Studia Językoznawcze

The article aims to identify linguistic indicators of emotional expression and evaluation in Adolf Dygasiński's Letters from Brazil, a text that represents a documentary and report form closely aligned with travel literature, often referred to by scholars as travel reportage, created under significant influence of naturalistic documentary style. The analysis is based on linguistic contexts in which Polish settlers and their plight is discussed. The study focuses on selected vocabulary and structures that have an emotive function. The analyses demonstrate that the use of linguistic tools for expressing emotions in the letters is relatively high, making expressiveness a prominent and dominant stylistic feature of the Letters. Dygasiński employs various linguistic tools to express emotions, drawing from different levels of language: lexis, word-formation, and syntax. The most frequent ones are those related to evaluation and intensification, particularly expressive synonyms, evaluative adjectives and adverbs, through which the author intensifies the emotional content of the statements. Intensification of feelings is also achieved through numerous metaphors, exclamations, and rhetorical questions. An expression of this emotionality is also visible in elements characteristic of spoken language, especially vocabulary from the colloquial register of the Polish language of the second half of 19th century.