Psycholinguistics

This contribution aims to elucidate the relationship between strategies of audience involvement and emotional means of address in Gregory the Great’s (c. 540– 604) homilies on the gospels (Homiliae in Evangelia). The Latin original is compared to both a medieval Church Slavonic version of Czech origin and a Modern Czech translation. A representative sample is taken from Gregory’s 40 homilies on the gospels as a case study into the maintenance of linguistic means of expressing emotivity and appellative strategies crossing the boundaries of linguistic and cultural domains. The focus is on the appellative (or ‘conative’ in Jakobsonian terms) aspect of emotive signs. More specifically, this case study concerns the translation of Latin gerundives with a deontic meaning. We shall note some significant parallels as well as differences in the semantics and pragmatics of the deontic expressions of appellative agitation between the Latin original, the medieval Slavic and modern Czech translations. Thus, investigating multiple stages of the transmission of the homilies, in three languages, we can trace the use of appellative rhetorical means, as well as their development over time and space.

This paper analyzes the utilization of exclamation mark as a means of expressing a variety of emotions in two books written in the 19th c. by the Bulgarian monk Neophyte of Rila: The First Bulgarian Grammar (1835) and the Description of Rila Monastery (1879). The section of the grammar that addresses punctuation, particularly the exclamation mark, is examined by comparing it to other grammars that were published during the same period. Additionally, the sentences that contain exclamation mark have been selected from the Grammar and the Description. Some of them are presented here in conjunction with brief remarks that elucidate the intended emotional impact and the sentiments they embody. A comparative analysis of the two books reveals a subtle difference. In the Grammar, the author utilizes the exclamation mark predominantly to convey negative emotions. In the Description, although the negative tone predominates in the exclamatory sentences, there are also some that are rather positive. The broader range of emotions articulated in the Description is presumably attributable to its vivid and expressive nature, which starkly contrasts with the technical tone of a grammar book.