Wierzbicka, Anna (1986). Two Russian speech act verbs: Lexicography as a key to conceptual and cultural analysis. Folia Slavica, 8(1), 134-159.
Abstract:
This article studies in some detail two characteristic Russian speech act verbs: donosit’ доносить and rugat’ ругать, comparing them with a number of related English verbs. The Russian verbs that were chosen are at once extremely interesting and extremely challenging, from a semantic as well as from a pragmatic point of view. The analysis reveals the precise semantic structure of both verbs and, at the same time, demonstrates the value of the semantic metalanguage on which it relies as a tool for a cross-cultural comparison of speech acts and speech genres.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
