EVALUATION OF HUMAN MENTAL ACTIVITY (on the basis of English spatial adjectives)

EVALUATION OF HUMAN MENTAL ACTIVITY (on the basis of English spatial adjectives)

Author:  A.N. Cheremisin

Affiliation:  Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin

Abstract:  The article deals with the problem of evaluation representation in Modern English. The representation of evaluation meaning concerns the topical issues of evaluation conceptualization and categorization theory as of a separate branch of cognitive linguistics. 
English spatial adjectives and their ability to form new evaluation sense are in the focus of the author’s attention. The analysis of the English spatial adjectives allowed us to establish the following conceptual characteristics of SPACE: distance, unboundedness, capacity, number of dimensions (one, two, three), size, emptiness. 
The principal analysis focuses on the interaction between two cognitive domains – the manifested conceptual characteristics represented by spatial adjectives (close, full, high, lofty, huge, distant, remote, empty, low, small, narrow) and different aspects of human mental activity (attention, idea, hope, view of life, dream, mind, examination, understanding, opinion). 
It is proved that their interaction is possible with the help of such cognitive mechanisms as integration and inference. The result of the interaction is considered as a form of the integrated hybrid knowledge which does not merely possess the features of both initial domains but also has its own nature represented in the association lines that show the direction of evaluation representation. 
The idea that English spatial adjectives are productive means of evaluation representation of human mental activity having a definite cognitive effect and demanding interpretative efforts from the speaker could be used in widening the main regulations stated in evaluation conceptualization and categorization theory.

Keywords:  evaluation, evaluation meaning, mental activity, space, inference, conceptual integration, association line

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Pages:  47-52