Negative Intensification in Mass Media Discourse

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, SCIENCE, YOUTH AND SPORTS OF UKRAINE IVAN FRANKO NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LVIV ENGLISH DEPARTMENT NEGATIVE INTENSIFICATION IN MASS MEDIA DISCOURSE
COURSE PAPER PRESENTED BY __________________ Anastasia Hayevska a fourth year student of the English department
SUPERVISED BY _________________ O. V. Tatarovska a lecturer of the English department Lviv 2012 Theme: NEGATIVE INTENSIFICATION IN MASS MEDIA DISCOURSE

CONTENTS Introduction…………………………………………………………………….. 3 Chapter 1. Negation in English…………………………………………………6 Chapter 2. The Notion of Intensification. Negative Intensification……………12 2. 1. A typological perspective 2. 2. Types 2. 3. A typology of intensifiers Chapter 3. Negative Intensification in media discourse……………………….. 23 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………… 29 Summery……………………………………………………………………….. 30 References………………………………………………………………………31 Introduction
At the beginning of the XXI century the existence of the process of medialization in the living space of society is quite a natural fact. According to this theory, medialization is a global and intensive process of influence of media on public consciousness, leading to “internal colonization”, “fragmentation” of mental conceptions of people. The conclusions of scientists that the role of media in the modern world is extremely large and the ability of the media discourse to influence the outlook of the recipients is quite powerful are very important.
The language of press, which reflects the complex social processes, materialize not only personal but also public consciousness, primarily affects the development of public opinion, helps in the formation of a certain type of “social person”. Periodicals, promoting political, scientific and other thoughts in Britain, raise the aesthetic tastes through the publication of works of art, consolidate the idea of diversity of English literary language and facilitate the development of language and cultural environment. The language of media reflects the main trends of development of English.
Recently, researchers draw attention to different levels of linguistic units in the media, particularly their use and functioning in newspaper language. The subject of interest is mostly units of lexical and phraseological levels. However, little attention is paid to headlines, though it is the main element that detects specific journalistic (newspaper) identity, in particular the need to give maximum information using minimum language material, tends to save the language units but with the maximum of semantic content, the combination of informational content, brevity of emotional and expressive colour.
Title primarily reflects the linguistic phenomena of our time and, in some measure, generalize them. Learning the English Negation is very important because its structure is used in every day conversation. The more you practice the subject, the closer you get to mastering the English language. But first we need to know what the role of Negation is in the structure of the grammar in English.
English negation is the process that turns an affirmative statement (I am happy) into its opposite denial (I am not happy). Here are some examples: • he is not here • that is not my book • do not enter As you can see from the example above, the structure of the Negation in English has a logical pattern. Locate the Negation above and see how it works with the rest of the sentence in English. Negation and negative expressions have a very important role in English; therefore they need very special attention.
Topicality of research is determined by several factors: first, by increasing of the role of newspaper language in society and the importance of social and linguistic influence on the formation of values; secondly, by the reflection of modern newspaper language trends and phenomena that are bright shown in the last decade in colloquial language; and thirdly, the lack of basic research on figurative means of intensification in grammar and language in general.
The Object of the course paper is linguistic means used in media to enhance their perlocutionary effectiveness and the reasons of using negative intensification in language. The subject of the course paper is the units of lexical, phraseological and syntactic level as means of intensification in newspaper speech. The aim of the course paper is to explore the basic means of intensification of expression in newspaper text, to develop the theme of negation in the English language and concentrate on the ways of negative intensification. The tasks of the course paper: to dwell on the grammar topic of negation, its importance and history; • to develop the theme of intensification and the usage of negative intensifiers in grammar structures and language; • to explore the most vivid language trends and phenomena in lexical-grammatical level; • to outline the examples of the utilizing of the intensifications in mass media discourse. The practical value of the course paper is to highlight the importance of negation in English grammar and the vivid usage of all kind of intensification both in conversational language and the language of media discourse.
Chapter 1. Negation in English For several years, negation has been one of the most extensively discussed topics in generative grammar, and the subject of a great deal of important work. Klima’s 1964 paper “Negation in English”, for example, is surely one of the most careful and complete syntactic analyses ever attempted. More recently, the scope semantics of negation has been extensively discussed in number of papers by R. Jackendoff, K. Iakoff, P. Carden and others.
Although significant insights have been presented in those works, no attempt has been made at formulating a unified theory of negation. Negation is an important category of speech, as it is one of the basic mental operations. The versatility of negation is caused by the desire of man to differentiate the aspects of reality and the reflection of this process in speech. The problem of negation is one of the main categories in philosophy and logic. The term “negation” in philosophy was introduced by Hegel, but he put idealistic sense in this term.
He believed that the basis of the negation is the development of ideas, opinions. Negation is like a real analog to logical, imaginary objection (antithesis), while seen as mandatory time that repeat many times in any process where there is a change of phase, period, stage of change in an object. In terms of formal logic negation is a logical operation, standing in opposition to the true judgment untrue, to the false judgment unerring one, pointing to the discrepancy between the subject and the predicate generator addition to this class.
In other words, negation – is not a direct reflection of reality and its ties but the way of our knowledge, based on the contrast with the original positive facts. Being a universal category of language with a complex and multidimensional semantics and diverse arsenal of expression, negation gets a different interpretation in the light of each aspect of linguistics. Negation is the element of the sentence meaning, which indicates that the connection that is established between the components of the sentence, according to the speaker actually does not exist or that the affirmative sentence is rejected as alse by the speaker. In most cases the negative expression can be observed in the situation, when appropriate affirmative statement was made before or included in the total presumption of speakers. Negation is one of the inherent to all languages ?? of the world semantically unresolved categories that is not identifiable through simple semantic elements. Syntactic aspect of the problem of negation has always been the main in research practice, and it sometimes even leads to assertions that the negation is the category, which is inherent only for sentence. For example, V. V Lebedev [6; p. 9] expresses the opinion that “the minimal linguistic unit, which operates within a negation, is a predicative construction”. This position reflects a narrow understanding of this linguistic phenomenon and is not coordinated with the existence of negative linguistic forms of non predicative character. From the formal point of view negation can be expressed by negative words (in Russian, “??”), a negative prefix (German “unbekannt”); negative form of individual parts of speech: verb (English “I don’t want” – analytical negative form, Arabs, letters, “lam yaktub”), pronouns (in Russian, “?????” of Iraq. he dialogue. “lahhad”) and others. Negation can be formally unexpressed component of meaning (in Ukrainian “???????????” which means “?? ?????????”) or what is meant – formally unexpressed component of sentence meaning (in Ukrainian “?????? ?? ????????! “). Thus, negation is not just a theme in linguists. The term “negation” is widely used in other sciences such as logic or philosophy that shows the diversity of this concept.
In natural language, there are (at least) two kinds of negation: a weak negation expressing non-truth (in the sense of “she doesn’t like snow” or “he doesn’t trust you”), and a strong negation expressing explicit falsity (in the sense of “she dislikes snow” or “he distrusts you”). Notice that the classical logic law of the excluded middle holds only for the weak negation (either “she likes snow” or “she doesn’t like snow”), but not for the strong negation: it does not hold that “he trusts you” or “he distrusts you”; he may be neutral and neither trust nor distrust you.
When we speak about negation we sometimes can use intensification to provide additional content to the sentence and intensify its importance. Intensification like a linguistic expression of exaggeration or derogation is not limited only by the category of adjective or adverb. Intensification can be expressed in different ways and can envelope not only particular parts of the sentence, but the whole sentence. In standard written English, when two negatives are used in one sentence, the negatives are understood to cancel one another and produce a weakened affirmative.
However, in many dialects, the second negative is employed as an intensifier and should be understood as strengthening the negation rather than removing it. In Standard English, two negatives are understood to resolve to a positive. This rule was observed as early as 1762, when Bishop Robert Lowth wrote A Short Introduction to English Grammar with Critical Notes. For instance, “I do not disagree” could mean “I certainly agree”. Further statements may be necessary to resolve which particular meaning was intended [7].
Because of this ambiguity, double negatives are frequently employed when making back-handed compliments. The phrase “Mr. Jones was not incompetent” will seldom mean “Mr. Jones was very competent” since the speaker would have found a more flattering way to say so. Instead, some kind of problem is implied, though Mr. Jones possesses basic competence at his tasks. A double negative occurs when two forms of negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause.
In most logics and some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative sense; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives intensify each other are said to have negative concord. Portuguese, French, Persian, and Spanish are examples of negative-concord languages, while Latin and German do not have negative concord. Standard English lacks negative concord, but it was normal in Old English and Middle English, and some modern dialects do have it (e. . African American Vernacular English and Cockney), although its usage in English is often stigmatized. Languages without negative concord typically have negative polarity items that are used in place of additional negatives when another negating word already occurs. Examples are “ever”, “anything” and “anyone” in the sentence “I haven’t ever owed anything to anyone” (cf. “I haven’t never owed nothing to no one” in negative-concord dialects of English, and “Nunca devi nada a ninguem” in Portuguese, lit. Never have I owed nothing to no one”). Note that negative polarity can be triggered not only by direct negatives such as “not” or “never”, but by words such as “doubt” or “hardly” (“I doubt he has ever owed anything to anyone” or “He has hardly ever owed anything to anyone”) [4; p. 32]. Discussing English grammar, the term “double negative” is often though not universally applied to the non-standard use of a second negative as an intensifier to a negation.
Although they are uncommon in written English, double negatives are employed as a normal part of the grammar of Southern American English, African American Vernacular English, and most British regional dialects, particularly the East London and East Anglian dialects. Dialects which use double negatives do so consistently and follow a different set of descriptive linguistic rules (situation needed). Because of their non-standard nature, such double negatives are often employed in literature and the performing art as part of characterization, particularly to establish a speaker’s lower-class or uneducated status.
In the film Mary Poppins, the chimney sweep Bert employs a double negative when he says, “If you don’t want to go nowhere… ” Another is used by the bandits in the “Stinking Badges” scene of John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: “Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges! ” More recently, the British television show EastEnders has received some publicity over the Estuary accent of character Dot Branning, who speaks with double and triple negatives (“I ain’t never heard of no license. “).
In the Harry Enfield sketch “Mr Cholmondley-Warner’s Guide to the Working-Class”, a stereotypical Cockney employs a septuple-negative: “Inside toilet? I ain’t never not heard of one of them nor I ain’t nor nothing. ” In music, double negatives can be employed to similar effect (as in Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”, in which schoolchildren chant “We don’t need no education / We don’t need no thought control”) or used to establish a frank and informal tone (as in The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. “).
Historically, Chaucer made extensive use of double, triple, and even quadruple negatives in his Canterbury Tales. About the Friar, he writes “Ther nas no man no wher so vertuous” (“There never was no man nowhere so virtuous”). About the Knight, “He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight” (“He never yet no vileness didn’t say / In all his life to no manner of man”). Following the battle of Marston Moor, Oliver Cromwell quoted his nephew’s dying words in a letter to the boy’s father Valentine Walton: “A little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit.
I asked him what it was. He told me it was that God had not suffered him to be no more the executioner of His enemies. ” Although this particular letter has often been reprinted, it is frequently changed to read “not … any” instead. Many languages, including all living Germanic languages, French, Welsh and some Berber and Arabic dialects, have gone through a process known as Jespersen’s cycle, where an original negative particle is replaced by another, passing through a intermediate stage employing two particles (e. . Old French jeo ne dis >> Modern Standard French je ne dis pas >> Modern Colloquial French je dis pas “I don’t say”). In many cases the original sense of the new negative particle is not negative per se (thus in French pas “step”, originally “not a step” = “not a bit”), but in Germanic languages such as English and German the intermediate stage was a case of double negation, as the current negatives not and nicht in these languages originally meant “nothing”: e. g.
Old English ic ne seah “I didn’t see” >> Middle English I ne saugh nawiht, lit. “I didn’t see nothing” >> Early Modern English I saw not. A similar development to a circumfix from double negation can be seen in non-Indo-European languages, too: for example, in Maltese, kiel “he ate” is negated as ma kielx “he didn’t eat”, where the verb is preceded by a negative particle ma- “not” and followed by the particle -x, which was originally a shortened form of xejn “nothing” – thus, “he didn’t eat nothing”[5].
Negation in language can be transmitted by various means – negative words, negative prefix, and negative forms of the verb (which is not actually Ukrainian), or may not have a single expression, as a component of meaning (“???????????” = “?? ??????????” “to refuse” = “not to accept”). That is, a word without a negative prefix can be regarded as the word of a negative value, for example, lack (= have not), fail (= not succeed); but we can say also that succeed – a negative line to fail. These words have implicit negation.
Implicitness is a phenomenon that is characterized by expression of some elements by not formal means. It manifests itself at all levels of language. With the help of implicitness the language units are provided with additional depth and layering. Implicit negation is contextual language category. The implicit negation can be indentified through the analysis of the semantics of that language, or other units. The peculiarity of implicit negation, like any other implicit category, consists of asymmetry, in other words of inconsistency of plan the content and plan of expression.
Chapter 2. The Notion of Intensification. Negative Intensification Broadly speaking, manifestations of intensification in the English grammatical system have been traditionally associated with the adjective and adverb categories, not so commonly with other word-classes. This may be justified on two main accounts: i) most of these are functionally susceptible of being easily modified by other elements and, secondly, (ii) they can be considered, in semantic terms, as open lexical items which can have a strengthening or weakening effect.
In spite of this, it is necessary to point out that intensification as “the linguistic expression of exaggeration and depreciation” (Bolinger) does not restrict itself to this; words other than adjectives and adverbs may express and receive intensification, and this linguistic process may have under its scope not only a single constituent of the clause, but also the whole of it. Thus, certain wh-words, what and how, can function as intensifying determiners adverbs in exclamations • What nice music is she playing! How well he managed! Intensification is type of amplification in which an idea is emphasized or a feeling heightened through restatement, expansion, detailed illustration, or other device. 1. A typological perspective • Expressions like Latin ipse/a, English him-/her-self (X-self), Russian sam/-a, Italian stesso/-a, Mandarin ziji, Spanish mismo/-a, Fr. lui-/elle-meme, Japanese zisin, zitai, etc. There is no established categorical label (“emphatic reflexives”, “emphatics”; “emphasizers”, “emphatic pronouns”; “appositive/adverbial reflexives”; “limiting adjectives”; “identity pronouns”; “focus particles”, “intensifiers”) ( In English and many other languages there is no formal distinction between reflexive markers and intensifiers; there is only a difference in distribution: (1)a. John was clearly protecting himself. b. Fred hates himself. c. She poured herself another cup of tea. (2)a. Writers themselves, rather than their works, should be vetted for their sense of social responsibility.. . “All things must change”, says Father Ferguson. “Sin itself must change. ” c. Ardery herself had wanted the case. ( Languages seem to have several intensifiers (English: X-self, by X-self, in X-self, own, of his own accord, personally, in person, etc. Italian: stesso, proprio, in persona, in prima persona, in se, per se, etc. ), which may differ in their syntax and in their interpretation; ( Identification across languages is easiest on the basis of prosodic and semantic criteria: – (i) focused and stressed; – (ii) evoking alternatives – (iii) used as adjuncts (rarely as arguments) (iv) etymology: derived from expressions denoting body parts, truth, possession, local notions; ‘persona’; ‘precision of reference’, ‘return/again’; ‘alone’, downwards’, etc. ) 2. Types (3)(a)the adnominal use Writers themselves, rather than their works, should be examined for their sense of social responsibility. (b)the adverbial exclusive use (( ‘alone’/’without help’) Mrs. Dalloway wanted to buy the flowers herself. (c)the adverbial inclusive use (( ‘too’) If he’s busy breaking the rules himself, he could hardly demand that they do otherwise. (d)the attributive use
John wants to be together with people of his own age. (4)Early Modern English (OED, s. v. self) He forbad the often attempting of warres agaynst ones self party or enemies. (1585 T. Washington tr. Nicholay’s Voy. IV, xxxi. 153 b) (5)Turkish (Munevver Ozkurt, p. c. ) (a)mudur-unkendi-sibizim-lekonusacak(adnominal) director-genint-3. possus-withwill. talk ‘The director himself will talk to us. ’ (b)kendioda-m(attributive) introom-1poss ‘my own room’ (6)Latin Ipsius ante oculos ‘before his very eyes’ We can also distinguish tree types of intensifiers: 1. intensifiers express contrast . intensifiers are generally focused and thus evoke alternatives to the value given 3. intensifiers denote an identity function According to the other theory, the division of intensifiers can be interpreted in different way. Major types of intensifiers – five major types defined on the basis of morpho-syntactic properties – implicational connections can be described in terms of these types – areal clustering intensifiers – parasitic+ parasitic + adjectival– adjectival – nominal+ nominal – relational + relational invariantadjectivalprepositionalpronominalrelational
There are a lot of different classifications of intensifiers developed by different scholars but this variant attracted my attention because of its complexity and diversity. This classification shows all the controversial aspects of the theme of intensification and gives us the most detailed division. 1. 3. A typology of intensifiers Parasitic intensifiers have the formal make-up of major lexical classes like adjectives, relational nouns and pronouns (a) adjectival intensifiers (Europe) Swedish (Holmes & Hinchliffe 1994: 146) [Barn-etsjalv-t]saingenting child-artint-indef. neut. sgsaidnothing The child itself said nothing’ (b) relational nouns as intensifiers (Africa, Middle East, Mesoamerica, Finno-Ugric; head-marking languages) (Turkish (Munevver Ozkurt, p. c. ) mudur-un kendi-si bizim-le konusacak director-gen int-poss. 3sg us-with will. talk ‘The director himself will talk to us. ’ (c) pronoun-like intensifiers (South Asia, French, English, Basque) Incorporate pronominal forms; inflect for person, number, gender; typically identical to reflexive markers; typically follow their head noun; French J’ai rencontre le President lui-meme. ‘I met the President himself. (d) Invariant intensifiers (most common type) Few, if any, sortal restrictions, highly grammaticalized; no areal clustering; Yiddish (A. Albright, p. c. ) der direktor aleyn vet undz ufnemen art director int will us welcome ‘The director himself will welcome us. ’ (e) Intensifiers as prepositional phrases Yoruba A o ri kadinali funraar?? We not see cardinal INT. POSS. 3SG ‘We did not see the cardinal himself. ’ (Lit. for his body). We can intensify the effect of a verb by using an adverb that intensifies the meaning and particularly the emotional content.
The use of the intensifier can subtly suggest to the other person what emotions they should feel. In the same way, we can also use adverbs to attenuate and reduce the natural emotional content of a verb: • That is very interesting. (basic intensifier) • That is very, very interesting. (repetition to increase effect) • That is extremely interesting. (suggests extreme response) • That is amazingly interesting. (suggests being amazed) • That is scarily interesting. (suggests being scared) • That is quite interesting. (reducing intensity) • That is a bit interesting. reducing intensity) The basic intensifier is ‘very’ and can be used with many verbs. Other intensifiers often have the same meaning as ‘very’ but use different forms Intensifiers include: very, really, extremely, remarkably, fantastically, etc. Intensifiers often subtly suggest to the other person what to feel. By naming emotions within the adverb, the other person has to consider this emotion and hence begins to feel it. As the adverb is not the subject, object or verb, it is not as noticed and hence such suggestions may slip past conscious (or even subconscious) filters.
Just as intensifiers increase emotion, the same effect can be done in reverse, where the natural level of emotion implied by a verb may be reduced. This can be done deliberately to cool down a situation. It also can appear in floppy language, where you are seeking to avoid saying anything that upsets the other person and hence end up making very weak statements that have a very low chance of changing anybody’s mind [1; p. 67]. There is a curious pattern of intensification that uses negative words to intensify positive verbs.
These words include: awfully, dreadfully, fearfully, terribly, ridiculously, insanely, disgustingly, hideously, etc. Thus, for example: • She is dreadfully beautiful. • What an insanely good idea! What in effect is happening here is that many strong emotions are negative, so using them in a positive context borrows that intensity of emotion whilst the contextual cues show that the real meaning is positive. An additional effect is that combining negative and positive words in the same sentence creates confusion, which itself is also adds to the emotion.
A curious fact about this usage is that it is particularly popular with upper-class British people: • What a ridiculously interesting thing! Sometimes intensification is done deliberately but with the opposite intent. This use of sarcasm may be done against another person or used in a more ironic sense about the situation. • Oh, very clever! (actually meaning rather stupid) The intensification of negation is occurred by using word that means “trifle” (not a bit, not a jot, not a scrap, etc.. ), or by an adverb, meaning “ever” (John-Eng. na ne with a = Goth. nand aiws”, German “nie”; English “never” sometimes loses its temporal meaning and coincides with the value of not). Finally, for intensification a word that means “nothing” can be added: Lat. “non”, Eng. “not” (weak form of “nought”) or German “nicht”; In comparison with English “I ne seye not” there is a double negation [11]. It is known that the topic of negative intensification was not studied much, but we affirm that intensification can cover the whole sentence and its parts. Let’s look on the following examples: • The last few years it’s ot worth and because I can’t breathe through my nose at all during the summer uhm that brings on the asthma. • She decided herself as ‘completely hopeless with my hands’. It is clear that in the first example prepositional phrase at all acts as intensifier to emphasize that the speaker can not breathe through the nose. Here this sentence the intensification is achieved by means of adverb – intensifier completely, which intensify the adjective hopeless. Negative intensification of the parts of the sentence has the same scheme.
It is used mostly with negative adjectives, which are formed with the help of negative prefixes (a-, un-, dis-, non-, in-, im-, il-, ir-). These words in turn are modified by other adverbs or adjectives. We can draw a conclusion that negative intensification on sentence level and on level of its parts has only a slight difference. The negative intensification in English language can be achieved in five different ways: 1. the use of expressions with negative stress; 2. the recurrence of adverb never and its combination never ever; 3. not (even)a one as a variant of fraction no; 4. he use of certain lexical items in combination with a limited group of verbs; 5. the use of a number of negative idiomatic expressions. The expressions with negative stress can be grouped in such a way: at all, a bit, in the least, in the slightest, in any way. All this expressions are characterized by: 1. they are used in a negative context, or at least not – affirmative, we mean direct and indirect questions, and comparative conditional sentence, the words that are morphologically negative or negatively oriented, imperative sentences with nonspecific meaning and infinitive constructions with too. . they comply with certain lexical units; 3. they act like adverbs in conditional sentences; 4. they are used in a sentence abstractedly, this sentence is the answer to previous question; 5. they stand in the middle of a sentence or at the end (final position prevails over the median). The most popular expression is at all. Palacios Martinez found 28 examples: 20 in oral texts and 8 in written form. The sentence with at all is a negative intensifier for the previous sentence, which is negative too.
It is a characteristic feature of oral style: • But the hospital had told me that the child wouldn’t live So I’d not prepared myself I’d not got anything at all. The next expression is a bit that is also used for intensification of negative sentence. In this case it is the answer to the question. • What’s your normal handwriting like Is it anything like …. tell you what Not a bit. But it isn’t a general rule. It can act as adverbial modifier within the clause. In such case we add not to the predicate, but not to a bit. • You haven’t changed a bit. It didn’t hurt a bit when my tooth was pulled out. In the slightest is also used as adverb – attribute in order to intensify the negative sentence. Not is always linked to the verb. We can find this phrase in oral speech and in most cases it is the answer to the previous sentence. • “Do you mind? ” “Not a slightest”. Quite common is the fact that such structures can be found in compound sentences with the negative key members of the sentence with verbs that denote mental procedure, opinion, perception, intention and desire (think, know, believe, want, seem, appear).
Such cases we call transported negation. In fact, the negation is related to the clause, but is transferred to the main sentence because of pragmatic considerations. However, the transference does not change the value of a sentence [10]. • I don’t think there is the slightest possibility for one very obvious reason quite apart. No way is quite a different case because it can stand at the beginning of the sentence when we are using the inversion. It is done in order to strengthen the intensification that cannot be done with normal word order.
The modal verbs will and would stand after no way in order to express impossible assumption. • No way will I go working for that man. • No way would I do that. Quite common is the use of no way as the answer to the question. Such use is characteristic for some varieties of English, particularly American. In fact, this expression is a concise form of expressing strong negation. Sometimes it can express incredulity or surprise of the speaker. • So we are seeing Bay City Rollers word
Ah two – or – three words I saw a picture of myself yesterday in an album with uhm sitting up in bad next to my Bay City Rollers poster No way. To conclude this section, it is necessary to point out that apart from the four lexical constructions just examined, there are some others that can also be categorized under this first heading since they share all or most of the features which are characteristic of them. Among them we can mention the following: by no means (with its variants not by any means and by no manner of means), under no circumstances, absolutely not and certainly not.
The first two are usually fronted bringing about inversion subject-verb, while the other two are more commonly used in answer to a question in order to deny something or to express strong disagreement. • It is by no means certain that this is what he did. • Under the circumstances whatsoever will I support Mr. Baldwin. • ‘Does this affect your attitude to your work, in any way? ’ – ‘Absolutely not’. • ‘Had you forgotten? ’ – ‘Certainly not”. The repetition of adverb never with such phrases as in (all) my life, in a million years, for a million pounds is used to intensify the negative sentence.
We can also add ever to never in order to intensify a negative quality of speech act. This phrase is very popular in colloquial language. • Things will never ever be the same again. • Never lecture with animals or children and never ever try to do chemistry experiments live. Ever can be also used with nothing, nobody, and none in order to convey emphatical meaning. We can also find whatever and whatsoever that are used with similar aim. • Nobody ever went there. • There is no scientific evidence to support such a view. Such expressions as not (even) a not (even) a single are the emphatic alternative to countable part no.
Their meaning is that there is nothing previously mentioned. They are combined with a great number of nouns, in fact in communication; they tend to use these lexical units: scrap, hair, word, jot, thing, trace, crumb, ounce, iota, shred, sign, speck, etc. • There is no food in the cupboard, not a scrap. • She didn’t say a single word. • I don’t feel one iota of guilt. • I couldn’t do a single thing about it. Most of them are especially common in informal and familiar contexts. However, there are so many phrases of this nature that no list could hope to be exhaustive.
The main ones are at least included in the following: not budge an inch with the meaning of to refuse to change their mind or compromise; not sleep a wink to get a wink of sleep, that is, to sleep very little; not drink ouch a drop, referring to the fact that no alcohol has been or is going to be drunk; not lift or raise a finger to do something, meaning that you make no attempt to help someone; not see know or meet a (living) soul, when someone goes to a certain place and they do not see or know anybody; not move a muscle, that is, to keep absolutely still; not bat an eye or eyelid, in other words, not to show any sign of surprise or concern [10; p. 8]. These colorful expressions are used in English in order to intensify and emphasize the negative language.
The purpose of intensification is an attempt to reach the listener (reader) that is why the negative intensification is often used in mass media discourse. Chapter 3. Negative Intensification in media discourse Talking about mass media, we should discuss on the hole the effects of mass media on society. The media virus of the 21st century will influence your opinions, it will eventually begin to tell you what clothes to wear, how to style your hair, how you should look, who you should like and etc. Mass media has the overwhelming impact on our lives. Press, television, radio prescribes us how to live. The birth of the newspapers industry brought a new concept of social awareness down to the average working-class family.
Technological advances and decreasing paper prices not only helped the newspaper industry flourish but appear other forms of print such as books and magazines. Unfortunately, it was a bitter when the “necessary evil” of television was introduced to the whole world. It was succeeded in turning many families into a bunch of overweight couch potatoes. The introduction of the Internet completely revolutionized the ways in which we do business. These days you can get practically anything off the Internet. However, mass media plays a big role in our life and affects us more than we think. TV, radio, press reflect the present day life. Every year the influence of mass media is becoming greater and greater.
The amount we spend immersing in mass media is not only going to shape who we are as persons, but it will eventually sever our connection to the real world. To have a major impact on society and compete with TV, for example, titles and names of newspapers have to attract the attention of individuals with the help of a variety of ways: they can be loudly, pathos, contradictory, thought – provoking. Often for such purposes different kinds of intensification are used: the play of words, abbreviation, alliteration, rhymes, assonance, exclamations, parody, repetition and others. Often in mass media we can find quotes from poetry or phraseological units. Poetic language and folklore are characterized by syntactic structures with a value of inducement modality.
In journalistic these features of artistic style are used, “?????? ???????… ” (Lesja Ukrainka) – the words of V. Sosyuri, “?????????? ?, ????? ???…… ” – poetry of Taras Shevchenko, whose poetic language is characterized by inducement sentence modality, “???????? – ????????! ». It is obvious that intensification is used in advertising in order to attract people’s attention and make then buy the product. The language of advertising is unconscious. Direct appeal to conscience of a consumer is not only in advertisements of industrial goods. Advertising of goods “inserts” images of products in subconscious of people and creates their characters, images.
Speaking about negative intensification in mass media we can say that this topic wasn’t studied properly and needs more attention, while negation in titles, headlines and names of programmes is very popular, while it catches reader’s attention and makes them interested. In my opinion, the most popular piece of information among the readers of a local newspaper will be the article with the title “Don’t ever read me”. Frankly speaking, the 87% of people would definitely read the article. While exploring the theme of negative intensification in mass media discourse, I looked through some newspapers to find the use of negative intensification in the headlines or newspaper articles.
These are some examples, which can be used to show the importance of negative intensification in mass media: 1. HOW OFTEN DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF SAYING: “NO, I HAVEN’T READ IT: I’VE BEEN MEANING TO! ” [Independent Observer] 2. THOUSANDS HAVE THIS PRICELESS GIFT — BUT NEVER DISCOVER IT! (“What ‘priceless gift’? Why is it ‘priceless’? If ‘thousands’ have it, perhaps I should have it too. ” The “undiscovered” angle has great attraction. Legions of people are convinced that they possess talents and abilities which others have never discovered. Consequently, their world is unfortunately inclined to underrate or misjudge them. ) [Daily Star] 3. DOES YOUR CHILD EVER EMBARRASS YOU? – NEVER EVER! Direct, challenging, a common circumstance. Brings up a flood or recollections. How can such unpleasant experiences be avoided in the future? Based upon a strong selfish appeal. Parents, are first, individuals; second, parents. The kind of reflection that children cast upon the prestige and self-esteem of their parents is a useful copy angle to remember. ) [Independent Observer] 4. YOU NEVER SAW SUCH LETTERS AS HARRY AND I GOT ABOUT OUR PEARS (Friendly, human, disarmingly ingenuous, refreshingly non-”advertisy” in language. And, of course, the reference to “such letters. ”) [Daily Express] 5. “LAST FRIDAY…WAS I SCARED! —MY BOSS DIDN’T ALMOST FIRED ME! (A human narrative people wanted to read because it did — or could — “happen to me. ”) [Daily Star] 6. No ‘signal of peace’ from Syria (The Syrian government has given no “signal of peace” but could still change its military posture before a deadline, envoy Kofi Annan says). [BBC News] 7. ‘Norway shooter Anders Breivik ‘regrets not going further’ (Right-wing extremist Anders Breivik, who has admitted killing 77 people during a politically-motivated murder spree in Norway last summer, has been declared sane and fit to stand trial and will probably take the stand to say he wishes he had killed even more people. ) [News 4 The World] 8. U. S. warns N. Korea: Rocket launch means no food aid AT ALL! The White House bluntly warned North Korea on Tuesday that going ahead with a long-range rocket launch would mean an end to planned American food aid to the secretive and starvation-plagued country. “It’s impossible to imagine”). [BBC News] 9. Comedian Jon Lovitz says anti-Semitic prank no laughing matter at all. (Comedian Jon Lovitz is known for making people laugh, but he has expressed outrage at an anti-Semitic high school prank involving maple syrup. ) [Daily Star] 10. I’m NOT NEVER TONGUE-TIED AT A PARTY (Pinpoints the myriads of self-conscious, inferiority-complexed wallflowers. “That’s me! I want to read this ad; maybe it tells me exactly what to do about it. As you go along, you will notice how many of these headlines are interrogative ones. They ask a question to which people want to read the answer. They excite curiosity and interest in the body matter which follows. They hit home — cut through verbose indirectness. The best ones are challenges, which are difficult to ignore, cannot be dismissed with a quick no or yes and without further reading, are pertinent and relevant to the reader. Note how many of the ones included here measure up to these specifications. ) [Daily Express] 11. She has even taken court orders to prevent him coming anywhere near her. [The Sun, June 14, 1994]. 12. When a club XV player, I hardly saw any trouble. [ The Daily Mirror, June 10, 1994] 13. I will never see my kids’ faces again’: Tears of mother blinded by boyfriend who GOUGED both of her eyes out (Tina Nash was subjected to ‘sickening’ 12-hour assault while her two children were in home. She was also left with a broken nose and jaw in an attack described as ‘the most harrowing’ police had seen the 32-year-old said the worst thing was not being able to see her children. She had suffered abuse at Shane Jenkin’s hands before but had helped him get out of jail. Mother of two said she hoped her attacker was not ‘buzzing’ at the thought he was the last person she saw Jenkin had ‘Outlaw’ tattooed on his arm and was serving a five-year ban from pubs in the area for drunken violence) [The Daily Mirror] 14. I didn’t get a chance to tell him I love him’: Heartbreak of family as 8-year-old collapses and dies walking to Little League game (An eight-year-old boy suddenly collapsed and died just minutes before his Little League baseball game in Las Vegas. Spencer Melvin was walking to the baseball field with his father Bob and brother Samuel, who were his coaches, when he suddenly fell to the ground. Despite desperate attempts by his father, who begged Spencer to ‘stay with us’ and ‘hang on’ as he fought to revive him, the little boy tragically passed away) [The Daily Mirror]. 15. Kill my wife? Absolutely not! I’d take her back tomorrow: Super-rich Tory donor talks to Mail over claims he wanted to kill his ex. At first it seemed nothing more than a sorry tale of a spurned husband seeking revenge on the wife who left him, when steel tycoon Bill Ives admitted on Tuesday he had accepted a police caution for harassing Pearl Adams, a shop assistant, with unwanted phone calls. ) [Daily Express]. 16. Obama does NOT qualify for Buffett tax: Documents show President did not earn enough to be hit with planned 30% tax for millionaires (Declining book sales have meant that President Barack Obama’s income has dropped so much that he no longer qualifies for the tax raising ‘Buffett Rule’ he has been so eager to tout. In tax returns released by the White House, Obama and his wife Michelle reported income of $789,674 last year, about half of it from Obama’s book royalties. It was the lowest salary for the Obamas since 2004, when he wrote his best-selling memoir, ‘Dreams From My Father’. ) [News 4 The World]. 17.
Zimmerman did NOT use racial slur against Trayvon Martin, prosecutors now say (Despite what some people think they heard, prosecutors say George Zimmerman did not utter a racial slur in his call to 911 on the night he shot Trayvon Martin. ) [BBC News] The interesting fact that you can notice in these headlines is another way of negative intensification. It is used only in written language and its idea is to highlight the negation in any possible way: to stress, to emphasize, to accentuate or to write it in capital letters as in the example: “Zimmerman did NOT use racial slur against Trayvon Martin, prosecutors now say”. In such a way the reader’s attention is focused on NOT that intensify the negation. As you can see from examples the most frequently used negative intensifiers are: never, ever, at all, in any way and some others.
Thus, syntactic and pragmatic features of negative structures in modern English writing give us reasons to affirm that: • frequency and number of negative structures are not significantly different in mass media discourse, but in the language of journalism as opposed to the language of science, negation does not only performs the function of denying proposal, but also expresses the other speech acts: the refusal, an indication, vigorous intention; • writing style as well as oral language has its own characteristics for using negation too. They depend on the purpose of communication, the relationship between reader and writer and style; • concerning the distribution of NOT and NO, NOT is more frequently used on journalism, than in scientific style. All these conclusions confirm the idea that the language of mass media discourse has more in common with oral speech then with scientific style. Conclusions With the analysis of these colourful emphatic negative expressions, this preliminary account of the resources used by modem English to intensify and emphasize negative speech acts is completed.
Something that appeared to be simple and straight forward at the beginning turned out to be more attractive and interesting than was originally expected. In spite of this, by no means should this be considered as a conclusive study. lt is just an introductory survey which will have to be developed in further pieces of research. lt is essential that new and larger samples of data be collected as well as more time and attention devoted to each method of negative intensification. The complexity of negation, its importance in the language system and its connections with disciplines such as Logic, Psychology, Sociology and even Mathematics demand an urgent need for supplementary research in the area.
No doubt, this will contribute to clarify new features and aspects of the English polarity system which has been traditionally left aside or examined in purely abstract terms without getting deeper into the actual use of the language. Negative intensification is one of the most interesting categories in grammar. Many scientific papers are devoted to the aspect of negation and intensification. The first mention we can find in the writings of E. Klima, O. Esperson, E. Shendels, V. Bondarenko, V. Komissarov, R. Jacobson and other famous scientists. General history of negative constructions in many languages ?? is characterized by a kind of fluctuations.
When the only thing that is left after negation is proclitic structure or even a sound, it is too weak, and there is a need to intensify it by adding some additional words. This word in turn can be understood as an element of expressing negation, and can undergo the same process as the original word. In this way, there is constant alternation of weakening and strengthening; a phenomenon in combination with further tendency of putting negation in the beginning of a sentence, where it may well be omitted, lead to unique effects that can be traced in the example of English language. Summary ????????? ?????????????, ?? ??????????? ?? ?????? ????????? ? ???? ?? ???????? ??????????? ? ??????? ??????????? ????? ???????? ??????. ?? ?????????? ????? ??????. ???????? ????????????? ??? ??????????? ???????????: ?????????????? ???, ???????? ?? ??????, ???? ??????? ???????? ???? ? ??????????? ????????? ???????, ?????????, ????????????, ????????????, ?????????????? ??????? ? ????????? ??????. ????????? ???? ????????? ????????????? ?????????????? ?????? ????????? ????????????? ???????????, ?? ??????, ?????????, ???? . ?????????? ?? ?????, ?????????????, ?? ????? ?????????, ???????????? ?????? ?? ??????, ???? ???????? ???????? ?????????????. ? ???? ???????? ???? ? ??? ?? ?????????? ???? ???????? ? ?????????, ? ?????? ????????????? ??????? ??? ????????? ?????, ?? ????? ???????????? ??????????????. ?????????? ???????? ????????? ?????????????? ? ? ????? ?????? ????????’???? ? ??????????????, ??????????? ? ???????????. ??????? ??????? ????????? ????????????? ?????????????? ? ?????? ?. ?. ???????????, ?. ? ???????????, ?. ?. ???????, ?. ?. ?????, ?. ?. ????????-???????. ???????????? ??????????? ????????????? ????? ????? ???? ???????????????? ??????, ???????????? ???????????, ??????? ?????????? ?? ??? ????? ??????? (?. ?. ??????, ?. ?. ????????, ?. ?. ????????, ?. ?. ??????????, ?. ?. ????????, A. M. ???????, ?. ?. ?????). ????? ????????, ?? ?????????? ????????? ????????? ??????????? ????????? ????????????? ? ??????????????, ????? ?????? ?????????? ????????????, ? ????? ?????? ?????????????-????????????? ??????? ????? ????????? ? ??????????? ???? ?? ???? ????????? ???????? ????????. ?????????? ?? ????? ???? ??????????????? ????? ???????????????? ? ??? ????????? ????????, ? ????? ??????????? ????? ?????? ?? ???????? ??????? ??????????, ???????? ????????? ?? ???????. ???? ?????????? ?????????? ???, ? ??????????? ? ????????? ???????? ? ???????????? ????????? ?????????? ????? ??????????? ?? ??????? ??????? ? ???????? ?? ?? ????????? ??????? ?? ???????? ?????????. References 1. Bolinger, D. : Degree Words. The Hague, Paris, Mouton. 1972 2. Erman, B.. ‘Just wear a wig innit! ’ From identifying and proposition-oriented to intensifying and speaker-oriented: grammaticalization in progress. In T. Haukioja (ed. ) Papers from the 16th Scandinavian Conference of linguistics. University of Turku: Department of Finnish and General Linguistics. 1998 3. Givon, T. : English Grammar.
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