SEMANTIC FIELD OF NEGATIVE EVALUATION IN RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH LANGUAGES:
CONDEMNATION AND ACCUSATION

Dubrovskaya Tat'yana Viktorovna, Doctor of philological sciences, associate professor, head of sub-department of English language, Penza State University (40 Krasnaya street, Penza, Russia), gynergy74@gmail.com

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Background. This article is axiologically-inclined and explores the semantic field of negative evaluation that encompasses speech verbs and corresponding nouns used to report verbal condemnation and accusation. These lexical units are of interest as names of speech genres «condemnation» and «accusation». The paper aims at discovering semantic specifics of designated lexical units and – through this – of speech genres «condemnation» and «accusation», as well as constructing their semantic formulas.
Materials and methods. The aim is attained through analysis of Russian and English dictionary definitions for lexical units with semantics of negative evaluation. All lexical units are presented in speech examples that illustrate their semantic specifics in linguistic and situational context. Method of semantic primitives developed by A. Wierzbicka is used to construct semantic formulas of the genres.
Results. Semantic fields of «condemnation» and «accusation» are overlapping, which is proved by both dictionary definitions and speech examples. However, condemnations and accusations are different in terms of pragmatics. Accusation links the action to the object of evaluation, while condemnation establishes the link between the author’s subjective evaluation and the evaluated action.
Conclusions. The study of negative evaluation in speech presents a promising avenue for research as it has significant implications for legal sphere and may help to define the criteria
of defamation acts more precisely.

semantic field, negative evaluation, speech genre, condemnation, accusation.

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