Abstract: This article is dedicated to examination of verbal means of expression of authorial commentaries in English fiction. The relevance of the selected topic is defined by the fact that the question of characteristics of authorial commentaries remain an insufficiently studied area within the framework of interpretation of a literary work. Such linguists as R. Posner in the “Theory of Commentaries”, I. V. Arnold in the “Stylistics of Decoding”, and N. D. Arutyunova in her work “On the Problems of Structural Linguistics” have been dealing the topic at hand. Examination of the authorial commentaries allows assessing the depth and wholeness of the literary work. The article presents the analysis of linguistic means of functionality of authorial commentaries in the English-language novel “Sister Carrie” by Theodore Dreiser. Authorial commentaries manifest as one of the means for explication of dialogical nature of the literary text. Linguistic means emphasize the expressiveness of authorial commentaries within the framework of progression of a storyline. Most of the authorial commentaries in T. Dreiser's novel “Sister Carry” represent the contrasting contexts, reflected in the development of two thematic lines. To the first theme includes the associative series: beast – nature – the forces of life. The second semantic layer is demonstrated in the line: human – man – free will. Contrasting contexts originate the oppositions not only on the level of meaningful-logical information, but also on the level of subtext.

Abstract: The article is devoted to the analysis of verbal means used to represent personal emotional states. The research is based on the analysis of movies in English. Despite the fact that there has been a great number of researches on the linguistic reflection of emotions, linguists admit that the main issues of the theory of lexical affectability. The article includes the analysis of the main functions of linguistic means used to convey positive and negative emotions in the process of communication. The basis of the research involves the classification of emotions offered by K. Izard. The research has been made as part of the discursive paradigm. The author has applied the methods and techniques of the linguitic analysis of actual material such as the continuous sampling method, component analysis and content analysis of lexical units. The scientific novelty of the research is caused by the fact that the author performs a discursive analysis of emotional states of personality in the English linguistic culture. The analysis results demonstrate that positive emotions such as interest, joy and surprise are usually expressed through exclamations, interjections, explematory sentences that have the 'I' pronoun, elliptical sentences and appelative words as their parts. Negative emotions such as anger, sadness, disdain, fear, shame or guilt are most frequently expressed by emotionally coloured words, 'God' exclamation, elliptical sentences and intonation.