Verbs making up the lexical-semantic field “to spend money”

Verbs	Dictionary Definition	Russian Translation
splash out	“to spend a lot of money on sth.” [5**, p. 276]	«разориться, раскошелиться» [8**, p. 237]
fork out	“to pay a lot of money for sth., especially when you do not want to” [5**, p. 106]	«раскошелиться, выложить денежки» [8**, p. 198]
cough up	“to pay for sth. or give sb. money unwillingly” [5**, p. 64]	«отстегнуть, раскошелиться (неохотно выложить деньги)» [8**, p. 188]
splurge	“If you splurge on something, you spend a lot of money, usually on things that you do not need” [6**]	«разориться, раскошелиться» [8**, p. 144]
shell out	“to pay for sth., especially when it is a lot of money or you do not really want to” [5**, p. 258]; “to make payment. From the notion of taking seeds out of their pod or shell” [7**, p. 188]	«раскошелиться; отстегнуть (неохотно выложить деньги)» [8**, p. 232]
snap up	“to buy or seize sth. quickly and eagerly” [5**, p. 270]	«схватить, расхватать (быстро купить, не задумываясь)» [8**, p. 235]; «расхватать» [9**, p. 645]

The common seme “to spend money” is the core of this lexical-semantic field, which in turn contains two lexical-semantic groups: 1) with a negative connotation – “to overspend” («раскошелиться»): “splash out”, “fork out”, “cough up”, “splurge”, “shell out”; 2) with a positive connotation – “to buy up” («расхватать»): “snap up”.

Within this lexical-semantic field there are two types of semantic relations – inclusion and opposition. Each type in turn has several types of relations. Inclusion is the relationship type based on common semes. It is represented in the following types:

1) synonymic relation between units that are located on one or several hierarchical levels (“splurge”  «разориться, раскошелиться»; “splash out”  «разориться, раскошелиться»; “fork out”  «раскошелиться, выложить денежки»);

2) gradual relation between synonymic units denoting different degrees of this notion (“fork out”  «раскошелиться, выложить денежки»; “shell out”  «раскошелиться, отстегнуть»; “cough up”  «отстегнуть, раскошелиться», where the units “shell up” and “cough up” have the seme of “reluctantly spend money” («неохотно выложить деньги») [12. p. 103].

Opposition is a type of relation based on the opposition of the semes content. It is represented through antonymic relation (“snap up”  «схватить, расхватать (to buy fast, without thinking); “shell out”  «раскошелиться; отстегнуть (“to reluctantly spend money” - «неохотно выложить деньги») [12, p.111].

The analysis of the articles from the professional sections of the English-language mass media outlets allowed identifying expressions that make up the lexical-semantic field “to spend money”, as well as the singularities of their use at the following linguistic levels: graphic, lexical, syntactic and semantic.

At the syntactic level all the sentences are declarative, i.e. contain some message, while at the lexical level most colloquial expressions are phrasal verbs.

Let us consider examples from the Business section of The Independent and the BBC News.

Chinese tourists splashed out £29m in shopping centres and on high streets across the UK during this month’s Golden Week holiday, lured by a cheap pound in the aftermath of last year’s Brexit vote [1*].  Привлеченные сниженным курсом фунта стерлингов после прошлогоднего голосования по Brexit, китайские туристы раскошелились на 29 миллионов фунтов стерлингов в торговых центрах и на главных улицах Великобритании во время праздника Золотой недели в этом месяце (Authors’ translation).

At the lexical level, the metaphor “splashed out” («разориться, раскошелиться») is used to reflect hefty expenses of Chinese tourists during the Golden Week (a few days of festivities extended into the weekend, in East Asia countries) caused by a depreciated pound rate.

The bank and its shareholders will be mighty relieved to settle this decade-long case with the US Department of Justice for a sum less than half the amount some of its investors were expecting to fork out [2*]. Банк и его акционеры будут очень рады урегулировать это десятилетнее дело с Министерством юстиции США на сумму, меньшую половины той суммы, которую некоторые из его инвесторов были готовы выложить.

The metaphor “fork out” («раскошелиться, выложить денежки») reflects the author’s enthusiasm with regard to the Royal Bank of Scotland and its shareholders who will have to be paid a much smaller sum than they expected to receive due to the largest privatization in Great Britain, when 71% of the state’s stake was given to the private economy in order to mitigate the financial crisis.

Next let us consider an example from the Media section of The Guardian.

Boris Johnson has reignited the row over who should fund free TV licenses for the over-75s, urging the BBC to “cough up” [3*]. Борис Джонсон возобновил спор о том, кто должен финансировать бесплатные телевизионные лицензии для лиц старше 75-ти лет, призывая Би-би-си «раскошелиться».

At the graphic level, quotation marks are used in the metaphoric verb “cough up” («отстегнуть, раскошелиться» (“to reluctantly spend money” - «неохотно выложить деньги»), to quote the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and concurrently, at the semantic level, emphasize the author’s irony towards the BBC, who should be allocated the funds to finance the free-of-charge television licenses enabling senior citizens aged 75+ to watch TV shows.

Let us study several examples from the Technology section of the BBC News and The New York Times.

General election 2019: Parties splurge on Facebook ads.  Всеобщие выборы 2019: партии разоряются на рекламе в Facebook.

The Liberal Democrats appear to be on an even bigger splurge [4*]. Либеральные демократы, похоже, разоряются еще больше.

The emotional impact on the readers is augmented due to using underscored bold type at the graphic level. The verb “splurge” («разориться, раскошелиться») metaphorically reflects the enormous investments of the political parties into advertising in the course of election campaigns.

The moves were part of a spending spree by the social network, which also shelled out $400 million last month to buy an animated GIF company and which is spending millions of dollars to build a nearly 23,000-mile undersea fiber-optic cable encircling Africa [5*]. Эти шаги составили часть растущих расходов социальной сети, которая в прошлом месяце также отстегнула 400 миллионов долларов на покупку анимационной GIF-компании и которая тратит миллионы долларов на строительство подводного оптоволоконного кабеля вокруг Африки протяженностью более 37000 километров.

At the lexical level, the phrasal verb “shell out” («раскошелиться; отстегнуть» (“to reluctantly spend money” - «неохотно выложить деньги») constitutes a metaphor. It is used by the author of the article to expressively convey the image of the Facebook company, which invests hefty sums into potentially lucrative projects. The pragmatics of this utterance also lies in the fact that the author thus expresses their attitude to the company’s financial policy.

Let us turn to the next example.

Microsoft also snapped up three cloud computing companies in the last few months — Affirmed Networks, Metaswitch Networks and Softomotive — to offer more technology to businesses [5*]. За последние несколько месяцев Microsoft также расхватала три компании, которые занимаются облачными вычислениями,  Affirmed Networks, Metaswitch Networks и Softomotive  чтобы предложить больше технологий для бизнеса.

The colloquial phrasal verb “snap up” («схватить, расхватать» (“to buy fast, without giving it much though” - быстро купить, не задумываясь») is used by the article’s author as a metaphor to demonstrate the active optimization of business processes in the Microsoft corporation during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. This wordplay technique vividly reflects the corporation’s entrepreneurial spirit and its ability to find its way out of any predicaments.

Linguistic and extralinguistic means used to produce emotional impact on the recipient

From the perspective of the linguopragmatics of professional discourse, linguistic and extralinguistic means have been identified that are used to produce an emotional impact on the recipient in the articles of the English-language mass media outlets.

The most popular ones are metaphor (30% - 270 examples) at the lexical level and declarative sentences (30% - 270 examples) at the syntactic level, followed by phrasal verbs (25% - 225 examples) at the lexical level. The least frequently used are quotation marks (5% - 45 examples) and bold underscored type (5% - 45 examples) at the graphic level, as well as irony (5% - 45 examples) at the semantic level.

Conclusion.

In the course analyzing the professional sections of English-language media outlets, we singled out colloquial verbs that are actualized at the lexical level and make up the lexical-semantic filed “to spend money”: “splash out”, “fork out”, “cough up”, “splurge”, “shell out”, “snap up”. Their usage is determined by the necessity to attract attention of the readers who predominantly have clip way of thinking, inability to concentrate on reading due to the advancement of digital technologies and the prevalence of audiovisual information over verbal information.

In terms of linguopragmatics, the impact on the recipient is achieved through linguistic and extralinguistic means: quotation marks (inverted commas) and bold underscored type at the graphic level; metaphor and phrasal verbs at the lexical level; declarative sentences at the syntactical level; and irony at the semantic level.

The prospects and directions of further research are involve expanding investigations into the lexical-semantic field “to spend money”, which includes colloquial expressions within corporate communication in the context of advancing digital civilization using the material of two national variants of the English language - the British and the American ones.