Linguistic Means of Expressing Irony in Buryat Written Texts

The relevance of this study is determined by the growing importance of anthropocen-tric linguistics and the limited research on the verbalization of emotions in the Buryat language. The article focuses on identifying lexical means and figures of speech that convey a person’s emotional state. The research material consists of excerpts from contemporary literary texts and historical narratives of the Buryats written in the classical Mongolian script. It is established that narrative texts in Buryat make limited use of emotional ex-pression, with the exception of irony. Although irony and sarcasm are widespread in any society, the linguistic means of their expression remain insufficiently studied in linguistics. The analysis shows that in Buryat written texts irony can be conveyed through such linguis-tic means as stylistically marked vocabulary (in particular, hyperbole arising from the use of elevated style), modal particles (da-a / даа, geeshe / гээшэ, -l(e) / -л(э), etc.), and repetition (lexical, semantic, and others). These elements are not markers of ironic utterances in themselves; however, in a specific context they are capable of conveying hidden mockery, the speaker’s negative attitude toward something, and a particular emotional – intellectual coloring – irony that may develop into sarcasm.