Verbs of speaking in English and Serbian

Abstract

This paper is a contrastive analysis of the lexical field of verbs of speaking in English and Serbian. The main goal is to explore what similarities and differences are present within the lexical field in the two languages. Lexemes are first contrasted within one language, in order to explore the features that distinguish verbs of speaking one from the other. The meaning of verbs is analyzed by the procedure of componential analysis, by decomposing meaning into its component parts. Accordingly, English verbs are classified into semantically similar groups and analyzed one by one, with suggested corresponding Serbian equivalents. The paper tries to offer a more precise transfer of meaning of the verbs of speaking from one language to another and to provide solutions to the process of translation. The results obtained show that all the English verbs in the research have their formal correspondent in Serbian, while some of the verbs also have their translation equivalents. The analysis, therefore, may contribute to a more precise transfer of meaning of these verbs from one language to another during the process of translation.