Cognitive approach to auditory observed from the position of the Observer – interpreter

Department of foreign languages № 2, Institute of linguistics and Intercultural communication, Irkutsk National Research Technical University, 83, Lermontov street, 664074 Irkutsk, Russian Federation

^* Corresponding author: miamina@mail.ru

Abstract

An Observer can act as an instrument of conceptual and semantic analyses. The analysis is not reduced to sensor perception only. Such aspects of perception as mental, evaluative and affective or emotional are not less relevant. In this case an Observer acts an evaluating and perceiving party. The Observer’s functioning is strongly affected by the nature of the observed. The permanent fact is that when we are discussing an Observer there is always something observed. An Observer perceives the subject matter and evaluates the situation as a whole. The observed phenomenon and events are interpreted by the Observer through speech-act verbs such as to hiss, to bleat, to grumble, to babble. The semantic meaning of these predicates contains a perceptive and evaluative component, which in its turn means an Observer present. The last one perceives, interprets and evaluates not just the proposition of the speech act, but the so called paralinguistic component, not less relevant in the communicative process. The article considers an issue on different cognitive and affective states of an Observer – interpreter of a communicative speech act, caused by a specific speech manner of communicants.