No 1 (2015)

The article discusses the problem of emotional significance of a positive form of speech. Based on the methodology of emotions linguistics, linguoecology, communicative linguistics and the methods of description, comparison and discourse analysis, the author distinguishes some types of speech situations that demonstrate visible differences between positive expression of emotions and their content and the pragmatic effect. The difference between the notions of “positive communication” and “positive form of communication” is demonstrated. Special attention is given to the following types of positive emotional communication: tolerant emotional communication, emotional emphasis, emotional neglect, and emotional tabooing. The utterances in situations of real and textual communication demonstrate negative effects of statements expressed in a positive form and identify the specifics of positive forms of emotional communication in comparison with rational communication.

An issue of ecological friendliness in the communication of characters based on the works of the Swiss-German writer Hermann Hesse has been considered in the article under review. A high degree of ecological friendliness is caused due, on the one hand, to the philosophical views of the writer, and, on the other hand, to his talent of the artist. The basis for the communicative tactics realized in the stories «Knulp. Drei Geschichten aus dem Leben Knulps» and «Siddhartha. Eine indische Dichtung» is the tactics of rapprochement between the communication partners. Communicative behavior of the protagonists in the above mentioned works is characterized by a highly frequent usage of the positively evaluated lexics, smooth body language and non-verbal / facial expressions.

The article is devoted to the analysis of emotional attractiveness of modern school educational texts and ecological/non-ecological influence upon pupils’ cognition in teaching communication. Reasoning is based on the thesis that - emotional attractiveness of modern school educational texts opposes their cognitive function. Emotional educational text profile and its components are under consideration. The article is concerned with ecological and cognitive and emotional asymmetry content. The material under focus is printed texts of some of modern school textbooks, teaching methodical aids, academic competitions, mass media information from the cognitive ecology point of view.

The article reports the results of a contrastive analysis of semantic structures of lexical units nominating emotions in Slavic (Russian), Germanic (English), Romanic (French and Italian) linguocultures. The main goal of this study is to elicit similarities and differences of the selected lexis due to specificity of the national culture and peculiarities of semantic and grammatical systems of the languages in question. As linguistic material the author uses lexical units nominating types of emotional states and occurring in the definitions of the word “emotion” in modern linguistic, psychological and philosophical dictionaries: emotion, anger, depression, sadness, joy, suffering, passion, anguish, astonishment, despondency. This article covers the results obtained from the analysis of the words anger, joy, astonishment. The author applied methods of linguistic observation and description (in order to select the lexis and to describe its characteristics systematically), the method of definitions (to define the semantics of the analyzed lexical units), the method of comparative analysis (to identify similarities and differences among different lexemes), the method of reversibility (to elicit the equivalence of terms belonging to different languages). According to the results of the analysis, the author describes the importance of these emotions in each culture, determines the degree of equivalence between English - Russian, French - Russian, Italian - Russian lexemes, notes the cases of homonymy, polysemy, synonymy and identifies the latent associative semantic linkage.

Anthropocentric approach in linguistics has shown that emotions act not only as objects of reflection in the language, but also as an instrument of autoreflection. Emotivity study is connected to a semantic category of estimation as emotions are the subjective form of an estimation of the phenomena and subjects, that is it is possible to assert that categories of estimation and emotionality are inextricably related in linguistics. In this article the original view on hypothetical estimation and implicit emotivity is offered concerning the terminology of sports dances. The hypothesis is checked by formal way with the help of computer program TextSTAT 2.9 resulting the frequency lists of the analyzed texts and the dictionary - concordance. By results of the concordance analysis existence of three subgroups of terms on character of display emotivity is revealed, namely: showing estimated character; not showing estimated character; neutral terms.

Peculiarities of expressing emotions in different languages and cultures are nowadays of great interest among researchers. However, traditionally, more attention is paid to lexis, phraseology, prosody, and nonverbal signs of communication and grammatical means are ignored. Nevertherless, they also possess significant emotive potential. The goal of this article is to systematize some facts showing that grammar can implicitly convey various emotions of the speaker and impact the hearer, as well as to draw attention of language teachers and translators to this phenomenon. I will mainly focus on modal verbs and expressions, nontraditional use of tenses, nontraditional use of some adverbs, inverse word order and some other cases summing up the earlier described facts (Ozyumenko 2005-2006, 2007) and supplementing them with new observations. The article emphasizes that discovering emotive implicature, i.e. implicit emotive intention of the speaker, and revealing its meaning is sine qua non for successful intercultural communication and equivalent translation. The data for the research were taken from English language text books, grammar books, dictionaries and fiction. The study implements contextual, definitive, pragmatic, discourse and contrastive analyses.

Positive communication is defined as interaction based on favourable emotions, aimed at understanding and bringing satisfaction to all the parties involved. The analysis of its constituent features allows us to describe it as constructive, emotive, effective and showing potential for development. It is argued that assertiveness is its optional feature typical of particular cultures. The structural components of positive communication are positive intentionality, involvement in the interaction, adaptation to the interlocutor and social support.

The goal of the study is to describe lingua-semiotic and emotive aspects of updating the signs and symbols of the British monarchical power of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman periods of British history as presentational elements of creolized texts in the signage to country pubs (taverns and pubs), marking and presenting the so-called Bacchic (alcohol-addicting) English-speaking utilitarian space discourse. We investigate the emotive attitude (often carnival) to the monarchy, explicated in signs of pubs as elements of utilitarian discourse in the form of signs of various properties and qualities (of emotion-laden iconic signs, symbols, emblems and verbal nomination). Marked are the anthropomorphic, coloromorphic, floromorphic, fitomorphic, faunamorphic, insectomorphic, military, sacred and purely monarchical semiotic constructs-presentems, actualizing emotional reaction of society to manifestations of monarchical power in the designated historic period of British ethnic group. The study used lingua-semiotic approach to the study of actual material using concepts presented as the smallest units of information exposure, representing complex lingua-semiotic (sign) clusters consisting of cognitive mastery of subject concepts and images of the world and transferred to another entity into the communication with the data subject with a view to impact on it. To highlight the emotive component within the semiotics of nominations and the creolized image of the signage two methods were used, such as introspection (to analyze the intentions of the pub’s owner and to obtain logical supposition on senses born within the creolized text) together with logic-semantic analysis of nominations (to obtain institutionary meanings). The research was carried out within the scientific research trend “Lingua-cultural and Lingua-semiotic Needs” developed at the Educational Center “Professional Foreign Language Communication” of Volgograd State Agrarian University.

The paper “The Logic That Can’t Be Lost” by Dmitry Yermolovich gives an overview of submissions, all independent of one another, by a diverse group of professional and amateur translators to a recent English-Russian literary translation contest. The analysis made it possible to identify some trends and patterns in Russian speakers’ approaches to rendering foreign text in their native tongue.