IS UNDERSTATEMENT A CONCEPT OR A CATEGORY?

The aim of the study is to define the British phenomenon “understatement”. The relevance of this research is due to the desire to better understand the English character, which still remains a mystery to representatives of other cultures due to a special historically established, indirect, veiled, and sometimes ambiguous tradition of communication. Understatement directly serves to create this ambiguity, causing enormous difficulties in communicating both foreigners with the British and the British themselves among themselves. The main methods of research are: descriptive and structural methods, component and definitional analysis. The results of the study showed that understatement represents a nationally specific communicative category which contains the attitudes and rules of speech behavior of the British and participates in the regulation of the communicative process. Understatement has a certain structure and includes verbal and non-verbal means of expressing communicative content aimed at harmonious, conflict-free communication. The theoretical significance lies in a clear definition of the British phenomenon “understatement”, in identifying its speech strategies, linguistic and extralinguistic ways of expression. The practical significance is expressed in using the results of the research in lecture courses of the theory of intercultural communication, stylistics and general linguistics.

1. Ivushkina T. A., Vlasova E.V. Understatement and overstatement in the speech of a modern Englishman: sociolinguistic aspect: monograph. Volgograd: Peremena, 2005. 149 p. [in Russ].

2. Tezekbayeva G. A. Pragmatics of omissions in Russian and English: Abstract. dis. ... Candidate of Philology. Sciences. — Tobolsk, 2011. - p. 19. [in Russ].

3. Osokina L.M. (2009). Types of understatement in English // Bulletin of Chelyabinsk State University. № 27 (165). Philology. Art history. Issue 34. pp. 86-88. [in Russ].

4. Senichkina E. P. (2003). Semantics of silence and means of its expression in Russian: Abstract. dis. ... Candidate of Philology. M. - p. 36 [in Russ].

5. Larina T.V. The category of politeness in English and Russian communicative cultures. Monograph. Moscow: RUDN, 2003. 315 p. [in Russ].

6. Paducheva E.V. (2009) Understatement and displaced negation // "Word is pure fun": Sat. articles in honor of A. B. Penkovsky. M.: Languages of Slavic cultures, .S. 445-454. — Источник: https://muegn.ru/en/documents/apresyan-leksicheskaya-semantika-yu-d-apresyan-leksicheskie-sinonimysm.html

7. Dzhioeva A.A. (2016). Concepts of global language: Understatement // Vestn. Moscow. Univ. Ser.XXVI Globalistics and Geopolitics. No. 3. pp. 40-53. [in Russ].

8. Kishko S.N. (2019). On the issue of English communicative behavior (based on the material of the communicative-pragmatic category of moderation / Mir. Human. Language. Collection of scientific works. 2019. Vladimir: Izd-vo VlSU, pp. 252-258. [in Russ].

9. Novikova N.V., Bondar O.A. (2013). Communicative postulates of pragmalinguistics through the prism of the category "nedoskazannost (understatement)" // Bulletin of Nizhnevartovsk State University. No. 2. pp. 13-18 [in Russ].

10. Takhtarova S.S. Category of communicative mitigation (cognitive-discursive and ethnocultural aspects): Autoref. dis. ... Dr. phil. sciences. Volgograd, 2010. – p. 41. [in Russ].

11. Vorkachev S. G. Variative and associative properties of teleonomic linguistic concepts [Text] / S. G. Vorkachev. – Volgograd, Paradigma, 2005. – 214 p. [in Russ].

12. Karasik, V. I. Language circle: personality, concepts, discourse. Volgograd: Peremena, 2002. – 477 p. [in Russ].

13. Kryukova G. A. (2008). Postgraduate notebooks // Proceedings of the A. I. Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University. No. 59. – p. 35. [in Russ].

14. Likhachev D. S. The concept scheme of the Russian language. M.: Slovo, 1993. – 540 p. [in Russ].

15. Rudakova A.V. (2004). Cognitology and cognitive linguistics. Voronezh: Istoki, 2004. – pp. 3-4, 11-14, 67. [in Russ].

16. Alefirenko N.F. (2010). Concept – concept – category in the light of modern linguocognivistics // Scientific Bulletin of Belgorod State University. Series: Humanities. No.18 (89). pp. 5-12 [in Russ].

17. Zakharova E.P. (1998) The communicative category of alienness and its role in the organization of speech communication // Questions of stylistics: inter-university collection of scientific works. Saratov: Izd-vo Sarat. un-ta. pp. 87-94. [in Russ].

18. Tislenkova, I.A., Tikhaeva, V.V., Bgantseva, I.V., Ionkina E.Y. (2020). Psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic parameters of speech of elderly women from the Upper class. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. Volume 49. No. 2. pp. 319-334.