Negative shift in the evaluation of an ethnonym: Hypothesis of contextual conditioning and measurement tools

The article examines the hypothesis of contextual conditionality linking the assessment of an ethnonym with the context. The assumption that words with negative connotation gravitate towards negative contexts is tested. This means, in particular, that quantitative processing of contexts can become t...

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Main Authors: E. S. Gromenko, M. A. Krongauz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. RANEPA 2025-03-01
Series:Шаги
Subjects:
Online Access:https://steps.ranepa.ru/jour/article/view/245
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author E. S. Gromenko
M. A. Krongauz
author_facet E. S. Gromenko
M. A. Krongauz
author_sort E. S. Gromenko
collection DOAJ
description The article examines the hypothesis of contextual conditionality linking the assessment of an ethnonym with the context. The assumption that words with negative connotation gravitate towards negative contexts is tested. This means, in particular, that quantitative processing of contexts can become the basis for identifying a negative tone and its quantitative qualification, i.e. the greater the percentage of negative contexts, the more intense is the negative connotation in the semantics of the word. The purpose of the study is to describe the quantitative distribution by type of context (positive, neutral and negative) of four ethnonyms: Asiatic, European, Italian, Tajik, and to offer a meaningful interpretation of this distribution. In response to this goal, the study clarifies assessments of context. Thus, firstly, among various understandings of the negativity of the context, one is selected («narrow contextual tonality»), and secondly, objective criteria for qualifying the context as negative are developed. The research material consisted of about 900 texts of comments and posts obtained by a continuous sampling method for lexical and grammatical search for the lexemes European, Asiatic, Tajik, Italian in the subcorpus of Social networks of the National Corpus of the Russian Language. An additional method for assessing the negativity of an ethnonym is considered: replacing a negative word with a euphemism. For names of ethnic groups, such a neutral eplacement is the construction of a person of ... nationality.
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spelling doaj-art-3dff8a12b4894e0090fa3733ff965e2f2025-07-19T15:03:27ZengRussian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. RANEPAШаги2412-94102782-17652025-03-0111117419110.22394/2412-9410-2025-11-1-174-191234Negative shift in the evaluation of an ethnonym: Hypothesis of contextual conditioning and measurement toolsE. S. Gromenko0M. A. Krongauz1Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики»Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики»The article examines the hypothesis of contextual conditionality linking the assessment of an ethnonym with the context. The assumption that words with negative connotation gravitate towards negative contexts is tested. This means, in particular, that quantitative processing of contexts can become the basis for identifying a negative tone and its quantitative qualification, i.e. the greater the percentage of negative contexts, the more intense is the negative connotation in the semantics of the word. The purpose of the study is to describe the quantitative distribution by type of context (positive, neutral and negative) of four ethnonyms: Asiatic, European, Italian, Tajik, and to offer a meaningful interpretation of this distribution. In response to this goal, the study clarifies assessments of context. Thus, firstly, among various understandings of the negativity of the context, one is selected («narrow contextual tonality»), and secondly, objective criteria for qualifying the context as negative are developed. The research material consisted of about 900 texts of comments and posts obtained by a continuous sampling method for lexical and grammatical search for the lexemes European, Asiatic, Tajik, Italian in the subcorpus of Social networks of the National Corpus of the Russian Language. An additional method for assessing the negativity of an ethnonym is considered: replacing a negative word with a euphemism. For names of ethnic groups, such a neutral eplacement is the construction of a person of ... nationality.https://steps.ranepa.ru/jour/article/view/245negative shiftcontextual conditioningethnonymsexpert assessmentneutral ethnonymexpressive ethnonymnegativitynegative contextcontextual tonalityeuphemy
spellingShingle E. S. Gromenko
M. A. Krongauz
Negative shift in the evaluation of an ethnonym: Hypothesis of contextual conditioning and measurement tools
Шаги
negative shift
contextual conditioning
ethnonyms
expert assessment
neutral ethnonym
expressive ethnonym
negativity
negative context
contextual tonality
euphemy
title Negative shift in the evaluation of an ethnonym: Hypothesis of contextual conditioning and measurement tools
title_full Negative shift in the evaluation of an ethnonym: Hypothesis of contextual conditioning and measurement tools
title_fullStr Negative shift in the evaluation of an ethnonym: Hypothesis of contextual conditioning and measurement tools
title_full_unstemmed Negative shift in the evaluation of an ethnonym: Hypothesis of contextual conditioning and measurement tools
title_short Negative shift in the evaluation of an ethnonym: Hypothesis of contextual conditioning and measurement tools
title_sort negative shift in the evaluation of an ethnonym hypothesis of contextual conditioning and measurement tools
topic negative shift
contextual conditioning
ethnonyms
expert assessment
neutral ethnonym
expressive ethnonym
negativity
negative context
contextual tonality
euphemy
url https://steps.ranepa.ru/jour/article/view/245
work_keys_str_mv AT esgromenko negativeshiftintheevaluationofanethnonymhypothesisofcontextualconditioningandmeasurementtools
AT makrongauz negativeshiftintheevaluationofanethnonymhypothesisofcontextualconditioningandmeasurementtools