On linguistic emotivity

Abstract

One way to understand linguistic emotivity is to use an anthropological approach. The first anthropologist to recognize the emotional aspect of language was the founder of social anthropology Bronisław Malinowski, who laid the foundations for the future ethnolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. According to these two subdisciplines, the role of language cannot be defined only in terms of phonology, morphology or syntax; we must also use semantics and pragmatics. Taking into account the above aspects of language allows us to find the basic oppositional functions of language: referential and emotive. The second function corresponds to the influence of the cultural context on language (e.g. religious cult vs. academic lecture), as well as to the creative role of language in shaping the nature of communication and culture itself. This article follows up on these anthropological considerations by discussing selected approaches from the fields of linguistics, literary studies, philosophy and sociology