SLANG LEXICAN AS A LINGUISTIC MEANS OF EXPRESSING EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL COLORING IN THE NOVEL “ZAGRAVA” BY VIKTOR VERETENNIKOV

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of slang vocabulary and its role in the process of stylistic design of the text of the novel “Zagrava” by Viktor Veretennikov. It was found that it performs several key functions, in particular sociotypological, expressive and characterological. Such vocabulary not only gives the characters’ speech emotional inspiration and individuality, but also serves as a means of authentically reproducing the social, cultural and psychological context of the depicted era. In the course of studying slang vocabulary as a linguistic means of expressing emotional and social color in the novel “Zagrava” by Viktor Veretennikov, it was found that the use of non-literary vocabulary, in particular socially marked slang, is not only a stylistic device, but also an important component of the author’s individual speech, aimed at forming an authentic communicative atmosphere. The involvement of various layers of slang vocabulary in a literary text – youth, military, prison, professional – is not an accidental or decorative element, but a systematic linguistic and stylistic strategy of the author. It was found that slang in the work performs a number of functions: characterological (individualizes the speech of the characters, reflecting their age, social status, mentality, life experience), expressiveemotional (gives the text energy, tension, helps to convey anger, fear, contempt, sarcasm), identification (determines the character’s belonging to a certain social or subcultural environment), stylization (creates the effect of authenticity, naturalness of artistic speech) and aesthetic-semantic (deepens the content of conflicts, interpersonal relationships, worldview oppositions in the novel). Slang vocabulary in modern Ukrainian prose, in particular in Viktor Veretennikov’s novel “Zagrava”, is not a peripheral phenomenon, but an organic element of the stylistic, communicative and ideological structure of the text. Its systemic and functionally determined use requires further interdisciplinary understanding – at the intersection of linguistics, cultural studies, social psychology and literary studies.