Optimism / pessimism of the language consciousness of the “Beatles” leaders (on the basis of the song texts)

Verbal representation of optimism or pessimism of language personality is observed in the article as a private case of expressing language consciousness. Language consciousness is understood as a person’s knowledge about the world and his position in this world that is called “I-existence”. The authors informs that the language consciousness issue is enhanced with the studies of: 1) I-and-We utterances, performatives including; 2) contexts with personal and possessive pronouns; 3) various verbal means of personal subjective evaluation of the latest reality by the speaker; 4) verbal expression of optimism / pessimism of a person. Having studied the research methodology of American psycholinguist M. Seligman that is directed at differentiation of three parameters of an explanatory style (permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization), the authors planned and tested their own way of defining gradation between optimism / pessimism in evaluative utterances from the songs written by the “Beatles” leaders John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The analysis of song lyrics resulted in calculating general index of optimistic / pessimistic consciousness for every song poet. The quantitative data points to the fact that in J. Lennon’s utterances the pessimistic view on life prevails whereas in P. McCartney’s song lyrics it is optimism. The authors conclude that deeper investigation of significant differences in the language consciousness of the “Beatles” leaders might be continued with the aim of getting more detailed linguistic facts on textual ways of finding optimism or pessimism in the personal language consciousness.