AFFECT STATE IMPACT ON THE COGNITIVE AND SPEECH PROCESSES (ON THE SAMPLES FROM ENGLISH LITERARY DISCOURSE)

Abstract

The purpose of article is to analyze affective speech from the perspective of its deforming or beneficial impact upon the cognitive and speech processes.

The material under analysis is presented by 225 speech episodes taken from English literary fictional discourse in which personages experience the state of affect. Apart from the personages’ uttered speech, their inner speech, as well as the author’s comment providing their thoughts, emotions and non-verbal behavior, have been subjected to a detailed analysis.

The linguistic analysis of the selected data has been based on the application of the following general scientific methods: the descriptive method that was helpful to identify variant and invariant characteristics of the investigated data, the functional method used to find out speech segments in action, as they fulfil certain functions, bearing in mind the purposeful nature of language units, and specific linguistic methods: the pragmatic linguistic method which was helpful for establishing emotionally coloured speech forms, cognitive method used to establish the relations between certain cognitive abilities of a speaker and the speech production, as well as the types of their interaction, and the component analysis used to establish how certain type of affect is realized by verbal and non-verbal means.

Affect is seen as short-time emotional outburst, characterized by vivid manifestation, accompanied by the speaker’s movement control failure. Affect is usually provoked by pleasant or (more often) unpleasant astonishment which is later accompanied by fear, despair, anger, or joy.

As a result of the study, there has been offered a functional differentiation of the affect state: the state of dissociation, the state of eustress, and transitional, or search state, each of which is characterized by certain speech peculiarities, depicted in personages’ direct speech, as well as certain non-verbal means described by the author of the literary discourse.

The conclusions are important because they prove the connection between emotions and cognitive-speech processes.