What is connotation: concept, functions, expression of evaluative emotions and examples. Functions of emotional-evaluative vocabulary in a literary text

(cm. MEANING). Sometimes also called a (semantic) association. The connotation of a word reflects such a sign of the object denoted by it, which, although it does not constitute a necessary condition for the use of this word, is steadily associated with the designated object in the minds of native speakers. For example, in many European languages, the word for fox has the connotation of "cunning" or "cunning". It is clear that these signs are not essential for a given class of animals: in order to name some animal fox, we don't need to check if it's tricky. Consequently, the sign of cunning is not included in the definition (interpretation) of this word, but nevertheless it is steadily associated with it in the language, as evidenced by at least the figurative use of the word fox(a) for a smart person. Connotations embody the assessment of the object or fact of reality denoted by the word, accepted in a given language community and fixed in the culture of a given society, and reflect cultural traditions. So, cunning and deceit are constant characteristics of the fox as a character in fairy tales about animals in the folklore of many peoples.

Connotations are a kind of so-called pragmatic information associated with the word, since they do not reflect the objects and phenomena of the real world themselves, but the attitude towards them, a certain view of them. Unlike other types of pragmatic information, this attitude and view belong to the speaker not as an individual, but as a representative of the linguistic community. So, for example, the word nag carries emotional and evaluative pragmatic information about the attitude of the speaker as a person to the object denoted by this word, and using this word in relation to a certain horse, we inevitably express our own disapproving attitude towards it. In contrast, the speaker, using a lexeme that has a certain connotation, does not thereby express his personal point of view on the designated object; for example, using the word a fox to designate an animal, we do not thereby express our opinion about the cunning of the fox. Nevertheless, the connection between the fox and the cunning is present in the mind of the speaker - in that area of ​​​​his, which in social psychology is called the collective unconscious.

Other examples of connotations are signs of "stubbornness" and "stupidity" in the word donkey, "monotonicity" of the word to nag, "quickness" and "inconstancy" of the word wind. The connotations of words reveal themselves in a whole series of phenomena belonging to language or speech. To linguistic manifestations of connotations, i.e. those that are fixed in the language system include figurative meanings (cf. the meaning "stupid and / or stubborn person" in the word donkey), habitual comparisons (cf. mulish), meanings of derivative words (cf. windy in the meaning of "frivolous"), the meaning of phraseological units (cf. how the wind blew, which means the rapid disappearance of someone / something).

Among the objective manifestations of the connotations of a word, one should also include the phenomena of speech, which are usually not recorded in dictionaries and grammars, but are reproduced with sufficient regularity in the process of generating and interpreting an utterance with a given word. One of these phenomena is the relative uniformity in the interpretation by native speakers of the so-called pseudo-tautological constructions, which have the form X is X, For example German is German. From a logical point of view, such statements are tautological (true by virtue of their form), and therefore should be avoided in speech as uninformative: their predicate does not carry anything new in comparison with what is already expressed with the help of the subject. However, this does not happen - they are perceived as quite normal statements that are informative precisely due to the fact that in them the object X is implicitly assigned a property that is stably associated in the minds of speakers with objects of this type. In particular, the fact that the majority of native Russian speakers give the above example of pseudo-tautology something like: “What do you want from a German, they are all so neat (or pedantic)”, shows that such properties are attributed to the German with a high degree of regularity , as "accuracy" and "pedantry", which are stably associated in the minds of native speakers of the Russian language with the word German, certainly, without referring to the essential features of the class of persons denoted by this word.

The speech manifestations of the connotations of a word also include a restriction on the compatibility of this word with words expressing its connotations, within the framework of specific constructions that can be considered diagnostic in this regard. So , correct usage designs kind He X, but he is Y, as shown in a number of papers on the semantics of conjunction but, implies that the speaker has the opinion that in the norm X cannot be Y-ness (= does not have the property of Y-ness). Since the connotation of the word X- this is the feature that is stably associated with the object X denoted by this word, it should be expected that, by substituting into this construction instead of Y the name of the connotative feature of the object X, we get a strange, anomalous statement - it is enough to compare, for example, the strangeness of statements ? He is a bachelor, but he is unpretentious in everyday life / unkempt / careless with absolute naturalness He is a bachelor, but he is very homely / well-groomed / very thorough and serious person.

The connotations of words are specific to each language. L.V. Shcherba noted the following difference between the Russian word water and denoting the same substance by the French word eau: French eau, unlike Russian water, figurative use in the sense of "something devoid of content", but the French word has a meaning that can more or less be conveyed to Russian decoction (eau de ris"rice water", literally "rice water", eau d'orge"barley broth"), and from this it follows that the Russian concept of water emphasizes its nutritional uselessness, while the French eau this sign is completely foreign. And there are many such examples. Yes, the word elephant in Russian it has the connotation of "heaviness", "clumsiness" (cf. stomp like an elephant;like an elephant in a china shop), and in Sanskrit its translation equivalent gadja- the connotation of "lightness", "gracefulness" (cf. gadjagamini"easy gait", literally "elephant").

In the same language, words with similar meanings can also have very different connotations - this is well demonstrated by the example of the difference between the connotations of a word belonging to the Russian specialist in lexical semantics Yu.D. Apresyan donkey("stubbornness", "stupidity") from the connotations of the word ass("willingness to work hard and meekly").

The capriciousness and unpredictability of connotations make it necessary to include them in a dictionary striving for a complete description of the information associated with the word. see also SEMANTICS.

Types of connotations

The connotation of a word reflects such a property of the object it signifies, which is stably combined with the designated object in the minds of native speakers, although it does not constitute a necessary condition for the use of this word. For example, in many European languages, the word for fox has the connotation of "cunning" or "cunning". Of course, these qualities do not represent this class of animals: in order to call any animal a fox, one does not need to check whether it is cunning. Thus, the feature of cunning is not included in the definition (interpretation) of this word, but for all that it is invariably associated with it in the language, which proves at least the indirect meaning of the word fox (a). Connotations embody the assessment of the object or fact of reality signified by the word, accepted in a given language sphere and fixed in the culture of a particular society, and reflect cultural customs. Thus, cunning and deceit are revealed by the constant characteristics of the fox as a character in fairy tales about animals in the folklore of many peoples.

The connotation of the lexico-semantic variant is emotional (for example, interjections), evaluative (positive/negative), expressive (there are figurative and magnifying), stylistic.

Stylistic connotation involves the use of a word in a specific functional style. It is joined by a cultural connotation - a component contained in the culture of the word, determined by the national culture and possessing for the speakers of a particular language any information that reflects the cultural perception of its people.

Connotations can be permanent (ingerent) and contextual (occasional). Words that have an inherent connotation are marked. Marking according to the stylistic principle divides the vocabulary into colloquial, with a neutral stylistic coloring and literary and bookish (for example, mummy-mother-female parent; kid-child-infant). Most colloquial words began to be used as separate lexico-semantic variants 1) by moving the meaning of adjacency (cinema->movies->pictures) 2) with the help of pet suffixes (dad-daddy, loony, shorty). Colloquial vocabulary is usually divided into general literary vocabulary and phraseology and non-literary vocabulary and phraseology.

Functions of emotional-evaluative vocabulary in a literary text

Currently, linguists and literary critics pay great attention to the role of emotional and evaluative vocabulary in the structure of a work of art. Artistic text is multifunctional. In it, the aesthetic function is layered on a number of others - communicative, expressive, pragmatic, emotive, but does not replace them, but, on the contrary, increases them. The language of a literary text lives according to its own rules, which differ from the life of a living language, "it has special mechanisms for the emergence of artistic meanings." Many linguists, including A.M. Peshkovsky, A.A. Potebnya, V.V. Vinogradov, G.O. Vinokur, V.P. Grigoriev, D.N. Shmelev and other researchers. They emphasized that the word in a literary text, due to the peculiar conditions of functioning, is semantically reformed, contains an additional meaning. The relationship between direct and figurative meaning causes both aesthetic and expressive effects of a literary text, makes this text figurative and meaningful. Many scientists admit that there are no expressly unmarked texts, since any text can and is able to have a specific impact on the consciousness and behavior of the reader, because it is emotionality that contributes to the achievement of the goal of the speech message and has an impact on the recipient. The number of expressive language means in the text does not determine the expressive effect of text perception, but only increases the likelihood of its occurrence. In addition, in addition to special language means, namely emotive ones, associated with a certain image, stylistically marked, any neutral unit of language can be expressive, which depends on the goals of the author, on the contextual situation. An emotive text, due to its semantic features, can completely reduce the logical and objective meaning of an emotionally neutral word and comprehend it as a contextual emotive or even affective.

The sources of text emotiveness are diverse and are not understood equally by all researchers. On the one hand, the main source of text emotiveness is actually emotive language means. The ways of manifestation of emotive situations in a literary text are varied: "from folded and minimally deployed to maximally deployed".

Based on the communicative approach, V.A. Maslova believes that the most important source of text emotiveness is its content. In her opinion, “the content of the text is potentially emotional, because there will always be a recipient for whom it will be personally significant. The emotionality of the content of the text is, ultimately, the emotionality of the fragments of the world reflected in the text.

But, nevertheless, initially emotivity is a linguistic category that accepts actualization with the help of a literary word in any part of the text. The emotive space of the text is represented by two levels - the level of the character and the level of its creator-author: "holistic emotive content implies a mandatory interpretation of the world of human emotions (character level) and an assessment of this world from the position of the author in order to influence this world, transform it." In the structure of characters' images, a variety of emotive meanings is revealed. "The totality of emotions in the text (in the image of the character) is a unique dynamic set that is modified as the plot develops, reproducing the inner world of the character in various circumstances, in relations with other characters." At the same time, in the emotional circle of any character, an “emotional dominant” stands out - the predominance of some emotional state, property, direction over the others. “The conflict of the emotional sphere of the character, on the one hand, and the presence of an emotional dominant, on the other, do not contradict the laws of the literary text and the state of affairs in the world in general; on the contrary, the former reflects the general laws of the organization of a literary text, while the latter corresponds to the peculiarities of human psychology: psychologists have long noted its emotional orientation as the fundamental personality traits, i.e. attraction of each person to one or another system of experiences. As a result, "the author of a literary work selects vocabulary in such a way that it tells the reader in what emotional way he should perceive the hero." In various literary texts, depending on the author's intention, the predominance of either one or the other emotional property of the character is likely. In this sense, the works of L.N. Tolstoy, in which the emotional characteristic of the character, depicted by emotional-evaluative vocabulary, is the marking of positive ("adored") and negative heroes. Such a property of describing characters in L.N. Researchers have noticed Tolstoy for a long time, but in the linguistic aspect this phenomenon has been studied extremely little. As a result, emotive vocabulary in a literary text performs several functions, the main of which are the product of emotive content and emotive tone of the text. Private text functions of emotive vocabulary include:

Creation of a psychological portrait of the image of the characters (“descriptive-characterological function”);

Private text functions of emotive vocabulary include:

Creation of a psychological portrait of the characters' image ("descriptive-characterological function");

Emotional interpretation of the world depicted in the text and its assessment (“interpretative and emotional-evaluative functions”); discovery of the inner emotional world of the author's image ("intentional function");

Impact on the reader (“emotional-regulatory function”).

The role of emotional-evaluative lexemes that are realized in a work in the order of a literary text is determined by the sum and interconnection of the indicated functions. Their phased disclosure will allow us to find the role of emotional-evaluative vocabulary in the style of the writer as a whole. With a similar recreation, it is impossible to avoid problems associated with the features of the perception of the writer's world, his individual picture of the world: a literary text is formed by the image of the author and his point of view on the object of description.

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The fundamental therapeutic principle we call positive connotation, was originally inspired by our need not to contradict ourselves when we paradoxically prescribe a symptom to an identified patient. Can we prescribe behavior after we ourselves have criticized it?

We got it easy not make negative connotations of the identified patient's symptom. However, the behavior of the rest of the family, especially the parents, which often seemed to be correlated with the symptom, presented us with a more difficult task. Template vision tempted to arbitrary interpretations - the association of a symptom with the symptomatic behavior of "others" in accordance with cause-and-effect dependencies. As a result, it was not uncommon for the patient's parents to cause us resentment and anger. This is the tyranny of the linguistic model from which we have found it difficult to free ourselves. We have had to force ourselves to fully grasp the anti-therapeutic consequences of this erroneous epistemology.

In essence, the positive connotation of an identified patient's symptom, combined with the negative connotation of the symptomatic behavior of other family members, is tantamount to an arbitrary division of family system members into “good” and “bad” and thereby depriving oneself as a therapist of the opportunity to perceive the family as a systemic whole.

Thus, it became clear to us that work in the system model is possible only when we make a positive connotation together the symptom of an identified patient and the symptomatic behavior of others—for example, telling a family that all the behavior we observe in it as a whole is caused, in our opinion, by one goal: to maintain the cohesion of the family group. As a result, the therapist becomes able to perceive all members of this group at the same level, avoiding involvement in the alliances or groupings that are constantly present in a dysfunctional family system. Dysfunctional families are indeed prone, especially during periods of crisis, to splits and disagreements, characterized by the standard labeling of “bad”, “sick”, “incapable”, “shame of society”, “shame of the family”, etc.

A natural question arises: why should the connotation be positive, that is, confirmation? Is it possible to get the same results by total negative connotation (rejection)? For example, we could claim that both the symptoms of an identified patient and the symptomatic behavior of other family members are "wrong" because they serve to maintain the stability of the "wrong" system - "wrong" because it generates pain and suffering. By saying this, we would mean that the "wrong" system must change. At this point, it should be remembered that any living system has three fundamental properties: 1) totality (that is, the system is more or less independent of its constituent elements); 2) auto-correction (and, consequently, a tendency to homeostasis); 3) the ability to transform.

By implying negatively that the system must change, we reject this system as homeostatic. Thus, we exclude the possibility of being accepted by a dysfunctional system that always homeostatic. In addition, we commit the theoretical error of arbitrarily regarding the homeostatic tendency as "bad" and the ability to transform as "good", as if these two equally functional characteristics of the system were polar opposites.

In a living system, neither the homeostatic tendency nor the ability to transform can be considered a good or a bad quality: both are functional characteristics of the system, and one cannot exist without the other. They correlate with each other according to the circular model, that is, according to the continuum principle: in the circular model, the linear “either-or” is replaced by “more or less”.

However, as Shands points out, man strives tirelessly to achieve a utopian state of relationship-permanence, the "ideal" goal of recreating his inner universe as completely independent of empirical evidence:

“This process can be seen as a movement towards complete independence from the here-and-now, towards liberation from the vital physiological needs of the moment. Both scientists and philosophers are in search of eternal truths, abstracted from the gross biological event. The paradox is that such a state is in fact incompatible with life for the simple reason that life is a constant movement, a constant increase in entropy, and the system, in order to survive, must be maintained by a continuous influx of negative entropy (“negentropy” in the sense and energy, and information). Thus, we are faced with the eternal paradox - the search for stability and balance, despite the fact that it is easy to show that stability and balance are achievable only in inorganic systems, and even there only to a limited extent. Balance is incompatible with life or learning: forward movement, however minimal, is a necessary requirement for any biological system.” ;

The family in crisis seeking therapy is also passionately involved in the pursuit of this “ideal goal”; it would not have come to us at all if it had not been afraid of a threat to its balance and stability (protected and maintained in defiance of empirical factors). The family that not feels this threat, it is much more difficult to motivate for therapy.

The family members can neither reject nor disqualify the context of such communication, since it corresponds to the dominant tendency of the system - homeostatic.

Precisely because the positive connotation is one of approval rather than condemnation, it allows therapists to avoid rejection by the system. Moreover, it is possible that it allows the family to experience open approval for the first time.

But at the same time, at a hidden level, a positive connotation puts the family in front of a paradox: why does such a good thing as group cohesion require a “patient”?

The function of defining relationships is related to the function of context marking: a clear definition of relationships, as described above, is a marker of the therapeutic context.

In summary, we can say that a positive connotation gives us the opportunity

1) to unite all members of the family on the basis of complementarity with respect to the system, without giving them any form of moralistic assessments and thereby avoiding any delimitation of the members of the group;

2) to enter into an alliance with the system due to the confirmation of its homeostatic tendency;

3) to be accepted by the system as its full members, since we are motivated by the same intention;

4) confirming the homeostatic tendency to paradoxically activate the ability to transform, since the positive connotation puts the family in front of a paradox - why the “patient” is needed for the cohesion of the group, described by therapists as such a good and desirable quality;

5) clearly define the relationship between the family and the therapist;

6) label the context as therapeutic.

However, it cannot be said that the practical implementation of the principle of positive connotation is completely free from difficulties. It happens that the therapist, sincerely convinced that he gives a positive connotation to all family members, in fact, without realizing it, makes an arbitrary dichotomization.

We had a similar experience with a three-generation family where the identified patient was a six-year-old boy diagnosed with severe autism. In addition to the boy and his parents, the maternal grandfather and grandmother were invited to the third session.

From the material received at the session, we assumed the existence of an intense possessive attachment of a grandmother to her daughter, who went towards this attachment by finding different ways to need material assistance. At the end of the session, we expressed admiration to our daughter for the sensitivity and kindness she always shows towards her mother. It was a mistake, which we immediately realized from the exclamation of the mother: “So I am selfish!” Her resentment revealed a secret rivalry between mother and daughter over who was more generous. This mistake aroused the hostility of the grandmother and jeopardized the continuation of therapy,

In other cases, the family perceived as a negative connotation what we gave as a positive one. The following example illustrates this.

The family consisted of three people: father, Mario; mother, Martha; seven-year-old Lionel, who was referred to us with a diagnosis of childhood autism. Given the family's close ties to the extended family (which is typical of most families with psychotic children), we invited the maternal grandparents to the fifth session. In this session, we were able to observe a striking repetition.

Grandmother and grandfather as a couple were extremely symmetrical in their struggle all their lives. Their feud divided the family in two: Marta was taken to his side by his father, a domineering and overwhelming man, and her younger brother Nicola, now in his thirties and married, was always preferred and overprotected by his mother, a soft and seductive woman.

It had become clear during previous sessions that Martha, "already having" her father's love, craved her mother's love, that is, that pseudo-privileged attitude that was always directed towards her brother. She herself spoke of her jealousy for her brother, which was shared by her husband Mario. Mario, usually impassive and inert, only brightened up when he protested against his selfish and infantile brother-in-law, who, among other things, did not deserve the generous love poured out on him by his mother. The repetition that struck us in this session was the statement, repeated over and over again by the grandmother, that she was very inclined to love those who were not loved. She loved and still loves her son Nicola just because that her husband never loved him, but gave all his love to Marta. Now she feels obligated to love his wife, Nicola (poor thing, she's an orphan), and she truly loves Lionel, her psychotic grandson, primarily because she doesn't think Martha has really accepted him. From the very moment he was born, she noticed (and then her voice trembled with deep feelings) that he was treated "like a calf."

During the session, it became clear that this “nice” grandmother always had and still has the moral imperative to “love the unloved” (obviously a symmetrical impulse). At the end of the session, the therapists heartily thanked the grandparents for their kind cooperation and dismissed the family without any special comment.

Only Lionel and his parents were invited to the next session. Taking into account the material received in the previous session, we began by praising Lionel for his great sensitivity. He realized that a grandmother with her generous heart needs to love those who are not loved. Since Uncle Nikola got married six years ago, since then he has been loved by his wife and no longer needs the love of his mother, the poor grandmother has no one to love. Lionel perfectly understood the situation and the need to give Grandma someone she didn't love, someone she could love. And from a very young age, he began to do everything to be unloved. This made his mother more and more nervous, more and more angry with him, while his grandmother, on the other hand, could be infinitely patient with him. Only she truly loved "poor little Lionel."

At this point in the session, Lionel began to make an infernal noise, banging two ashtrays against each other.

Martha's reaction was sudden and dramatic: she took our appeal to Lionel as a sudden revelation of the truth. She completed us by telling us that she was simply happy when her mother criticized her for rejecting Lionel. “It's true, it's true! she sobbed. “I felt happy when my mother said that I treated him like a calf. But what should I do now? [wringing his hands] I sacrificed my son to my mother! How can I atone for this terrible mistake? I want to save my son... my poor child!”

We immediately feared that we had made a mistake. For Martha not only disqualified our definition of Lionel's sacrifice as voluntary, redefining it as his sacrifice - she also felt that the therapists identified her as a "guilty" mother who sacrificed her child to her mother. This put Lionel back in his position of being a victim, and his father, as usual, seemed to find it more convenient to remain silent, remaining an observer of what did not really touch him.

At this point, the session was interrupted and the therapy team discussed the situation; as a result, we decided to involve the father and return him to the position of an active member of the system. Returning to the family, we gently noticed that Mario, unlike Marta, does not show any reactions to our comments.

Therapist:“Our preliminary hypothesis is that you have very good reasons for accepting this self-imposed sacrifice of Lionel.”

Martha (shouting): “ His mother! His mother! With her, Lello [Lionel] is even worse! She must convince herself that Mario is unhappy with me! What a bad mother I am! My mother tells me all the time that I am impatient with Lello, but she [mother-in-law] tells me that I am not strict enough! And I start to get nervous and yell at Lello! And my husband is just there. He never protects me... look at him!”

Therapist:“Let's think about all this before the next session. A. Now let's be clear that Lionel is no one's victim. [turning to child] Isn't that right, Lello? You yourself came up with this - to become so crazy as to help everyone. No one asked you to do this [turning to his parents] See? He doesn't say anything, he doesn't cry. He decided to continue to act in the same way as before, because he is sure that he is doing the right thing.

As we said, at first, from Martha's reaction, it seemed to us that we had made a mistake. By agreeing with our comment, she made it clear that she took it as a declaration of guilt: a bad mother who sacrificed her son for the sake of her unresolved relationship with her mother. Father's lack of response made us suspect that he, too, interpreted our intervention in a similar way: "Because my wife is responsible for Lionel's psychosis, I am good, innocent, and therefore superior to everyone."

However, a further turn of the session showed us that our connotation of Lionel's behavior was by no means a mistake, but, on the contrary, a well-directed move that revealed the focus of the problem. Martha could not accept the idea that her son was not at all not“sacrificial lamb”, but an active member of the family system and, moreover, is in a leadership position. By disqualifying Lionel's active position, returning him to the position of an object of influence, a passive victim, Martha clearly acted in order to preserve the status quo of the system. She tried to regain her lost position of pseudo-power by declaring herself "guilty" and thereby cause son's psychosis.

Her reaction was convenient for Mario, whose position of superiority in the system was that he took the place of having the opposite qualities, that is, looking “good” and “tolerant”. In order to maintain their hidden rivalry and continue the family game, it was necessary to return the child to his victim position. At this point, there was only one thing we could do: put Mario in the same position that Martha was in, stating that he, too, had deep reasons for accepting Lionel's willing sacrifice. At the same time, we placed Lionel in a position of superiority as a spontaneous interpreter of the family's perceived needs. This paved the way for us to paradoxically prescribe Lionel's psychotic leadership.

Notes

It is important to clarify here that the positive connotation is metacommunication (in fact, the therapist's implicit communication about communication between all family members) and thus belongs to a higher level of abstraction. Russell's theory of logical types postulates the principle that something that includes all the elements of a set cannot be an element of the set. By giving a positive metamessage, that is, by reporting the approval of the behavior of all members of the set, we thereby make a metamessage about the entire set and, therefore, rise to the next step of abstraction. (Whitehead and Russell, 1910-1913).

Here we must note that the non-verbal aspect of our positive connotation is fully consistent with the verbal: no signs of learning, irony or sarcasm. We are able to do this when we are fully convinced of the need to join the homeostatic tendency of the family, such as it is "here and now".

The concept of "connotation" is used in linguistics, philosophy, logic. In specialized dictionaries, it is defined as a kind of additional evaluative meaning of a word. Possession of this technique will make speech expressive and vivid, will allow you to read between the lines.

Connotation and denotation

Let us turn to the theory of linguistics. The main subject meaning characteristic of a word is called derivation, for example, the word “hare” means an animal, “water” means a liquid, “child” means a young person. As a result of the development of language, folklore, author's literature, words develop additional tint meanings, which are called the prerogative. Connotation is its kind. For example, the word "hare" means cowardice, "water" - empty, unnecessary, "child" - carelessness. The salient features of the connotation are:

1. The origins of the additional value have nationwide roots. For example, for Russian culture, animals from folk tales have the appropriate connotations: the bear is simple, clumsy, the hare is cowardly, the wolf is simple, evil.
2. The connotation has no authorship and does not express an individual assessment, it is a general cultural phenomenon.
3. The appearance of a connotation is often not explained by the denotation or the direct linguistic meaning of the word. Words with the same root can have different meanings. For example, the word "military" has a positive connotation, while "military" has a negative connotation.
4. The connotation has a cultural affiliation, different nations have their own additional meanings. They may or may not be related. So, the "elephant" in Russian carries an additional semantic load - clumsy, and in Sanskrit - dexterous.

The sources of connotation are folklore, historical and cultural events, literature, and the media. An example of the historical origins of an additional value judgment is the word "Suvorov", which, in addition to its own name, carries the meaning "excellent strategist". You can also recall the word "Swede", for Russian culture it is strongly associated with the battle of Poltava during the Seven Years' War.

Connotation is most often formed from features characteristic of the direct meaning of the word, denotation. For example, signs for the word "hare" are eared, gray, fast, cowardly. The last two characteristics have become sources for creating an additional estimated value.

The connotation is also characteristic of non-verbal means of communication, for example, signs shown by hands: a fist with a raised thumb means "excellent, well done."

Linguistic manifestations of connotation

1. The use of the word in direct comparative turns with the union "how". For example, "run like the wind."
2. The use of a single word instead of a word with a direct meaning. For example, "Oh, you are a fox" - "Oh, you are a liar."
3. The use of language constructions according to the scheme "X is X": "a child is a child." In the first case, the word has a direct meaning, in the second, the evaluative meaning is enhanced.
4. The evaluative value is clearly manifested in combination with adjectives unusual for the word, for example, "he is a bachelor, but homely, neat." In comparing the meanings, the unnamed meaning of the word appears - careless, unkempt.
5. The use of the word in phraseological turns, or set expressions: “like an elephant in a china shop”, “sleepy fly”.
6. Using a word to create authorial metaphors, such as "fish eyes".

Connotations allow you to make statements that have subtext, and knowing them will allow you to see the true meaning of the work. For example, K. Chukovsky's harmless fairy tale "Cockroach" caused a lot of controversy and could cost dearly to its author. Contemporaries saw in it an implicit comparison with the situation of the late thirties, repressions. And the image of a mustachioed cockroach associated with the image of Stalin.

Connotation and culture

Some scientists believe that the connotation gives the language a cultural identity, connects it with the people. This is clearly manifested in different types of art. For example, in painting, images-symbols are distinguished, which express the deep meaning of the picture, allow revealing the author's intention.

Cultural connotations make it possible to define and compare pictures of the world adopted by different peoples. For example, the phrase "old house" has a negative meaning in Russian culture and a positive one in English.

With the development of mankind, the Internet, cultural connotations acquire universal significance in contemporary art. They become the same understandable to representatives of different nations.

The use of connotation undoubtedly makes speech more expressive. The ability to see additional meanings in works of literature, other types of art, in the speech of politicians and media representatives will help to create a more complete picture of the world.