The subject of the analysis is the adverbs «вполуха» and «вполглаза». The purpose of the study is to analyze the metaphorical model “bodily perception – social communication” based on the material of these adverbs. The theoretical basis is the work on the metaphorical potential of somatisms, on the source sphere of the “human body” for structuring a new area. Issues under consideration: metaphorical transition of quantitative and qualitative adverbs motivated by somatism from the sphere of perception to the sphere of social communication; interaction with the intensity/gradality and the communicative category “politeness” in the lexical and semantic structure of adverbs. The morphemic component “впол- (half)” is considered as a gradator. It is assumed that there is a social stereotype of communication – (a) the zero mark “do not look, do not listen” as evidence of the lack of communication and (b) the ordinary indicator “to look, to listen” as a common communicative norm. It is demonstrated on the speech material that adverbs converge in terms of intensity, forming a graduated binomial, which leads to a violation of semantic compatibility. The speech activity of adverbs with reference to the data of the National Corpus of the Russian language is considered. The main “semantic shades” (additional meanings) are revealed. It is concluded that the word вполуха is more often updated in the context of the evaluation of the parameter “politeness”. Lexical and syntactic means that mark the pejorative semantics of adverbs in the text are revealed. It is proved that the functioning in speech of adverbs вполуха and вполглаза demonstrates the interaction of the semantics of intensity and axiology (assessment on an ethical basis with the vector of pejorativeness).