Kiek "geras" yra geras, o "blogas" – blogas?

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Konotacija; Kontekstas; Vertinimas; Žodžio reikšmė; Žodžio reikšmė, konotacija, tekstynų lingvistikos metodas; Connotation; Context; Evaluation; Meaning of the word, connotation, method of corpus linguistics; Word meaning.

ENOne of the key functions of evaluation is determination whether an aspect is good or bad, positive or negative, approved or disapproved (Birrot 2008). Although Monika Bednarek (2006) argues that there is no single universal evaluative parameter enabling an author of a text to evaluate the world, Geoffrey Thompson and Susan Hunston (2000) are confident that the key evaluative parameter is good versus bad, or positive versus negative. This has raised the aim of this research to find out, whether or not such words as good and bad always refer to, respectively, positive or negative nature, and whether or not these words always express the author’s position towards a certain event, person, situation or subject. Since, according to Rūta Marcinkevičienė (2001), a meaning becomes apparent from the context, and there is no other method to identify the meaning but by employing a vast pool of examples of use, a decision has been made to analyse connotations of the words good and bad by applying the method of corpus linguistics. The total of 8 879 cases of use of the adjective good and 1 703 cases of use of the adjective bad have been found in the publicist section of the Corpus of Contemporary Lithuanian Language (CCLL).Generalizing results are presented on the basis of the analysis of 400 examples of use of the words good and bad each, as the data have shown distinct repetition. In order to find out which meanings of the oppositional adjectives good and bad prevail in actual language usage, and identify the ones that have evaluative nature, a decision has been made to classify the meanings under certain categories. The categories of meaning have first been formed based on descriptions of the selected adjectives as provided in the dictionaries of the Lithuanian language (Dictionary of Modern Lithuanian and Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language). Afterwards, categories of meanings that the adjectives good and bad are actually used in have been identified based on the available data and examples provided in the publicist section of the CCLL. Finally, the hypothesis proposing that the oppositional adjectives good and bad always refer to, respectively, positive or negative nature and always express an author’s position has been rejected based on the analysis of the collected data and examples of use of these adjectives provided in the publicist section of the CCLL. [From the publication]