The evolution of approaches to the analysis of emotional-evaluative adjectives

Bayramgeldi G. Ovezov
Additional contact information
Bayramgeldi G. Ovezov: Belgorod State University

Russian Social and Humanitarian Studies, 2026, vol. 18, issue 2, 210-230

Abstract: Background. Emotional-evaluative adjectives occupy a specific place within the system of evaluative lexis, since they not only denote a property of an object but also express the speaker’s attitude toward the phenomenon being described. In the history of linguistics, approaches to such units have changed considerably: they have moved from being treated as expressive-stylistic devices to being analysed as components of evaluation, emotional intensification, and discursive framing. The relevance of the article lies in the need to determine which elements of earlier approaches retain their scholarly value and which require further clarification when applied to the analysis of contemporary English-language material. Purpose – to trace the evolution of the analysis of emotional-evaluative adjectives and to show that their description should take into account lexical meaning, context of use, evaluative basis, and discursive function. Materials and methods. The material of the article consists of scholarly works on evaluative semantics, the linguistics of emotions, Appraisal Theory, and the analysis of evaluative lexis in discourse. The English adjectives good, bad, strong, weak, controversial, and fragile are examined as illustrative linguistic material. The study employs historical-linguistic, semantic, contextual, functional-semantic, and discourse-analytic methods. Results. It is shown that the early rhetorical-stylistic approach correctly identified the expressive potential of adjectives, but did not reveal the internal structure of evaluation. The semantic approach made it possible to describe the evaluative component of meaning; however, it needs to be supplemented by contextual and functional analysis. The adjectives good and bad demonstrate that evaluation depends on its evaluative basis; strong and weak reveal the gradable nature of evaluation; and controversial and fragile show the function of discursive framing. The article concludes that the most productive approach is an integrated one, combining meaning, context, evaluative structure, and pragmatic effect.

Keywords: emotional-evaluative adjectives; evaluative lexis; evaluative semantics; English language; discourse analysis; Appraisal Theory; discursive framing; emotional intensification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://soc-journal.ru/jour/index.php/mssi/article/view/586/431 (application/pdf)
https://soc-journal.ru/jour/index.php/mssi/article/view/586 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cxm:russhs:18:2:2026:210-230

DOI: 10.12731/3033-5981-2026-18-2-586

Access Statistics for this article

Russian Social and Humanitarian Studies is currently edited by Fanuza H. Tarasova

More articles in Russian Social and Humanitarian Studies from Science and Innovation Center Publishing House 9 Maya Str., 5 office 192, Krasnoyarsk, 660127, Russian Federation.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Yan Maksimov ().