Ways of verbalizing positive human emotions in speech

Размещено на http://allbest.ru

Uzhhorod National University, Uzhhorod, Ukraine

Ways of verbalizing positive human emotions in speech

Maryana Tomenchuk

PhD in Philology, Associate Professor

of the Department of Applied Linguistics

Daryna Kotlyarova Master Graduate Student

of the Department of Applied Linguistics

Abstract

In recent decades, there has been a growing interest among linguists in the problem of emotions, because language has been studied not as a closed system, but as a system of which a person is an element. The human factor in language also includes human emotions.

The specificity of the linguistic embodiment of experiences, emotions, emotional states has been extensively studied in linguistics. Despite the abundance of studies dealing with emotions, their linguistic representation and features still need to be studied, which determines the relevance of the research topic. The problem is so multifaceted that it cannot be exhausted by existing studies and requires further development.

The study of linguistic means to denote human mental states in modern linguistics has led to the accumulation of significant theoretical potential: attention has been drawn to the peculiarities of multilevel means of verbalizing emotions in the text. The article is devoted to studying the verbalization of emotional states. The analysis was carried out on modern English publicist text material, considering those contexts in which direct or indirect indication of emotions is realized. The texts of articles from reputable English-language newspapers were chosen for the analysis, as they provide a wide variety of linguistic means and their combinations for conveying information about human emotional states.

Keywords: emotions, positive emotions, human emotions

Аннотация

В последние десятилетия среди лингвистов возрастает интерес к проблеме эмоций, поскольку язык изучается не как замкнутая система, а как система, элементом которой является человек. К человеческому фактору в языке относятся и человеческие эмоции. Специфика языкового воплощения переживаний, эмоций, эмоциональных состояний широко изучается в языкознании. Несмотря на обилие исследований, посвященных эмоциям, их языковая репрезентация и особенности еще нуждаются в изучении, что определяет актуальность темы исследования. Проблема настолько многогранна, что не может быть исчерпана существующими исследованиями и требует дальнейшей разработки.

Изучение языковых средств обозначения психических состояний человека в современной лингвистике привело к накоплению значительного теоретического потенциала: обращено внимание на особенности многоуровневых средств вербализации эмоций в тексте. Статья посвящена изучению вербализации эмоциональных состояний. Анализ проводился на современном англоязычном публицистическом текстовом материале с учетом тех контекстов, в которых реализуется прямое или косвенное указание на эмоции. Для анализа были выбраны тексты статей из авторитетных англоязычных газет, так как они предоставляют большое разнообразие языковых средств и их сочетаний для передачи информации об эмоциональных состояниях человека.

Ключевые слова: эмоции, положительные эмоции, эмоции человека.

Introduction

Problem statement. The development of modern linguistics is characterized by an anthropological renaissance, which is expressed in a keen interest in the problem of a person [1, p. 2], in the revival of anthropocentric research paradigm, where a person is recognized as the center of the universe and becomes the starting point in the analysis of certain phenomena, determining the perspective and ultimate goals of the study. It has become recognized that language is not only an “instrument of thought”, but also an intermediary between reality and a person, which, in turn, is realized by the modus operandi of language [2, p. 13].

The emergence of the anthropocentric paradigm in linguistics was determined because the language itself is anthropocentric in its essence, a person has imprinted in the language his/her physical appearance, inner states, emotions, intelligence, attitude to the subject and non-object world, nature, relations to the collective of people and another person. The researcher's attention moves from the object of knowledge to the subject, analyzes the person in the language and the language in the person

Analysis of recent research and publications. Linguists are interested in emotional states and their evaluation, linguistic and cognitive aspects of representing emotional states, semantic features of the textual embodiment of emotional states [1], means of conveying a person's emotional state in a literary text [3], linguistic designation of mental states by a certain part of speech [4]. However, according to a number of researchers, the word itself, as a stylistically and semantically rich category, has significant opportunities for their depiction in various aspects and shades [5].

Scholars are increasingly paying attention to gender differences in the expression of emotions in language, gender influence on the verbalization of emotional state, the study of which in each paradigm opens up new prospects for studying this phenomenon [3; 6; 7]. Emotions are inextricably linked with the subject who feels them and the object that causes them.

The relevance of the work is determined by the lack of works that study the verbalization of emotions in journalistic texts and the need to study the multilevel linguistic expression of positive emotions. The topicality of the study is also due to the fact that the consideration of problems related to understanding the natural processes of language use is currently at the forefront of linguistic research and consists in the need for a more profound study of language representation of emotions. In this regard, a more detailed study of the linguistic means of implementing emotions in a journalistic text is of particular importance, which reflects the linguistic and cultural specifics of the emotional sphere in language.

The article aims to study the language means of expressing positive human emotions in English publicist texts.

Research methodology

The research consists of several stages. At the first stage, all the lexemes that verbalize positive human emotions will be selected by the method of continuous sampling using the method of definitional analysis, which will include the means of substantive (e.g., joy, happiness, cheerfulness, relief, etc.), verbal (to cheer, to amaze, to amuse, to love, to relieve, to enjoy, etc.), adjectival (cheerful, jovial, glad, happy, etc.) and adverbial (cheerfully, optimistically, jovially, etc.) objectification of emotions. The semantic characteristics of the studied units will be analyzed. In addition to lexical units that denote emotions, i.e., perform only a nominative function, words that have only an emotive meaning and perform the function of emotional and sensory impact on the recipient without naming the emotion directly (vow, oh, blazing, radiant, etc.) will be selected. We also analyze lexemes that have an emotive component in their structure (wonderful, marvellous, amazing, serene, etc.). With the help of component analysis, lexical and semantic subgroups of the lexicon have been identified, and it will also allow to determine the principles of delimitation and structuring of constituents of the lexical and semantic field by their placement from the center to the periphery.

The next stage of the research involves the selection of examples that objectify the emotional state of a person from English-language journalistic texts. Context is the basis for interpreting emotions. Full understanding of the emotional aspects of the utterance is possible only by analyzing the relations of linguistic sign elements at the level of semantic and grammatically structured sentence. Thus, contextual analysis will help to identify the means of verbalizing emotions represented in the text through indirect indications of emotion. This method is also used to analyze the constituent elements of phrases with key lexemes - nominations of emotions that modify this lexeme, bringing various shades of meaning.

Results and discussion

Emotions are an integral internal component of the individual essence of a person. From a scientific perspective, the concept of “emotion” is an adjacent object of research of two branches of science - psychology and linguistics. To better understand the patterns of verbal embodiment of emotion, scholars consider the mechanism of functioning of this concept from a psychological and linguistic perspectives. mental linguistic emotional text verbalization

All fundamental (basic) emotions are divided into positive (interest, joy), negative (suffering, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, guilt) and neutral (surprise). Thus, for the purposes of this study, we will use the concept of basic emotions as universal emotional processes that are quite similar in different cultures in the way of expression, which constitute the whole diversity of human emotional life. We will focus on the means of realizing positive emotions in the text. We can distinguish the phonetic level, which includes markers of emotional information that contribute to the adequate transmission of emotions of the characters / narrator in the text.

Emotions in speech are necessarily accompanied by a fall or rise in intonation, slowing down the tempo, lowering or raising the intensity, as well as the appearance of pauses before using an emotive element, which is reflected in the text by graphic markers of emotions, conveying phonetic features (dot, dash, question mark), by the high frequency of a sound or sound combination in the text (it is associated with the expression (perception) of feelings and emotions) or by the presence of certain syntactic structures. These means allow representing positive emotions indirectly, using indications to the nature of the statement (lexicological phonetics). For example: “She's come into my life. She's fed me this wonderful romance. She's made me fall in lo -' he halts himself abruptly” [8]

Linguists note that there is a connection at the phonetic level between the inclusion of a certain sound in the word and the meaning of this word. It is argued that sound evokes a certain meaning in the minds of speakers, that is, it is able to replace an object or action, becoming their symbol. I. I. Matz notes that “since the phenomena of the real world are evaluated by the person who perceives, his/her evaluations are transferred to the sounds accompanying these phenomena” [5, p. 181]. This is how the symbolic meanings of sounds in general arise, which apply to the sounds of speech. At the same time, certain sounds can cause a corresponding range of associations. Based on various experiments, scholars prove that sounds have a certain content and a certain meaning. Phonemes transmit information of sensory and emotional nature.

While phonetic means of expressing emotivity mainly include intonational means of expressing positive emotions, morphology considers the means of word formation that allow expressing a particular state. The emotional component of meaning is often verbalized with the help of morphemes. Emotive suffixes with pragmatic load in English include - y, - ling, - let, - ster, - kin, - ette, - ard. In the case when an emotionally neutral root morpheme is combined with an emotive affix, the lexical unit acquires an emotional colouring: daddy, kiddy, girlie, mommy. For instance: “Past rulings by the high court have allowed states to limit young people's access to sexually explicit materials, such as in a 1968 case involving a New York ban on the sale of "girlie magazines" to buyers under age 18” [9]. In some cases, the same suffix realizes polar motivation in different derivatives: dafty, softy and daddy, birdy. Such suffixes are potentially ambivalent, for example: “Roger Ailes is one of the softest touches I've ever known”, Hume says. “He is a complete softy for people down on their luck” [10].

There are significant differences among linguists on the issue of lexical actualization of emotions. N. Tsyntar believes that positive emotions can be realized by three types of lexical means: a) words that have only emotive meaning and perform the function of emotional and sensory impact on the recipient; b) words that have an emotive component in their structure; c) words that denote emotions. The latter are not emotive in themselves, but form the core of the logical-subject naming of positive emotions, appealing to their emotional perception [6, p. 79]. V.A. Chabanenko distinguishes three groups of lexical means: 1) linguistic units that directly express emotions (these are emotional exclamations); 2) a category of words that name human emotions; 3) linguistic units that can both express and convey the speaker's emotional attitude to any object or phenomenon [11, p. 240].

“Emotivity” as an invariant seme in the lexical meaning of the word is realized in two antonymic variants: “approval” (positive emotionality) / “disapproval” (negative emotionality). In a specific emotional context, each of these variants represents a number of emosemes that verbalize a set of the following emotive meanings: 1) emotional state, 2) formation of an emotional state, 3) emotional influence, 4) emotional attitude, 5) external expression of emotions, 6) emotional evaluation (self-esteem), 7) emotional quality (quantity), 8) emotional intensity (strength of emotions), etc. [12]

I. Krasovska interprets the category of emotionality and emotive vocabulary broadly, including in the emotive series vocabulary denoting the whole range of emotions and emotional states of an individual [13, p. 65]. An even wider range of means involved in the creation of textual emotionality is outlined by Zh. Krasnobaeva-Chorna, who links emotionally colored meaning with secondary nomination and associative-figurative basis of nomination [14, p. 135].

In this regard, a terminological distinction appeared: the vocabulary of emotions and emotional vocabulary. The distinction of these two types of vocabulary takes into account the differing functional nature of these words: the vocabulary of emotions is focused on the objectification of emotions in the language, their inventory (nominative function), emotional vocabulary is intended to express the speaker's emotions and emotional evaluation of the object of language (expressive and pragmatic functions). Thus, the vocabulary of positive emotions includes words whose subject-logical meaning is the concept of emotions. Lexical units naming emotions are not emotive. The words love, surprise, pleasure, relief, contentment, etc. contain only the concept of certain emotions, while the semantics of lexemes-emotions verbalizes the internal emotional state of a person, his/her consciousness and psyche. For example: “Comfort, contentment and middle- class Masterpiece Theatre milquetoast values have prevailed”, Wells groused in his blog while reluctantly facing what he now sees as an inevitable win for The King's Speech” [9].

Description is the verbalization of an emotional state by means of language. As a rule, it is not the emotion itself that is subject to description, but its external manifestation, including facial expressions, eyes, lips, voice timbre, intonation, etc. The lexical verbalization of emotional kinemas and prosodemas reflects the atmosphere of emotional experiences, evoking in the reader/listener feelings equivalent to the author's intention. This is due to the universality of the expressive component and the possibility of its decoding. For example: “Anytime you avoid hypocrisy, your face brightens. I have noticed that her face looks quite radiant lately. It's probably because she doesn't have to look at those monkey ears all the time now ” [10]. This description of the facial kinema signals to the reader the emotion of pleasure, joy.

It should be noted that lexical items belonging to the first two groups are neutral in their semantics. Emotional vocabulary includes emotionally colored words that contain a sensual background. For example: He reads DuBois 's words: “`I loved my school, and the fine faith the children had in the wisdom of their teacher was truly marvellous. We read and spelled together, wrote a little, picked flowers, sang, and listened to stories of the world beyond the hill.' Isn't that marvellous?” asks Sullivan ” [15]

Taking into account the difference in the nature of the emotional content of these words, it should be taken into account that the vocabulary of all three groups is involved in the reflection of positive human emotions. We should especially emphasize the fact that, according to the researchers, the designations of emotions that are actually devoid of emotive coloring can represent the category of emotivity. We stick to this point of view since words denoting emotions in some situations can be considered as key words indicating human emotions that the author intends to convey in the text. Speaking of emotivity as a category that encompasses the entire text, one cannot but mention the importance of syntactic and stylistic means, the significance of which in the realization of positive emotions is emphasized by various researchers. Ch. Bally wrote that the category of emotivity is created by such syntactic and stylistic means and techniques as exclamation, elliptical constructions of different types, lexical repetition, collision of synonyms (i.e., semantic repetition), syntactic stylistic techniques belonging to artistically processed speech, etc. For example: “Hurrah! The FMC 901 was booting up. Double hurrahs! ” [8]

I. I. Matz notes that syntactic level is represented by exclamatory, interrogative, elliptical, inverted sentences, parenthetical elements for verbalization of emotions. The higher the degree of emotional tension, the higher the degree of disorganization of the syntactic structure. The researcher believes that interruptions, repetitions, incompleteness of syntactic structures are characteristic of high concentration of emotions [5, p. 182]. For example: “Then, the man's visage transformed from one of undetermination... to disbelief...to hope... and finally, to pure joy” [8].

Conclusions

In summary, in our study, we adhere to the following opinion on the means of expressing the category of emotivity in the text: since the division into expressive and figurative means is conventional, it seems natural that both can serve as means of expressing positive emotions in the text. Thus, the specific content of positive emotions constitutes the designation of this spectrum of the human emotional state by different linguistic means and to varying degrees. We believe that the means of realizing positive emotions can be linguistic means of all levels of language, including emotive vocabulary, emphatic grammatical constructions, various stylistic techniques, etc.

References

1. Kyseliuk, N.P (2009). Verbalni ta neverbalni zasoby aktualizatsii emotsiinoho stanu radosti v khudozhnomu dyskursi (na materiali anhlomovnoi XX-XXI stolit) [Verbal and non-verbal means of actualizing the emotional state of joy in artistic discourse (based on the material of English prose of the XX-XXI centuries)]. Extended abstract of candidate's thesis. Kyiv [in Ukrainian].

2. Pylypak, V. (2009). Antropotsentrychni ta ehotsentrychni kontseptsii v linhvistytsi [Anthropocentric and egocentric concepts in linguistics]. Linhvistychni studii. Zbirnyk naukovykh prats - Linguistic studies. Collection of scientific works, N18, 13-18. Donetsk [in Ukrainian].

3. Stepaniuk, M.P. (2016). Reprezentatsiia emotsiinoho stanu khudozhnoho personazha u zhinochomu romani: linhvokohnityvnyi i hendernyi aspekty (na materiali romaniv Sh. Bronte ta E. Bronte) [Representation of the emotional state of an artistic character in a female novel: linguistic and cognitive and gender aspects (based on the novels by Ch. Bronte and E. Bronte)]. Extended abstract of candidate's thesis. Kherson [in Ukrainian].

4. Kuzenko, H.M. (2000). Emotyvnist na riznykh movnykh rivniakh. [Emotionality at different language levels]. bibl.kma.mk.ua Retrieved from: http://bibl.kma.mk.ua/pdf/novitfilolog/ 11/107.pdf. [in Ukrainian].

5. Mats, I.I. (2003). Riznovydy emotsii ta sposoby yikh verbalizatsii (na materiali anhliiskoi movy [Varieties of emotions and ways of their verbalization (in English)]. Visn. Zhytomyr. derzh. ped. un-tu im. I. Franka - Bulletin of Zhytomyr State Pedagogical University named after Ivan Franko. N11, 181-183. [in Ukrainian].

6. Tsyntar, N.V. (2021). Katehoriia emotyvnosti v anhliiskii khudozhnii literaturi KhIKh ta KhKhI stolittia (hendernyi aspekt) [The category of emotionality in English fiction of the XIX and XXI centuries (gender aspect)]. Extended abstract of candidate's thesis. Chernivtsi [in Ukrainian].

7. Fischer, А. (1998). Emotion. Gender and Psychology. London, Arnold.

8. New York Times (2022). Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/

9. USA Today (2022). Retrieved from: http://www.usatoday.com/

10. Washington Post (2022). Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/

11. Chabanenko, V.A. (2002). Stylistyka ekspresyvnykh zasobiv ukrainskoi movy [Stylistics of expressive means of the Ukrainian language.] Zaporizhzhia [in Ukrainian].

12. Rusanivsky, V.M. (2007). Entsyklopediia [Encyclopedia]. Kyiv: Ukr. Encyclopedia [in Ukrainian].

13. Krasovska, I. (2011). Osoblyvosti kontseptualizatsii pozytyvnykh emotsii [Features of conceptualization of positive emotions]. Naukovi zapysky. Seriia: Filolohichni nauky (movoznavstvo) - Scientific notes. Series: Philological sciences (linguistics), № 95 (1), 65-68. Kirovohrad [in Ukrainian].

14. Krasnobayeva-Chorna, Zh.V. (2018). Emotyvna kartyna svitu v ukrainskii frazemitsi: aksiolohichnyi vymir fundamentalnykh emotsii liudyny [Emotional picture of the world in Ukrainian phraseology: axiological dimension of fundamental human emotions]. Studia Slavica Hung. Vol. 63/2, 321-332 [in Ukrainian].

15. Christian Science Monitor (2022). Retrieved from: http://www.csmonitor.com/

Размещено на Allbest.ru