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10
Introduction
whenitcomestodiminutives,pragmaticsisofprimeimportance,sinceitisim-
portanttounderstandhowinterlocutorsusediminutiveformsintheirlanguage.
FollowingDresslerandBarbaresi(1994:1),itshouldalsobeemphasisedthatthe
meaningofsuchmorphologicaldevicesasdiminutivesufxesuappearstobe
primarilylocatedinpragmatics”,astheyuexhibitnostablesemanticvalueand
theirmeaningseemstobeofenelusive”(DresslerandBarbaresi1994:1).
Nevertheless,becauseofthefactthatdiminutivesalmostneverexpress
onlytheirfundamentalmeaningofsmallness,asusuallytheyareaccompa-
niedbysomeemotionaltinge(seeGawroński1928;Zarębina1954;Handke
1995:93-94;Wierzbicka1999),eachareaofstudyemphasisesthefactthatdi-
minutivesarebyallmeanslinkedwiththespeaker’spositiveornegativeemo-
tions(seeFoolen1997;Gąsiorek2000),when,byusingaparticularlanguage,
helshewantstoa)expresshislherattitudetowardsrealityorthepresentstate
ofafairs,orb)helshewantstoachievesomething(Data2000:246).Asmen-
tionedabove,diminutivesbelongtothegroupofexpressivelinguisticforms,
whicharemostofenusedincolloquiallanguage(Skubalanka1973:180-181;
Zgółkowa1991:49;Dunajetal.1999:236;Podracki2012:180;LiselingNilsson
2012:123)1.Familiarcharacterofdiminutiveformsstemsfromthefactthat,
inmostcases,theyareemployedininformalsituations,suchasfamilygather-
ingsorsmalltalkswithneighbours.Grabias(1988:37)writesthatalinguistic
expressionmaybedefinedasthemechanisminwhichthespeakerbecomes
apparentinagivenutterance.Emotionswhichaccompanythisprocess,con-
stituteaparticulartypeofexpression,whichconsistsinthemanifestationof
feelings.Terefore,expressivelinguisticformsaretheonesbymeansofwhich
thespeakerexpresseshislheremotionalattitudetowardstheworldhelshelives
in,orthefeaturesofhislherpersonality(Lubaś2003:181;Przybyla2001:188).
Kaproń-Charzyńska(2007:149)addsthattheyalsohelpthespeakerjudge
particularphenomenauastovalue”(DresslerandBarbaresi1994:153;seealso
Puzynina1992;Laskowska1992;Bartmiński2007:103),andsignalagivenway
ofspeaking.
Kryk-Kastovsky(1997:155)definesemotionsasuspontaneoushumanreac-
tionstoreality”andpointsoutthattheunderstandingofthetermemotiondif-
fersfromculturetocultureandfromlanguagetolanguage,thus,thelabels
forparticularemotionsarelanguage-specificanddifculttocomparecross-
linguistically.
Nevertheless,thefollowingworkconstitutesanattempttoexaminetheways
inwhichdiminutivesmayexpressemotionsinbothPolishandEnglishbycom-
paringEnglishandPolishdiminutives,theirformation,frequencyofusage,their
1Dąbrowska(1992:151)stressesthefactthatdiminutivesinmanycasesfunctionaseuphe-
mismsincolloquiallanguage,expressingpositiveattitudeofthespeakertowardsthedesigna-
tum.