Punctuation means of expressing emotionality in a literary text in English and its translation into Russian

Abstract

This article explores the special role played by punctuation for the expression of emotivity in modern biographical prose. Emphasizing the importance of punctuation means, the article touches upon the currently relevant problem of analyzing emotive techniques in the literary text. In this paper, the authors briefly highlight a number of approaches to the definition of the concepts of emotionality and emotivity, then consider modern classifications of punctuation means of expressing emotions in a literary text. The main task of the research is to identify the most significant means of conveying the emotional state of the characters of the biography novel at the punctuation level and compare them with the translation of the work into Russian. The research attempts to compare the use of punctuation means of the English and Russian versions of novels using comparative and descriptive methods, to identify common features and differences in the transmission of emotivity. As for the preliminary results of the study, the authors of the article note a number of cases when a writer goes beyond conventional punctuation to create emotive content. The general conclusion consists in the presence of synergy between the punctuation design of the novel, lexical and semantic means that occasionally perform its functions in translation, and the final emotive component, equally powerful in English and Russian.

Keywords

• emotionality
• emotivity
• novel-biography
• punctuation
• means of emotivity.