SOME PECULIARITIES IN EXPRESSING AND INTERPRETING EXTREME EVALUATION

Abstract

The article is dedicated to extreme evaluation studied as a separate functional and semantic category. It discusses such peculiarities in expressing and interpreting extreme evaluative statements as evaluation mark inversion, which occurs as a result of ironic transformation of the evaluation mark into the opposite one, and contextual deintensification by means of subsequent elaboration. Special attention is paid to extreme evaluative statements with negative predication as the interpretation of the degree and evaluation mark itself is fully dependent on the context. The author analyses examples of extreme evaluation at the level of dictemes which provide sufficient context for the interpretation of the nature and degree of evaluation as well as subjects’ probable speech intentions. The article highlights the pragmatic, expressive and emotive potential of extreme evaluation even in the cases of contextual deintensification.