysis of axiological characteristics of political discourse. Applying the method of identifying keywords in a corpus the authors described the dynamics of the American election discourse dominant values in the period from 1952 to 2016. The research material comprised the texts of American presidential election commercials from seventeen campaigns. The texts were compiled into three corpora according to three historical periods: period I – 1952–1972; period II – 1976–2000; period III – 2004–2016. It was found that the invariant values represented in the texts of election commercials of all the historical periods are: "prosperity", "patriotism", "progress", "social justice" and "security". The listed values receive a variable linguistic expression in the texts of each period. It is shown that the evolution of the value component in the presidential campaign discourse manifests itself in the change of actors within the opposition "us – them", in variation of their linguistic representations, in modification of value dominants of discourse and in transformation of language means conveying evaluative meaning. The main set of value orientations of the discourse remains relatively constant, the changes are revealed in the model of conceptualization of the values and their influencing potential in the election communication.

“Dollars and Nicotine”—Construction Mechanism of Evaluative Meaning in Political Speeches

Objectives: Economy and health are the most basic guarantee for a country’s stable development, they are also mandatory themes in every US President’s State of the Union Address. These two issues will directly determine the Congress and people’s evaluation towards the president’s governing capacity. Based on the binary division of explicit and implicit evaluation, taking the economic (employment and tax reform) and health (nicotine and drug addiction) of Trump’s State of the Union Address as data, this study has carried out a comparative analysis on the construction of evaluation meaning, attempting to build the evaluation model. We found that, Trump shows a very strong preference for implicit or indirect evaluation, which includes various graduation resources, infused process of AMOUNT and QUALITY, shared knowledge, specific numerals and verb tense. A closer analysis indicates that, under different themes, different constructing mechanisms have been utilized to form or strengthen the evaluation implication. To be specific: (1) both explicit and implicit resource are applied in constructing the evaluative meaning; (2) at different stages under the same theme, the constructing model shows difference, with the explicit resources being more prominent at the beginning or ending stage. In the body part, both explicit and implicit resources are of prominence, which tend to cooperate with each other, evoking or strengthening the established evaluative meaning. It proves that different types of evaluative resources show different degrees of prominence across stages within same theme.

SEMANTICS OF ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN IDIOMS WITH PROPER NAMES AS COMPONENTS

The article deals with the analysis of semantics of the Ukrainian and English phraseological units with proper names as their components. The objective is to identify isomorphic and allomorphic semantic characteristics of idioms with proper names, which is considered to be a group of words with a specific linguo-cultural status. The language corpus is constituted by 300 English and 291 Ukrainian idioms with proper names as components selected from dictionaries of idioms. A number of research methods have been applied in order to reach the objective, among which are comparative analysis, componential analysis, method of phraseological identification. As a result, the role of proper names in the idioms structure has been outlined. The types of idioms according to the component they are constituted by have been considered. The linguistic status of proper names has been identified. The correlation of the national and international components in the idioms structure has been determined. Peculiarities of semantics of the English and Ukrainian idioms under study have been described, as well as specificity of their connotative meaning. The method of quantitative analysis was used to ouline the trends concerning the frequency value of the semantic features in question.Results. As individual designations of various objects, proper names acquire their meaning and become linguistic signs only when the connection with an object is established. As part of idioms, proper names undergo complex semantic transformations, with their semantics being enriched. Being the constituent parts of idioms, proper names lose the function of individualization and acquire the ability to generalize, characterize, thus transforming into language unit with an expressive meaning. The analysis of the idioms with onomastic component in the Ukrainian and English languages made it possible to single out such components within their structure as anthroponyms, toponyms, astronyms, as well as to classify the language units under study, and to model their major semantic types. Accordingly, the analysis of phraseological units with onomastic component brings into open the principles of the semantic organization of the language units under study, which verbalize the worldviews of the corresponding language communities. The anthropocentric approach to the investigation of the linguistic phenomenon in question has been defined as the main one. Correspondingly, the component “antroponym” within the structure of the phraseological units and the semantic group “Characteristics of a person” have been identified as considerably predominant in both languages. The idioms under study mostly possess negative evaluative connotations. No correlation has been established between gender reference and negative or positive connotation.Conclusions. Idioms with proper names make an important linguistic and cultural layer of the vocabulary in English and Ukrainian. A significant predominance of anthroponyms in the idioms structure is an isomorphic feature of this group of words. This fact, as well as the significant nominative density of the semantic group “Characteristics of person” in both languages can be accounted for by the anthropocentric nature of the phraseological systems of the languages under study. Astronyms as idiom components are found only in English, which is an allomorphic feature. In terms of origin, both national-specific and international units are found in the language corpus. A manifestation of isomorphism is also the fact that a significant part of English and Ukrainian phraseological systems is constituted by idioms with biblical and ancient proper names. The prevailance of negative idioms is connected with conceptualization of reality, where the positive is treated as the norm, and the negative is a violation of the norm, so it attracts more attention. The gender factor does not affect the nature of the idiom evaluative meaning. Key words: idiom, onomastic component, anthroponym, toponym, phraseological meaning, comparative method. Метою статті є встановлення ізоморфних та аломорфних характеристик семантики фразеологічних одиниць з компонен-том «власна назва» в англійській та українській мовах. Матеріалом дослідження слугували 300 англійських і 291 українських ФО з ономастичним компонентом, відібраних методом суцільної вибірки із фразеологічних словників англійської та української мов. Методами фразеологічної ідентифікації, зіставного та компонентного аналізу визначено специфіку вживання власних назв у структурі фразеологізмів, типи фразеологічних одиниць за компонентним складом, розглянуті проблеми лінгвістичного статусу власної назви, співвідношення національного та інтернаціонального у складі фразеологізмів, проаналізовані особливості семантики англійських та українських фразеологізмів із власною назвою, особливості конотативного аспекту значення фразеологічних одиниць з ономастичним компонентом. Метод кількісного аналізу використовувався для виявлення тенденцій, що стосуються частотності прояву семантичних особливостей.Результати. Як компоненти фразеологічних одиниць власні назви зазнають складних семантичних перетворень, збагачуються новою семантикою, втрачають функцію індивідуалізації й набувають властивостей узагальнювати, характеризувати, перетворюючись в експресивне слово. Аналіз ідіом із власними назвами за характером компонентів показав, що в їхньому складі розрізняють такі компоненти, як антропоніми, топоніми і астроніми. Аналіз фразеологічних одиниць з ономастичним компонентом дозволив виявити семантичні групи фразеологізмів із власними назвами та визначити специфіку зазначеногофразеологічного корпусу в англійській та українській мовах. Запропонована семантична класифікація дослуджуваних ФО є одним із видів організованості фразеологічного складу і проявом його семантичної структурності. Результати кількісного аналізу свідчать про перевагу семантичної групи «Характеристика людини» в зіставлюваних мовах. Антропоніми в структурі фразеологізмів не співвідносяться з конкретною особою, виступають денотатами багатьох осіб і набувають оцінної конотації. Більшість антропонімів співвідносяться з негативними характеристиками людей. У досліджуваному корпусі переважають негативно оцінні ФО. Гендерна референція ФО не впливає на характер оцінки.Висновки. ФО з ВН є важливим лінгвокультурологічним шаром лексичного складу англійської та української мов. Ізо-морфною характеристикою семантики цієї групи слів є значна перевага антропонімів у складі ФО. Цей факт, а також значна номінативна щільність семантичної групи «Характеристика людини» в обох мовах пояснюється антропоцентричністю фразе-ологічних систем досліджуваних мов, тобто їх орієнтацією на людину, сфери її життя. Характерною особливістю англійської мови є наявність класу астронімів, відсутнього в українській мові. Аналіз походження ФО з ВН свідчить про наявність національно-специфічних та міжнаціональних одиниць. Проявом ізоморфізму є також той факт, що значну частину фразеосистем англійської та української мов складають ФО з біблійними та античними власними назвами. Перевага негативно оцінних ФО співвідноситься із особливістю концептуалізації дійсності, де позитивне вважається нормою, а негативне є порушенням норми, тому привертає до себе більшу увагу. Гендерний фактор не впливає на характер оцінного значення. Ключові слова: ідіома, ономастичний компонент, антропонім, топонім, фразеологічне значення, зіставний метод.

Multi-aspect of the use of diminutives in the texts of art works

Derivatives in the modern Russian language fulfill a certain functional and stylistic role and, as a rule, express emotional, expressive and evaluative meaning. Appellatives with diminutive formants in works of art are the means of characterizing a character and a message about the emotional state of the characters. This article examines the multifaceted nature of the use of diminutive formants in the texts of works of art. Works of fiction involve the search for a variety of means of expression and depiction. This leads to the creation of different stylistic contexts necessary to convey a particular idea of ​​the author. The multidimensional use of diminutives in literary texts is a vivid means of expression. The use of evaluative words is associated with certain types of contexts, the expressiveness of derivatives appears in the communicative act. A different type of assessment is conveyed by a different tonal coloring intonation or context.

What Still Needs to be Noted: Pseudo-Clefts in the Academic Discourse of Applied Linguistics

Pseudo-clefts are the building blocks of coherent discourse progression and serve as a rhetorical toolkit to construct an authorial stance in the academic discourse. Despite an increasing interest in grammatical constructions in the academic discourse, researchers have not treated pseudo-clefts in much detail. This paper explores the features of pseudo-clefts in the corpus of academic discourse in the field of applied linguistics. Here, we take the textual and the interpersonal perspectives, focusing on the use of pseudo-clefts in terms of their distribution in generic structure, discourse functions with reference to clefted constituents, and evaluative meaning. The results show that pseudo-clefts were more frequently used in “Results and Discussion” and Literature Review, performing the functions such as the specification of key terms, generalization of the literature, the description and explanation of findings, etc. They are facilitative in creating information gaps and establishing a logic-semantic expansive relationship between the clauses. The findings also suggest that the pseudo-clefts are evaluative devices and are involved in the construction of authorial identities.

Specificity of Interpretation of a Scientific Text in the Humanitarian Knowledge of the World

The given article is devoted to the interpretation of a scientific text in the framework of humanitarian knowledge of the world. The author covers theoretical aspects of intersubjective communication. The specificity of the analysis of this type of text is to address the mental and social state of the scientist's personality. The article systematizes the dominant syntactic means that characterize the process of cognition. Special attention is paid to emotional language means and their connection with evaluative meaning.

The Cognitive Aspect of English Polysemantic Adjectives

This paper presents an analysis of the deep language factors that predetermine polysemy of English adjectives denoting moral and mental qualities of human beings. In line with a well-established point of view in cognitive linguistics, this study treats the semantics of a word as a two-level phenomenon possessing the semantic (external) level and the conceptual (internal) level. Given polysemy belongs to the external level, this study aims to reveal the internal language factor allowing for umbrella adjectives to develop meanings of moral and mental qualities. This is the first research that has analyzed English adjectives from this perspective; it is proposed to unearth the deep language foundation of polysemy by modeling the conceptual foundation of polysemantic adjectives, which is undertaken via analysis of their etymological data. The choice of the adjectives encoding moral and mental qualities is substantiated by the following reasons: first, these words name the major human characteristics, whose recognition and verbalization can be traced back to the Pre-Old English period; second, they denote abstract qualities unperceivable by senses but estimated due to their indirect manifestation in individuals’ judgments, conduct and activity; third, since these adjectives convey evaluation of the quality, they reflect cultural axiological standards. The findings show that the semantics of the English adjectives in question is governed by a certain set of conceptual metaphors. The commonality of the adjectives’ conceptual basis seems to be the internal language factor that accounts for polysemy, i.e. an ability for an adjective to comprise meanings of mental and moral characteristics. In addition, the results demonstrate that the unearthed concepts form oppositions, namely, LIFE - DEATH, MOTION - STILLNESS, FRIEND - FOE. The opposed concepts are endowed with the positive or negative value that appears to determine the evaluative meaning of the adjectives. Besides, the research has shown that, while participating in the formation of adjectival semantics, the concepts can demonstrate ambiguous value, which enables a concept to underlie both the positive and negative evaluative meanings of an adjective; therefore, an adjective may comprise meanings of mental and moral characteristics that are opposite in their evaluation.