RANKING OF SPEECH ETIQUETTE GREETING EXPRESSIONS IN SEMANTIC SPACE OF POSTCOLONIAL CHARACTER

Abstract

The article explores ranking of speech etiquette greeting expressions in the semantic space of a postcolonial character, verbalized in modern British literary text. Speech etiquette expressions are generally defi ned as situationally determined, communicatively oriented, thematically combined, interrelated and interdependent communicative units, being the adequate forms of expressing the communicative intentions of the interlocutors and ranging from words, word combinations, utterances, sentences and on to situations of etiquette communication. Speech etiquette greeting expressions represent the functional fi eld of initiallity, which is subdivided into three microfi elds, i. e. semantic, semantically-pragmatic and pragmatic, where both traditional and deviant etiquette operators are used. Semantic microfi eld of initiallity is formed by conventional etiquette greeting expressions, aimed to establish verbal interaction. The semantically-pragmatic microfi eld is represented by utterances, whose semantics contains prerequisites for the start of communicative interaction, including initial motivating imperatives, introduction of the addressee, introduction of the recipient. Pragmatic microfi eld is formed by the utterances that perform contact-establishing function only under certain conditions of communication, including initial message sending, initial questions, calls for mental activity. The taxonomy of speech etiquette greeting expressions encompasses interactive and regards greeting expressions, social and religious greetings, time-free and time-bound greeting expressions, valedictory greetings, sequential/ adjacency pair expressions.