A stinging remark as a speech act

The aim of the article is to look into the frame structure of the speech act KOLKOST’ (stinging remark) in the lexico-semantic system of the Russian language and Russian discourse. The combination of the frame theory and the theory of prototypes in the research helps to figure out the peculiarities of naming and the characteristics of the lexemes, taking into account the human aspect in the language. The research draws on the data from explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language, the dictionaries of synonyms, the dictionaries of concepts. The Russian National corpus is used as a source of the contemporary contexts. Taking into consideration the existing definitions of an act, the research suggests viewing a speech act as an act driven by a certain intention, always performed in the society, that leads to certain consequences and gets evaluation (positive or negative) from other people. The study shows that the conceptualization of the speech act “a stinging remark” is closely related to the linguo-cognitive frame model constituted by the following elements: an intention, action, subject, object, valuation, result. The article points out how the elements of this frame model are represented in the Russian language-system and discourse. Through the analysis of lexicographic and speech data, the paradigmatic and syntagmatic peculiarities of the words that represent the frame-model, the prototypical characteristics of the structural elements of the slots were figured out. These elements (slots) of the frame-model are interrelated and represent different aspects of the situation called KOLKOST’ (stinging remark) in Russian. The research shows that the frame-model of the speech act called KOLKOST’ (stinging remark) is a complex structure, a linguo-cognitive model which reflects the fragment of the world with all the relations between its elements.

speech act, frame, prototype, stinging remark