THE COMMUNICATIVE SITUATION OF REALIZATION OF THE SPEAKER’S PESSIMISM (A STUDY OF THE 20TH-21ST CENTURY ENGLISH PROSE)

Abstract

The article highlights the issue of pessimism as a personal factor of communicative interaction which manifests itself in the speaker’s communicative behaviour. Our analysis provides an explanation for the structure of the communicative situation of realization of the speaker’s pessimism. It has been proved that the communicative situation of realization of the speaker’s pessimism comprises the participants of communication, their personal characteristics and psychological roles; the background of communication (time, place and sphere of communication); the mode of communication (style and tonality of communication). It has been found out that pessimistic communicative style is characterized by pessimistic communicative tonality, which as a basic feature of communication indicates the attitude of the communicators to each other, to the circumstances and the subject of speech. Pessimistic communicative tonality is characterized by a specific emotional-axiological language code in the communicative situation of realization of the speaker’s pessimism. This work has demonstrated that pessimistic communicative style is polychronic, proxemically variable, direct/indirect, person-oriented, inductive, intuitive, expanded/laconic, which is proved by a range of verbal and non-verbal signals. With all the findings, we are not yet in position to offer explanations for cognitive and linguocultural aspects of the phenomenon of pessimism.