POSITIVE LEXEMES AS AXIOLOGICAL MARKERS IN BILINGUAL POETIC DISCOURSE: TOWARDS A CASE STUDY OF IBRAIM YUSUPOV

Abstract

Positive lexemes — words encoding approval, beauty, virtue, and emotional warmth — play a central role in constructing ethical, emotional, and aesthetic meaning in discourse. While evaluative semantics has been studied extensively in media, political, and educational contexts, its function in bilingual poetic texts remains largely unexplored. This paper sets out a theoretical and methodological framework for examining positive lexemes in the bilingual Karakalpak- and Russian-language poetry and essays of the prominent Karakalpak writer Ibraim Yusupov. Drawing on appraisal theory and evaluative semantics, it proposes a four-cluster classification of positive lexemes — moral, emotional, aesthetic, and collective identity — and formulates hypotheses about how these lexemes may function similarly, and differently, across Yusupov's Karakalpak and Russian texts. Empirical application of the framework to a compiled corpus is presented as the next stage of the project.