Structural and Semantic Features of Emotinal Lexicon in American English and Ukrainian.

Abstract

In the Master’s paper the concept of emotion is defined and the role of emotional lexis in the functioning of interpersonal communication is clarified. The research paper under consideration identifies the most relevant and common classifications of basic emotions in the linguistic field as well as discusses various types of word borrowings in American English and Ukrainian emotional lexicon. The empiric material of the paper is based on the modern lexicographic sources of the contrasted languages. The sample size comprises 790 lexical units. The most productive ways of emotional lexicon word formation in American English and Ukrainian are identified, the semantic features of the emotional lexicon in two contrasted languages are studied by means of constructing lexical semantic groups based upon the sampling.
The results of the study show that the American language community is more likely to express positive emotions in contrast to the Ukrainian language community, that is characterized by the verbal manifestation of negative emotions predominantly. These differences may be caused by the mentality peculiarities of both contrasted cultures, as well as their historical background.