DEFINITION ANALYSIS OF LEXEMES SMALL TALK AND GOSSIP

Abstract

The article analyzes the application of component analysis that was helpful to determine the conceptual component of two types of conversations (small talk and gossip) in the English linguistic world picture through the analysis of the semantic components of the lexemes. The relevance of the research is determined by the focus of the linguistic-cognitive research on the study of the processes of conceptualization and categorization of reality. The component analysis has made it possible to single out the key semes in the semantic structure of the studied lexemes. Seme is realized with the help of definitional characteristics, extracted from the dictionary entries of a lexical unit and are the smallest autonomously functioning verbal components of the nominative field. The carried out analysis of the dictionary data has enabled the author to establish the nuclear semes of the lexemes small talk and gossip. A number of constituent semantic features registered in the dictionary definitions of small talk are triviality, social function, lightness, unimportance, ordinariness, politeness and formality, which pictures small talk, on the one hand, as a positively assessed phenomenon, as the manifestation of politeness, as a social action that has an official character, which does not force communicators into making excessive efforts, as it is a light conversation; and on the other hand, this phenomenon is perceived somewhat negatively, with contempt, because small talk is characterized by unimportance, ordinariness, triviality. A number of constituent semantic features registered in the dictionary definitions of the gossip phenomenon are intimacy, interference in other people’s affairs, informality, lightness, carelessness, lightness, idleness, unkindness and unreliability, so the gossip phenomenon is assessed negatively. Both lexemes (small talk and gossip) have the same seme “lightness”. On the other hand, there has been registered a seme that can be opposed to another seme in semantic structure of the analyzed concepts: small talk is characterized by a formal character, while gossip is characterized by an informal character. Unlike small talk, gossip is focused on a person that is absent during the conversation and the details of his/her personal life. The information component of gossip always contains untrue or inaccurate information that is presented maliciously.