Candidate Degree in philology Romanova N.V.

Kyiv National Linguistic University

EMOTIVE VOCABULARY AND ITS SEMANTICS

IN THE GERMAN NEWSPAPERS

Emotive vocabulary is one of the main features of publicistic texts in newspapers. Its semantics completely reflects a current history of emotional experience and culture of people; it also represents publicist’s position and attitude to present-day political, economical, social, personal and cultural problems in the society. To this extent emotive vocabulary is a dynamic linguistic phenomenon which is characterized by continuous development and historical changes.

Spiritual understanding of emotive vocabulary implies a semantic classification which embraces social-psychological and cultural aspects. From this point of view semantics of emotive vocabulary comprises not only the emotional, but subjective-logical, evaluative and estimative semes. Taking into account that a specific weight of emotive semes surpasses the one of subjective-logical and/or axiological semes, we can distinguish two subgroups of words in emotive vocabulary: 1) emotive-logical words (Geschrei – «shout») and 2) emotive-axiological words (Glücksbringer – «bringing luck»). In this case an emotive breadth (as a linguistic category) is a property; it means that an object is able not only to influence on emotional phenomena but also to arouse them in the subject. For finding an emotive breadth in an object, a subject needs to be aware of presence of such properties in that object.

Therefore emotive breadth is connected with knowledge but it isn’t reduced to it: knowledge only represents object’s properties and forms relations between a subject and an object. If subjective-logical or axiological-emotive semes are dominating, one should speak about logical-emotive subgroup of words (Unglück – «unhappiness») and axiological-emotive subgroup of words (Rotzbengel – «sucker»). Imagination plays a very important role in the formation of these language units. A subject creates in their imagination mental images of objects and compares them with a certain ideal, a specimen, a sample. Value of really existing objects is estimated on the background of the unreal, the imaginary. However an ideal and a reality never coincide.

So then, both subjective-emotive vocabulary and axiological-emotive vocabulary are represented as subject’s experienced attitude to an object.

Observations made on the basis of material of our research – the leading German newspapers: «Die Tageszeitung» (taz), «Berliner Zeitung» (BZ), «Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung» (FAZ), «Süddeutsche Zeitung» (SDZ), «Nordseezeitung» (NSZ), «Die Welt» (dW), «Die Zeit» (dZ) – (Internet source) – reveal that emotive vocabulary bears the impress of those important economical, political, social, cultural and other changes which happened to German, European and world society at the end of March – during the first ten-day period of April. Knowledge about the object of the analysis serves just as a background on which publicist’s feelings connected with the named object are depicted. For instance, retelling about the significance of Holy Friday, the journalist K. creates an image of Jesus Christ’s sufferings. This image is experienced by himself due to memories about the act of God’s Son: An Karfreitag richtet sich der Blick auf das Kreuz Christi – der Tag regt zur Besinnung über Tod und Leid an, aber auch darauf, dass Menschen Opfer von Hass und Gewalt werden (FAZ, 30.03.12). If the author of the quote just retold about his feelings, then the readers would understand him, but they scarcely would feel his moral state themselves. The only one opportunity to awake one’s feelings is in retelling about the events in a way which creates in one’s mind a reason able to arise in one’s soul similar emotional experience. A publicist cannot make the readers experience certain emotions by naming them or even describing them in detail: Mitte April startet der Prozess gegen den Massenmörder Breivik. Seine Opfer fürchten die Konfrontation, wollen aber den Rechtsstaat siegen sehen (dZ, 03.04.12). Publicists arouse one’s feelings, modeling through language means the reasons of these feelings: Noch ärgerlicher für den Parteichef dürfte der Umstand sein, dass er für die Zweifel an seiner Berechenbarkeit und Seriosität selbst die Stichworte lieferte. Auf seiner Nahost-Reise Mitte März ließ er seinen Emotionen freien Lauf und attackierte die israelische Regierung («Apartheid-Regime») in einer Weise, die sich ein potenzieller Kanzleranwärter nicht erlauben darf (dZ, 03.04.12). A verbal description of the high-ranking official’s behaviour is the pattern of the reason, which is the source of an emotion. If a pattern of a reason is accepted and reconstructed in the reader’s imagination, then there are natural consequences of this reason which are «artificially» aroused emotions. This phenomenon is the so-called «miracle» of the publicistic texts, their magic power charms readers and takes them on to «other world», to universe, created by a journalist for these readers: Ein halbes Jahr ist es her, seit Valeska Steiner und Sonja Glass ihr Debütalbum Mutual Friends veröffentlicht haben. Auf einmal entledigte sich der deutsche Pop seiner Trainingsjacken und schlechten Laune, legte ein Blümchenkleid an und strahlte über beide Pfirsichwangen. Boy waren eine der größten Überraschungen des vergangenen Jahres (dZ, 03.04.12). Reconstructing with the power of their own imagination the content of the article, the readers become «co-authors» of a verbal image contained in the article. So then, it’s possible to state that publicistic texts can give the people an opportunity of emotional experience of additional «parallel lives», an opportunity of enriching their spirit and improving their own world patterns: Die überraschende Entdeckung der Dunklen Energie war 2011 mit dem Physik-Nobelpreis geehrt worden. <…>. Auch für die Frage, wie Planeten entstehen und ob es gar andere belebte Planeten im Kosmos geben könnte, ist das SKA Kramer zufolge ein einzigartiges Werkzeug. Doch nicht nur das: «Interessant ist außerdem, dass das SKA die Empfindlichkeit haben wird, das Fernsehen oder den Flughafenradar von Planeten der nächsten Sterne zu empfangen, sofern es dort so etwas gibt» (dW, 03.04.12). Also it should be marked that actualization of emotive vocabulary meaning in the language of publicistic texts in newspapers is associated with columns, topical variety of the discussed issues, publicist’s beliefs and attitude to described events, pragmatic orientation of a publishing house which forms for its employees not only ordinary tasks, but also supreme tasks – to gain the affection of general reader, expand and update its audience. Choosing a strategy, publicist should consider all lexical-semantic variants of neutral-emotive and/or emotive word in the culture of (German) language. A publicist should determine in what these variants are symetrical or assymetrical. At that their assymetry can be expressed both in a quantitative way: Steinmeier soll Anfang März wütend reagiert haben, als er erfuhr, dass Gabriel versucht hatte, an ihm vorbei Vorstandsmitglieder der SPD für ein Junktim mit der Finanztransaktionssteuer zu gewinnen (dZ, 03.04.12), and in a qualitative way: Ab dem 16. April wird sich Breivik vor Gericht verantworten müssen. Ihm werden 77 Morde vorgeworfen, zahlreiche weitere Mordversuche. Der 33-Jährige hält sich für psychisch gesund und nicht schuldig, er will aus Angst vor «Überfremdung» und «Islamisierung» seines Landes gehandelt haben (dZ, 03.04.12). The eye-catching semantics of wütend in the first sentence reflects not only a negative quality of emotion «anger» but emphasizes the intensity of the currency of this emotion, implicitly indicating Herr Steinmeier social status and marking at that his emotional instability, and also lack of self-control. The second sentence contains such rich information that word combinations nicht schuldig and aus Angst become less important and do not arouse any emotions. Their emotional charge makes rather a minimal, fleeting impression and represents a semantic shift of a positive (nicht schuldig) and negative (aus Angst) meaning in a neutral one. This neutrality, a generality of sense is caused by the age of the condemned person, which symbolizes both the end of Jesus Christ’s mortal and sensual life, which is full of human sorrows, on earth, and at the same time beginning of an extra-terrestrial, an eternal, a righteous and a perfect life in heaven.

In such a way we can understand one or another emotive word through its usage in a word combination and, widely – through a syntagm. The context then is a semantic background which illustrates a new meaning, a new sense of an emotive word.

Generalizing a verbalized emotional knowledge on the basis of modality of experience in the language of the publicistic texts in German newspapers, we can distinguish three subgroups of language units:

1) negative-emotive words (die Angst, fürchte, hasse, befürchtet, Wut, Leiden, Schuld (7), Oh, Wutbürger (2)), that is, words, which have negative semes in their semantic structure;

2) positive-emotive words (Überraschungen, freuen uns, Freuden, Das Interesse (3), Glück (2), glücklich, das Lachen, das Lächeln, bewunderte), with a semantic structure containing positive semes;

3) neutral-emotive words (Ruhe, empfindlich, Empfindungen), with neutral semes in their semantic structure.

Semantics of word forms of emotive vocabulary of each of the mentioned subgroups is revealed in various emotional processes: (to) be joyful (freuen uns), (to) be afraid of smth. (fürchte), (to) hate (hasse), (to) be interesting (interessieren); in emotional states: fear (die Angst), anger (Wut), suffer (Leiden), guilt (Schuld (7)), surprise (Überraschungen), joy (Freuden), interest (Interesse (3)), rest (Ruhe); marks of emotional states: interesting (interessant), happy (glücklich), surprised (überraschend), furious (wildgewordenen), high spirits (wohlgelaunt); experience of emotional patterns: «Liebe und Trauer, Leid und Freude – all dies war in dieser kurzen Zeitspanne gebündelt. Diese Erfahrung abzulehnen hätte bedeutet, das Leben selbst abzulehnen» (FAZ, 03.04.12); affects das Lachen, die schreckliche Vergangenheit, die Tränen.

Herewith a great number of neologisms and occasional words are often used: the author introduces his or her emotional point of view and thoughts about the problem in described events: («Schwarzbuch Leiharbeit») Das Schwarzbuch besteht nur aus negativen Erfahrungen von Leiharbeitnehmern (NSZ, 30.03.12), Berlin – Triumph in der Volksbühne: Fritsch inszeniert Dieter Roths Ein-Wort-Stück «Murmel Murmel» (BZ, 30.03.12).

Neutral-emotional words perform the similar function in publicistic texts: Chef ist nicht gleich Chef. Von Unternehmern heißt es, wenn sie ein Ziel vor Augen haben, rennen sie los. Und rennen und rennen, bis sie irgendwann stehen bleiben und entrüstet feststellen, dass ihre Mitarbeiter auf halber Strecke stehen geblieben sind (FAZ, 05.04.12).

Using the method of repetition in the strong positions of the statement, the author creates through this a dynamic image of a modern head of the company, underlines the necessity of the right strategies and tactics of behaviour, and implicitly touches the inner world, which is rich in emotions and chaotic at the same time. Hypothetically the image of the chief is accepted in two aspects: as an unordinary person (nicht gleich) and as a competitive person (Und rennen und rennen). Competition implies not only increasing of speed, but and an analysis of actions, performed by workers during a certain period of time (irgendwann stehen bleiben), expressive evaluation of these actions by the chief (entrüstet), because the quality of an action is transformed into its quantity and becomes a start point, a new whorl of movement (stehen geblieben sind).

It’s noteworthy that, reflecting various aspects of human activity, publicists often include common language structures in the fabric of their articles, like mit Freuden, mit Glück, vor Augen haben, which do not pretend to originality or unique character common to a category of authorship. The named cliches can be viewed as socially-based structures, which function in the frames of publicistic texts.

Result. Emotive vocabulary is not only one of the original lexical-semantic layers of the literary national language, but also an effective way of being, a general method of self-expression of publicist’s linguistic personality. Its semantics represents a linguistic and a situational dependence and proportionality: more urgent and sharp question means more careful selection of emotive language units.

References:

BZ – «Berliner Zeitung» (http://www.berliner-zeitung.de, state: 30 March 2012).

dW – «Die Welt» (http://www.welt.de, state: 03 April 2012).

dZ – «Die Zeit» (http://www.zeit.de, state: 03 April 2012).

FAZ – «Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung» (http://www.faz.net, state: 30 March 2012; 05 April 2012).

NSZ – «Nordseezeitung» (http://www.norsee-zeitung.de, state: 30 March 2012).

SDZ – «Süddeutsche Zeitung» (http://www.sueddeutsche.de,state: state: 9 April 2012 ).

taz – «Die Tageszeitung» (http://taz.de, state: 30 March 2012; 1–10 April 2012).