Response Words of Evaluation in Modern English: Functional Aspect

Abstract

The article focuses on investigating the categorial features of the units belonging to functional-semantic class of response words of evaluation that express positive and negative axiological categories in Modern English. The linguistic status of response words is defined. Response words are viewed in the article as the units of communication which form the reaction to the words of the interlocutor or the situation itself. They comprise one-word or above-word ones which express agreement or disagreement with the communicant’s point of view and the variety of positive and negative emotions such as joy, delight, contempt, despair. The article deals with the structure of the functional field of the response words, the nucleus of which is comprised by interjections. The specific character of interjections is the ability to perform an expressive function and serve for the direct manifestation of feelings and volitional intentions. The modal-evaluative response words adjacent to the nucleus of the functional field are taken into account. Above-word response words as peripheral structures of the field are described. Response words with the sentence structure occupying the extreme periphery of the field are investigated. Idiomatic response words and non- idiomatic response words as the constituents of idiomatic and non-idiomatic zones of the functional-semantic field are specified. The further perspective of the research lies in determining the cognitive-pragmatic characteristics of axiological units. Linguo-cultural and ethnolinguistic peculiarities of axiological nominations may be identified. The changes of stereotypes in the English-speaking linguo-cultural community may be singled out.