Verbs ‘работать’ (to work) and ‘делать’ (to do) in N. S. Dashevskaya’s individual style: A pragmasemantic aspect

Abstract

The aim of the research is to characterize the author’s pragmatic attitude related to the use of lexemes belonging to the lexico-semantic group of verbs naming work activities in general (‘работать’ (to work), ‘делать’ (to do)) in the texts of N. S. Dashevskaya’s novellas; to determine the reasons for the preference for the lexeme ‘делать’ and the specifics of its functioning in the texts under study. The research is original in that it is the first to examine the functioning of the verbs ‘работать’ and ‘делать’ as units belonging to the lexico-semantic group ‘Work activities’ to comprehend the author’s pragmatic attitudes in a text addressed to children or adolescents. The research findings showed that the author’s reference to the specified lexico-semantic group is associated with the wide collocability of the verb ‘делать’, which affects its general linguistic use, and with the features specific to the texts of children’s and youth literature. Phraseological units and set expressions that include the lexeme ‘делать’ make it possible to describe the specific behavioral features of a child or adolescent protagonist, the grammatical compatibility of the lexeme with direct additions naming academic disciplines (‘делать алгебру’ (to do algebra homework), ‘делать проект’ (to do a project)) serves as a reliable representation of the ordinary life of schoolchildren, which emphasizes the realism of N. S. Dashevskaya’s novellas.