Functional load of gradation of evaluative meanings in woman’s portrait descriptions (based on the material of modern Ukrainian women’s prose)

The article attempts to analyze the estimated value of language units by finding out their functional load on the gradation scale in woman’s portrait. The interpretation of the key concepts “portraiture”, “rating scale” is given. Due to the broad approach to modeling of woman’s portrait in fiction, the concept of “gradation” as a category that reproduces the positive / negative attitude to the object and, accordingly, its movement on the scale of general evaluation is proposed to interpret. The main markers of the expression of gradation in woman’s portrait descriptions are adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, which has been found. They intensify or de-intensify the meaning on the scale of traditional (established) antinomies. The role of color names on the gradation scale is determined (to characterize the hair of a woman with a red nucleus). The gradation of the estimated value of language units in other descriptions of the internal state, the character of a woman (mostly with negative values) is reproduced. The gradation series of nomenclatures is demonstrated, in which the process of formation of original paraphrased nominations is traced.