Psycholinguistic Preconditions of Gradation Functioning in the Individual World Picture

Abstract

Aim of the research. To describe objective and subjective factors of language semantic interpretation of gradation thinking content (psychological and linguistic aspects in gradation semantics). Research methods. The article describes the foundations of distinguishing functional and semantic gradation category in the Ukrainian language which is reflected in the units of different levels. The linguistic cognitive character of the investigation is proved within these notions, as one of the principle tasks of the work is to determine mental anthropocentric and psychological factors of emerging gradation utterances in the Ukrainian language, which demonstrate the unity of linguistics and psychology, language and speech. The methodology consisted in comparing the materials of gradation in different levels, carrying out hypothetic modeling of the gradation scale on the basis of functioning gradation verbal markers, determining psychological foundations for gradation functioning in the individual picture of the world. The interaction of the objective (conceptual world of the gradated O) and the subjective (emotional and intellectual sphere of the gradator S) worlds creates the gradation fragment in a language, its orientation concerning the gradation dimension (O – object, S – subject of gradation). Results. The investigation of the motivation, semantic accentuation and communicators character, i.e. the inner world of the speaker and listener, text author and reader, enabled to code and decode the information given in the text. For decoding we identified the gradation units and explicated them on the sentence (text) level, distinguished pragmatic structures with redundant information. Thus the problem of certain stereotypes as the norm of environment perception, deviations from the norm was partially solved and the possibilities of reconstructing the quality characteristics of the language world picture were expanded. Conclusion. The choice of the verbal implementation for gradation category is carried out by the author of the communication act, it is subordinated to particular psychological regularities, which are general for human language but mentally individual concerning the communicator personality and individual language picture of the world.