Emotion as a component of scientific cognition (a case study of texts produced by E. D. Polivanov and M. V. Panov)

The relevance of the study is conditioned by the growing interest of domestic and foreign scientists in the features of cognitive processes, including their affective component. Language data are recognized in some cases as the only key to this kind of knowledge. This study draws on the research papers and letters of two linguists, an orientalist E. D. Polivanov and a Russianist M. V. Panov. The purpose of the study was to identify motives for emotional reactions indicating the achievement of the result of scientific knowledge, to distinguish between the universal and the individual in such reactions, and to describe the language markers of the affective component of scientific research. The intended goal was achieved using the methods of content analysis, comparative analysis, and stylistic analysis, taking into account the latest data from neuroaesthetics and cognitive psychology. Conclusions were made about the need to add the “emotional reactivity/resistance to new knowledge” opposition to cognitive styles, and also about the fact that in expressing their cognitive emotions scientists are subject to social restraint to varying degrees, that the choice of tone and means of intellectual expression is influenced by the addressee factor, and that major scientists experience vivid and diverse emotions when achieving the result of scientific research. In addition, linguistic means of expressing cognitive emotion are described in interaction with means of intellectual expression.