Lexico-morphological means of expressing emotivity: emotive lexis, affixation, intensifiers, and interjections

Abstract

This article examines how emotivity − the linguistic encoding of a speaker’s subjective emotional stance − is realized through four lexico-morphological resources of English: emotive lexis, affixation, intensifiers, and interjections. Rather than treating these devices separately, the study integrates them into one analytical frame, tracing how each contributes a distinct, complementary layer to affective expression in discourse. Using a qualitative-integrative design, it synthesizes empirical findings from corpus-based, pragmatic, and typological studies published mainly between 2020 and 2025, supplemented by illustrative material drawn from the primary sources. Results show that emotive lexis operates through the connotation-denotation split and evaluative vocabulary in confrontational or affiliative discourse; affixation, especially diminutive and augmentative morphology, encodes graded stances from endearment to contempt; intensifiers show no uniform semantic “wear-out” displaying register-sensitive productivity instead; and interjections occupy a structurally central, not marginal, role in interaction, with language-specific, phonosemantically shaped inventories. Emotivity thus emerges as a layered system combining lexical, derivational, and interactional resources rather than isolated devices.