Functioning of Emotional and Evaluative Lexicon in St. John Chrysostom’s Homilies

Abstract

The research is centered on the analysis of the emotional and evaluative lexicon, its functioning in homilies by St. John Chrysostom, the greatest Saint of Christian East and the whole Church. The paper highlights approaches to the study of the preaching style in Slovak linguistics. The terms 'sermon' and 'homily' as the main genres of religious communication and their place in preaching practice are analyzed. The subject of our research is emotionally colored lexicon, reflecting the individual world and its representation in the homily as well as the category of evaluation in Russian linguistics and its implementation in the text. The methodology of the analysis of the evaluation and emotionality in the homily text is presented. In St. John Chrysostom's homilies there are negative and positive emotional codes of the language. It is shown that verbs with negative evaluation often express the semantics of intensity. The emotional words in the Christian communication obtain a different connotation as compared to their use in secular communication. The methodological basis of the research is the integrative approach of text linguistics, functional stylistics, linguopragmatics, philosophical hermeneutics, Orthodox and Catholic theology. We proceed from the works of eminent scholars of the Slovak and Czech Republics, Poland, Russia and other countries, such as Josef Mlatsek, Josef Mistryk, Frantisek Rushchak, Maria Voitak, Olga Aleksandrovna Prokhvatilova, Elena Mikhailovna Volf, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, Olivier Clement, and others.

Keywords

• communication of Christians
• lexicon
• emotions
• evaluation
• homily
• homiletics
• sermon
• John Chrysostom