Connotation: what it is, what the word means, where it is used, examples. Functions of emotional-evaluative vocabulary in a literary text

And therefore, its interpretation often poses difficulties. However, connotations are found not only in literature, but also in everyday speech. About what this is a connotation in simple words, will be discussed in the article.

Dictionary definition

The dictionary says the following about what connotation is. This is the name given to a stable association that arises in a person’s mind in connection with the use of a word or expression with a certain meaning.

Example of use: In one of the books of the Soviet and Russian philologist, philosopher and cultural scientist S. S. Averintsev, it is said that such a phenomenon as laughter is colored differently in different cultures, just like the word “laughter” itself, which acquires different connotations in dissimilar languages .

Origin of the word

When understanding the question of what connotation is, it is worth considering the etymology of this concept. The word comes from the Latin preposition con - “together” and the verb noto - “I designate, mark.” From their addition, the verb connoto was first obtained, meaning “I have an additional meaning,” and from it in Late Latin a noun was formed - connotatio, which is understood as “the accompanying meaning of a unit of language.”

Functions

For better understanding In order to understand what connotation is, it would be appropriate to consider its purpose.

Connotation includes additional functions - semantic or stylistic - that are strongly associated in the minds of native speakers. Semantic - those that are associated with meaning, meaning, and stylistic - with expressive linguistic means.

The concept being studied serves to express various shades statements - emotional or evaluative. It is also a reflection of the cultural traditions of society.

Connotation is one of the types of pragmatic information, that is, useful information suitable for solving practical problems. It does not directly reflect the phenomena and objects themselves, but only a certain attitude towards them.

Using the example of "fox"

Sometimes connotation is also called semantic, that is, semantic association. With its help, they reflect one of the features of the designated object that is stably associated in the minds of native speakers with this object. But at the same time, this attribute is not necessary for the use of this word.

Yes, in abundance European languages the word used to denote a fox has the connotation of “cunning” or “cunning.” These characters are not essential for this species of mammal. When faced with a fox, you will recognize it by its red fur, long fluffy tail, and sharp muzzle. But you won’t check how cunning an animal is to find out its species. However, in the language both of these lexemes are strongly associated with each other. This is evidenced, for example, by the fact that a cunning person is often called a fox.

As stated above, connotations are a reflection of the assessment of the surrounding reality accepted in a given linguistic community. They also reflect cultural traditions. In accordance with this, deceit and cunning are constant characteristics of the fox, depicted as a character in fairy tales about animals found in the folklore of many nations.

How to recognize connotation?

Being a type of pragmatic information associated with a word and expressing an attitude towards the world around us, but not literally reflecting it, connotations differ from other types of similar information. What is this difference? It lies in the fact that this view and attitude belong to the person pronouncing them, not as an individual, but as a representative of a linguistic community.

For example, a word such as “nag” carries pragmatic information containing an emotional-evaluative imprint. It indicates the speaker's attitude towards the object. By calling a horse a nag, a person expresses his own opinion regarding the quality of the animal. Therefore, there is no connotation here.

In contrast, when using a lexeme containing connotation, a personal point of view on the designated object is not expressed. By calling a fox a fox, a person does not evaluate the animal in any way. However, the connection between the fox and such a quality as cunning is present in the mind of the speaker.

Other examples of connotation

Example 1. When the sister entered her brother’s room, she was indignant: “How can you live in such a stable!” The word "shed" means "pen for livestock." Its connotation is “an uncleaned, dirty room.”

Example 2. “I love my little sun so much!” the mother was touched, admiring her cute little one. In this case, when the word “sun” is used, we mean, of course, not an astronomical object, but a person who emits light and heat.

Example 3. Oleg really hoped for a satisfactory grade for his course work, although he understood that there was a lot of water in it. The word “water” has many connotations, one of them is “excessive information that does not carry a semantic load.”

Example 4. “I didn’t expect that such a self-confident guy would turn out to be an ass,” Sergei complained to his new acquaintance. The word “donkey” is strongly associated with such qualities as stupidity and stubbornness.

Example 5. Andrei told his comrades that he worked like a donkey for almost six months, and in the end he was left practically without a penny. In contrast to “donkey,” the connotations of such a lexeme as “donkey” are endurance, high performance, and patience.

Having considered the semantic and stylistic connotations, it is necessary to say something about terms that are close in meaning to it.

Denotation and pejorative

The word “denotation” comes from the Late Latin participle denotatio, which is formed from the Latin adverb de - “separately” and the verb noto - “designate, mark” and is translated as “designated”. This is the direct, explicit meaning of the word, its literal meaning, its lexical meaning. Denotation is the opposite of connotation. The latter arise from the former. As a rule, this occurs by highlighting or strengthening any particular feature.

An example is the word "feather". It was originally used to refer to a writing instrument and later took on a new connotation and is now associated with people who write and literary creativity. For example, there is an expression “feather shark”.

Pejorative, otherwise called pejorative vocabulary, comes from the Latin verb pējōrāre - “to worsen.” These are words and phrases that express a negative assessment, disapproval, censure of something or someone, contempt or irony. In essence, pejorative is a negative connotation. It should be noted that such words are not curse words. For example, the word “rag,” which was originally interpreted as “a piece of cloth,” later acquired the connotation of “a spineless, weak person.” Other examples of pejorative are “clown”, “rhyme-maker”, “crammed”, “hooker”.

Opening the dictionary, we find the basic and literal interpretation of the word. But in real life it can acquire many emotions and associations, which in linguistics is referred to as “connotation.” It is important to know what this is to understand the meaning of the text. After all, sometimes figurative meaning may differ significantly from the original one.

Historical reference

Latin connotatio can be translated into Russian as “associated meaning”. Despite the fact that the word has been used by pundits for 800 years, its exact semantic interpretation is still the subject of debate among both linguists and philosophers.

The following milestones can be identified in the development of the term:

1. It was introduced into circulation at the beginning of the 13th century in philosophical science to conduct disputes about the hidden meanings of words;
2. A hundred years later they began to use it to separate abstract and concrete phenomena, to distinguish lexical units by image and action;
3. In the 17th century, the term was adopted by French linguists, and since then it has been strongly associated with the science of language;
4. In the 19th century, this began to denote the emotional content of lexemes and expressions, as opposed to their “dry” original meaning;
5. The concept acquired a modern interpretation thanks to the works of the British explorer John Mill.

Connotative meaning arises when the literal meaning is isolated individual signs and are amplified many times over. This process is not always logical.

For example, it is not entirely clear why hares are called cowardly, and not any other representatives of the fauna.

Structure of connotations

Structurally, connotation consists of the following elements:

Connotation: examples

This technique is quite common in Russian speech. Let's give specific examples from live communication:

• “Champagne” in Russian has an exclusively positive connotation. This is not just a bubbling sparkling wine, but also a symbol of wedding celebrations, happiness, prosperity and wealth (“ He who doesn't take risks doesn't drink champagne»);
• The word “clever girl” also has a purely positive connotation and can be used to refer to both male and female persons (the so-called “ common gender"). “Smart guy,” on the contrary, has a negative connotation: it denotes arrogant and selfish know-it-alls;
• “Cheap” refers to a petty, overly economical and thrifty person. The negative connotation is obvious;
• “Pride” in Russian is positioned as a positive quality inherent in every worthy person. “Pride,” on the contrary, is devoid of positive connotations and is used to mark selfish and even socially phobic tendencies;
• “Prostitutes” are called not only representatives of the most ancient profession, but also unprincipled and flighty individuals. In politics, this insult is used quite often (“prostitute Trotsky, political prostitute”).

Lexemes with negative semantic connotations are found much more often than with positive ones. The reason for this is sufficient rudeness of character, inherent in man throughout most of history.

An array of negative connotations includes:

• An ironic attitude towards a phenomenon or a specific person;
• Condemning antisocial behavior;
• An indication of self-destructive qualities for the individual;
• Disdain or contempt.

Both individuals and entire individuals can be targeted as targets of attack. social groups. Thus, for centuries on the American continent the word “ nigger" was used to refer to a lazy and stupid slave. As blacks in the United States emancipated, it was replaced by the more politically correct “African American.”

In Russia, “negro” has never been a slur and is completely devoid of the negative content that white English-speaking Protestants endowed it with.

In most cases pejoratives(i.e. terms with negative connotations) are not swear words, although they may become so over time.

Connotation and denotation

Denotation is a completely opposite concept, which indicates a direct (rather than figurative) interpretation of the word. This is a simple definition of the term that is free from human prejudices, personal preferences and emotional burden. It is the denotative definition that is indicated in dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Often one lexeme can have several dictionary definitions - this case is called polysemy.

For example, “donkey” primarily denotes a type of animal and only in some cases - narrow-minded people.

Thus, each element of language can have the following forms:

1. Denotative - literal and immediate, basic meaning;
2. Connotative - applicable to a certain situation, personality, social stratum;
3. Mythological - divorced from original value and at the level of social prejudice.

If you want to offend someone, it is not at all necessary to fish out swear words from your vocabulary. Negative connotations are also perfect for these purposes. What this is is familiar to every “donkey” and “goat”. Even if the latter do not have a tail or horns.

Video about negative connotations

In this video, Arseny Khitrov will tell you where the negative connotations of the term “ideology” came from:

Year of publication and journal number:

A fundamental therapeutic principle we call positive connotation, was originally inspired by our need not to contradict ourselves when we paradoxically prescribe a symptom to an identified patient. Can we prescribe behavior after we ourselves have criticized it?

It was easy for us Not making negative connotations of an identified patient's symptom. However, the behavior of the rest of the family, especially the parents, which often seemed correlated with the symptom, presented us with a more difficult task. The template vision tempted arbitrary interpretations - associating a symptom with the symptomatic behavior of “others” in accordance with cause-and-effect dependencies. As a result, it often turned out that the patient's parents aroused our indignation and anger. This is the tyranny of the linguistic model from which we have had difficulty breaking free. We have had to force ourselves to fully understand the anti-therapeutic implications of this flawed epistemology.

In essence, the positive connotation of the identified patient's symptom in combination with the negative connotation of the symptomatic behavior of other family members is tantamount to arbitrarily dividing members of the family system into “good” and “bad” and thereby depriving oneself as a therapist of the opportunity to perceive the family as a systemic integrity.

Thus, it became clear to us that working in a systems model is only possible when we make a positive connotation together symptom of the identified patient and the symptomatic behavior of others - for example, telling the family that all the behavior we observe in it as a whole is caused, in our opinion, by one goal: maintaining the cohesion of the family group. As a result, the therapist becomes able to perceive everyone members of this group on the same level, avoiding involvement in alliances or factions that are constantly present in a dysfunctional family system. Dysfunctional families are indeed prone, especially in times of crisis, to splits and disagreements, characterized by standard labels such as “bad”, “sick”, “incapable”, “shame of society”, “shame of the family”, etc.

A natural question arises: why should the connotation be positive, that is, confirmation? Is it possible to get the same results through a total negative connotation (rejection)? For example, we might claim that both the symptoms of the identified patient and the symptomatic behavior of other family members are “wrong” because they serve to maintain the stability of a “wrong” system—“wrong” because it produces pain and suffering. By saying this, we would mean that the “wrong” system must change. At this point it should be remembered that any living system has three fundamental properties: 1) totality (that is, the system is more or less independent of the elements that form it); 2) autocorrection (and, therefore, a tendency towards homeostasis); 3) ability to transform.

By implying with a negative assessment that the system must change, we reject this system in its homeostaticity. Thus, we exclude the possibility of us being accepted by a dysfunctional system that Always homeostatic. In addition, we make the theoretical error of arbitrarily classifying the homeostatic tendency as “bad” and the transformative tendency as “good,” as if these two equally functional characteristics of the system were polar opposites.

In a living system, neither the homeostatic tendency nor the ability to transform can be considered a good or bad quality: both are functional characteristics of the system, and one cannot exist without the other. They relate to each other according to the circular model, that is, according to the continuum principle: in the circular model, the linear “either-or” is replaced by “more or less.”

However, as Shands points out, man strives tirelessly to achieve a utopian state of relational immutability, the “ideal” goal of reconstructing his inner universe as completely independent of empirical evidence:

“This process can be considered as a movement towards complete independence from the here-and-now, - towards liberation from the urgent physiological needs of the moment. Both scientists and philosophers are in search of eternal truths abstracted from the gross biological event. The paradox is that such a state is actually incompatible with life for the simple reason that life is a constant movement, a constant increase in entropy, and the system, in order to survive, must be supported by a continuous influx of negative entropy (“negentropy” in the sense of energy, and information). Thus, we are faced with the eternal paradox of the search for stability and balance despite the fact that it is easy to show: stability and balance are achievable only in inorganic systems, and even there only to a limited extent. Equilibrium is incompatible with life or learning: forward movement, however minimal, is a necessary requirement for any biological system.” ;

A family in crisis who seeks therapy is also passionately involved in the pursuit of this “ideal goal”; it would not have come to us at all if it had not been afraid of a threat to its balance and stability (protected and maintained in defiance of empirical factors). A family that Not feels this threat, it is much more difficult to motivate him for therapy.

Family members can neither reject nor disqualify the context of such communication, since it corresponds to the dominant tendency of the system - homeostatic.

It is precisely because the positive connotation is one of approval rather than condemnation that it allows therapists to avoid rejection by the system. Moreover, it is possible that it allows the family to experience the experience of receiving open approval for the first time.

But at the same time, on a hidden level, the positive connotation confronts the family with a paradox: why like this a good thing, as group cohesion, requires the presence of a “patient”?

The function of defining relationships is related to the function of marking context: a clear definition of relationships, as described above, is a marker of therapeutic context.

To summarize, we can say that a positive connotation gives us the opportunity

1) unite all family members on the basis of complementarity in relation to the system, without giving them any form of moralistic assessments and thereby avoiding any divisions among group members;

2) enter into an alliance with the system due to confirmation of its homeostatic tendency;

3) to be accepted by the system as its full members, since we are motivated by the same intention;

4) confirming the homeostatic tendency, it is paradoxical to activate the ability to transform, since the positive connotation confronts the family with the paradox of why a “patient” is needed for group cohesion, described by therapists as such a good and desirable quality;

5) clearly define the relationship between the family and the therapist;

6) mark the context as therapeutic.

However, it cannot be said that the practical implementation of the principle of positive connotation is completely free of difficulties. It happens that the therapist, who is sincerely convinced that he is giving a positive connotation to all family members, in fact, without realizing it, makes an arbitrary dichotomization.

We had a similar experience with a three-generation family where the identified patient was a six-year-old boy diagnosed with severe autism. In addition to the boy and his parents, his maternal grandparents were invited to the third session.

From the material received at the session, we assumed the existence of an intense possessive attachment of the grandmother to her daughter, who went towards this attachment by finding different ways need financial assistance. At the end of the session, we expressed our daughter’s admiration for the sensitivity and kindness she always showed towards her mother. It was a mistake, as we immediately realized by the mother’s exclamation: “So I’m selfish!” Her indignation revealed a secret rivalry between mother and daughter over which of them was more generous. This mistake aroused the grandmother's hostility and jeopardized the continuation of therapy.

In other cases, the family perceived as a negative connotation what we gave as a positive connotation. The following example illustrates this.

The family consisted of three people: father, Mario; mother, Martha; seven-year-old Lionel, referred to us with a diagnosis of childhood autism. Given the family's close ties to the extended family (as is typical of most families with psychotic children), we invited the maternal grandparents to the fifth session. In this session we were able to observe a striking repetition.

Grandparents as a couple were extremely symmetrical in their struggle all their lives. Their enmity divided the family into two parts: Martha was taken on his side by her father, a domineering and suppressive man, and her younger brother Nikola, now over thirty and married, was always preferred and overprotected by his mother, a soft and seductive woman.

During the previous sessions it became clear that Martha, while “already having” her father's love, passionately longed for her mother's love - that is, that pseudo-privileged relationship that was always directed towards her brother. She herself spoke of her jealousy of her brother, which was shared by her husband Mario. Mario, usually impassive and inert, became animated only by protesting against his selfish and childish brother-in-law, who, among other things, did not deserve the generous love showered on him by his mother. The repetition that struck us in this session was the statement, repeated again and again by grandmother, that she was very inclined to love those who were not loved. She loved and still “loves her son Nikola just because that her husband never loved him, but gave all his love to Martha. Now she feels obligated to love Nicola's wife (poor thing, she's an orphan), and she really loves Lionel, her psychotic grandson, primarily because she feels Martha never really accepted him. From the very moment he was born, she noticed (and then her voice trembled with deep feelings) that he was treated “like a calf.”

During the session it became clear that this “sweet” grandmother always had and still has a moral imperative to “love the unloved” (obviously a symmetrical impulse). At the end of the session, the therapists warmly thanked the grandparents for their kind cooperation and dismissed the family without any special comments.

Only Lionel and his parents were invited to the next session. Taking into account the material received in the previous session, we began by praising Lionel for his great sensitivity. He realized that grandmother, with her generous heart, needed to love those who were not loved. Since Uncle Nikola got married six years ago, has since been loved by his wife and no longer needs the love of his mother, the poor grandmother has no one to love. Lionel understood perfectly the situation and the need to give his grandmother someone unloved whom she could love. And from a very young age he began to do everything to be unloved. This made his mother more and more nervous, more and more angry with him, while his grandmother, on the other hand, could remain endlessly patient with him. Only she truly loved “poor little Lionel.”

At this point in the session, Lionel started making a hell of a noise by banging two ashtrays together.

Martha's reaction was sudden and dramatic: she perceived our appeal to Lionel as a sudden revelation of the truth. She complemented us by saying that she was simply happy when her mother criticized her for rejecting Lionel. “It's true, it's true! - she sobbed, - I felt happy when my mother said that I treated him like a calf. But what should I do now? [wringing hands] I sacrificed my son to my mother! How can I atone for this terrible mistake? I want to save my son... my poor child!”

We were immediately afraid that we had made a mistake. After all, Martha not only disqualified our definition of Lionel's sacrifice as voluntary, redefining it as yours sacrifice - she also felt that the therapists had identified her as a “guilty” mother who had sacrificed her child to her mother. This put Lionel back into his victim position, and his father, as usual, seemed to find it more convenient to remain silent, remaining an observer of something that did not truly move him.

At this point the session was interrupted and the team of therapists discussed the situation; as a result, we decided to involve the father and return him to the position of an active member of the system. Returning to the family, we gently noticed that Mario, unlike Martha, showed no reaction to our comments.

Therapist:“Our preliminary hypothesis is that you have very good reasons for accepting this voluntary sacrifice of Lionel.”

Martha (shouting): “ His mother! His mother! With her, Lello [Lionel] is even worse! She must convince herself that Mario is unhappy with me! That I'm a bad mother! My mother always tells me that I am impatient with Lello, but she [my mother-in-law] tells me that I am not strict enough! And I start to get nervous and scream at Lello! And my husband is simply present at the same time. He never protects me... look at him!”

Therapist:“Let's think about all this before the next session. A. Now let's make it clear that Lionel is no one's victim. [turning to the child] Isn't that right, Lello? You yourself I came up with this idea - to become so crazy as to help everyone. Nobody asked you to do this, [turning to parents] See? He doesn't say anything, he doesn't cry. He decided to continue to act in the same way as until now, because he is confident that he is doing the right thing.”

As we have already said, at first Martha’s reaction seemed to us that we had made a mistake. Agreeing with our comment, she made it clear that she took it as a declaration that she was guilty: a bad mother who sacrificed her son for the sake of her unresolved relationship with her mother. The lack of response from the father made us suspect that he, too, interpreted our intervention in a similar way: “Since my wife is responsible for Lionel’s psychosis, I am good, innocent and therefore superior to everyone else.”

However, a further turn of the session showed us that our connotation of Lionel's behavior turned out to be not a mistake at all, but, on the contrary, a precisely directed move that revealed the focus of the problem. Martha could not accept the idea that her son was not at all Not“sacrificial lamb”, but an active member of the family system and, moreover, is in a leadership position. By disqualifying Lionel's active position, returning him to the position of an object of influence, a passive victim, Martha clearly acted to preserve the status quo of the system. She tried to regain her lost position of pseudo-power by declaring herself “guilty” and thereby reason son's psychosis.

Her reaction was convenient for Mario, whose position of superiority in the system was that he took the place of having the opposite qualities, that is, being seen as “good” and “tolerant.” In order to maintain their latent rivalry and continue the family game, it was necessary to return the child to his position as a victim. At this point, there was only one thing we could do: put Mario in the same position that Martha was in, stating that he, too, had deep reasons for accepting Lionel's willing sacrifice. At the same time, we placed Lionel in a position of superiority as the spontaneous interpreter of the family's perceived needs. This paved the way for us for Lionel's paradoxical prescription of psychotic leadership.

Notes

It is important to clarify here that the positive connotation is metacommunication (in fact, the therapist's implicit message about communication between all family members) and thus refers to more high level abstractions. Russell's theory of logical types postulates the principle that something that includes all the elements of a set cannot be an element of the set. By giving a positive meta-message, that is, by reporting approval of the behavior of all members of the set, we thereby make a meta-message about the entire set and, therefore, rise to the next level of abstraction. (Whitehead and Russell, 1910-1913).

Here we should note that the non-verbal aspect of our positive connotation is completely consistent with the verbal: no signs of roteness, irony or sarcasm. We are capable of this when we are completely convinced of the need to join the homeostatic tendency of the family, such as it is “here and now”.