Lexicographic description of vocabulary with a negative emotional evaluation in English-Russian dictionaries

The article analyzes the systematic lexicographic description of English vocabulary with negative emotional evaluation using methods of comparative analysis and continuous sampling. The most reliable source of information about the axiological potential of a word is the presence of an expressively emotional mark in a dictionary entry containing instructions for adequate word usage. The vocabulary of the English language with negative emotional evaluation is represented by different types of nominative means, such as the use of proper names, ethnic nicknames in an evaluative meaning, which reflects the linguacultural background. Of great importance is the prescriptive, directing meaning of the dictionary marks ‘depreciatingly’, ‘contemptuous’ in English-Russian dictionaries and ‘disapproving’, ‘derogatory’, ‘contemptuous’, ‘a derisive name’ in English explanatory dictionaries regarding real speech usage. Negative evaluation of the analyzed vocabulary may be motivated by semantic transpositions, such as metaphoric transfer of meaning, as well as word-formation means of affixation and word-composition.