Cognitive and Pragmatic Potential of «aggressive» Verbal Vocabulary

The article describes the cognitive-pragmatic potential of verbal lexemes, with the help of which the linguistic and cognitive category of aggression is verbalized in the language. The novelty of the research lies in the systematization and description of the “aggressive” layer of verbal vocabulary, the boundaries of which are vague and mobile. The theoretical significance of studying aggressive verbal vocabulary lies in the need to complement the typology of ways of verbalizing aggression, taking into account the variety of forms and means of its manifestation in speech practice. The research material was verbal lexemes with a total volume of 1,737 units, distributed across three lexical and semantic fields: “Action and activity”, “Being, state, quality”, “Attitude”. It has been established that the field “Action and activity” includes groups of verbs 1) physical impact on the object, 2) physiological action, 3) movement, 4) speech activity, 5) social activity, the most numerous of which is the group of verbs of physical impact on the object. The lexico-semantic field “Being, state, quality” is represented by the verbs 6) qualitative state, 7) verbs of being. In the “Relation” field, 8) verbs of relationship, 9) verbs of interpersonal relations are highlighted. It has been revealed that verbs combined in the field of “Action and activity” have the greatest “aggressive charge”. It includes verb lexemes that implement the meaning of “to hit”. The aggressive semantics of these verbs indicates the purposefulness of the mutilation action, indicates the destruction, partial or complete destruction of the object, which is the leading sign of aggression. When using “aggressive” verbs, the addressee expresses a negative intention towards the addressee (or a third person). It has been established that from linguistic and pragmatic positions, these verbs express the addressee’s unstable emotional state, his negative assessment of the object’s actions, and lead to manipulation of the addressee’s consciousness. Purposeful harm through the use of “aggressive” verbs in speech leads to a negative impact on the addressee, distorting his picture of the world, influencing the moral and ethical foundations of his existence. The analyzed corpus of lexical units expands the understanding of the linguistic and cognitive category of aggression in the Russian language. The practical value of the obtained results lies in the possibility of their use in linguistic expertise. The prospects of the research are to study the cognitive-pragmatic potential of words of other lexico-grammatical categories.