On the formal-semiotic aspect of utterance pragmatics in English and German languages

The subject of the study is the illocutionary force of an utterance in the formal-semiotic aspect. The paper describes three main variants of synchronisation of communicative and semantic interaction components for declarative, interrogative and imperative utterances. The material for the analysis was the basic intentional constructions of English and German. The main methods of research, conditioned by the purpose of revealing cognitive-syntactic models of basic intentional constructions, are the method of semiotic analysis, the method of component analysis, the method of conceptual analysis, and the method of linguistic description. The main conclusions of the study include three basic illocutionary situations – declarative, interrogative and imperative – which represent three models of structural-functional coordination of elements of communicative and semantic interaction. The addressee of the utterance is synchronised with the meaning of the sign in declarative and imperative structures and with the referent of interrogative structures. The addressee of the utterance in the declarative structure correlates with the referent of the utterance, with the meaning of the utterance in interrogative structures and with the form of the sign in imperative utterances. The message as an element of communicative interaction in declarative and interrogative structures is synchronised with the form of the sign, and in imperative structures - with the referent of the utterance. German and English declarative utterances in their syntactics reflect the natural onomasiological process of name creation. In the interrogative structures of these languages, the mirror-spatial symmetry in relation to syntactics declarative utterances is realised, as well as the model of ‘deictic emptiness’. The syntactics of imperative utterances reveals the model of ‘semiotic singularity’, reflecting the neutralisation of the semiotic triangle in self-referential utterances.

syntax, pragmatics, semiotics, German, English, illocution, cognitive model, declarative utterance, interrogative utterance, imperative utterance