Theoretical framework for distinguishing the terms “description of emotions”, “expression of emotions”, and “reflection of emotions” in linguistic analysis

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The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the “language and emotions” problem, taking into account the basic theoretical linguistic and psychological postulates as well as linguistic and psychological classifications of emotions. Grounded in cognitive theory, the research presents a novel approach, when three (not two – “language of describing emotions” and “language of expressing emotions”) aspects are distinguished: “description of emotions”, “expression of emotions”, and “reflection of emotions”. The heterogeneity of the “language of expressing emotions”, and, consequently, the distinction between expression and reflection of emotions are due to the fact that not all emotions encoded by the subject of speech constitute his communicative intentionality. Emotion description (conscious cognitive processing of emotional states) requires explicit emotion-denoting lexemes (irritation/irritate, disturbance/disturb, astonishment/astonish, admiration/admire, grief/grieve etc.). When expressing emotions, human cognitive activity is aimed at a fragment of the external situation, while the speaker must directly experience the corresponding emotions at the moment of speech. From a strictly linguistic point of view, emotion expression manifests through specialized linguistic markers with emotive meaning components. Since the sphere of expression of emotions is a minimal communicative unit, such emotions constitute the dominant semantic content in emotive utterances (e.g., “Some hero he is!”). Emotion reflection (uncontrolled by the subject of speech) is realized in significant fragments of the text, such emotions are spontaneous, correlate with speaker's general affective state; moreover, they do not have specific linguistic encoders, since to a certain extent this also depends on the emotional personality type.