Dynamics of Functional Aspects of Verbs of Movement in English Drama

Abstract

Drama reflects everyday life of a certain linguistic community. It reflects all the changes which occur either in the language itself or in the society. Any play is based on the notion of action which is represented through verbs of movement. The functional approach towards analyzing such verbs seems to be reasonable as it may result in acquiring the knowledge of the models according to which communication is built. Once synergetic approach is applied, one will learn the way the two main parts of a play the dialogue and the authors remark interact. The research is based on 300 verbs of movement which are distributed into several periods. The first period under consideration is the Renaissance of the English culture (14751660). The second period is the Restoration and the Age of Normalization (second half of XVII XVIII). The third period starts with the XIX century. In this paper the XXI century is analyzed separately due to the tremendous changes it has brought both to the English language and the English-speaking community. The diachronic approach allows to see how verbs of movement developed their functions from being secondary to becoming essential for expressing emotional, axiological and aesthetic aspects. The material of the recent century being scarce, it is possible only to see the main tendencies of further dynamics.