Speech genres

Speech-genre semantics is a relatively new branch in genre studies, although it directly intersects with traditional problems of linguistics: it studies the reflection of the properties of discursive, speech-genre, and similar phenomena in the semantics of language units: from the organization of their immediate lexicalsemantic structure (which, in turn, is appropriately represented in the communicative-linguistic competence of people and is recorded when compiling dictionaries) to the features of distribution, syntactic and pragmatic valence, and other text-generating potentials. The article shows the intersections of speech-genre semantics with cognitive genristics (the main task of speech-genre semantics is to study the reflection of speech-genre systematicity in the semantic structure of vocabulary, the main task of cognitive genristics is to study the cognitive and semantic structure of names of speech genres and related speech units), an integral description of speech genres (with an adequate description of contextual, pragmatic, phatic, etc. semes, the semantic structure of words shows a tendency towards complexity and interdisciplinarity). The author discusses the latest research in the framework of cognitive genristics and its significance for speech-genre semantics. Thus, in conceptual studies proper, there has recently become more active a direction where various speech genres and genre-like phenomena (communicative tonality, communicative concept, communicative type) are used as a source of knowledge about language and linguacognitive units. Speech-genre semantics is in demand in studying speech-informative verbs, speech stereotypes, especially those whose speech-genre determinacy is high (with the word “genre”, etc.). There is a special focus on the problems of speech-genre semantics in the aspect of applied lexicology: speech-genre labels in linguistic consciousness and dictionaries of various types, primarily in associative reverse dictionaries.

The CONSTITUTION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION is the main speech genre of the nuclear zone of the Russian legislative discourse, which by the criterion of legal force takes the central place in the system of legal discourse and is crucial for the formation of the “linguistic legal consciousness” of our society. The premise of modeling is the notion of the legislative discourse, which is understood as a hierarchically arranged system generalized through speech genres of normative legal act texts. According to the legal classification of normative legal acts of the federal level, the nuclear zone of the Russian legislative discourse is constituted by the following speech genres: CONSTITUTION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION, International Treaty, International Convention, International Agreement, Federal Law, Federal Code, Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation. The CONSTITUTION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION occupies a special place and enters the nuclear zone of the first order due to a number of specific speech-genre features: 1) the nomination of the Russian Federation has evaluative and anthropomorphic character, which was established on the basis of an anthropometric study; 2) the image of the Author/Addressee in the CONSTITUTION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION is convergent, which is manifested in autodialogy. The term convergent is interpreted as convergence or coincidence of two or more entities. The cumulative image of the Author/Addressee correlates with the CITIZEN – STATE opposition, which has a genre-forming potential and shows a “portrait in the background”; 3) dictum, associated with the concept of social contract and realized by means of deontic modality, reflects the function of persuasion (according to V. V. Vinogradov); 4) axiological character of the text of the Constitution of the Russian Federation is explicated through the use of ameliorative lexicon, which is not characteristic of a typical manifestation of the official business functional style.

The author analyzes the text of M. Yu. Lermontov’s “Blue mountains of Caucasus, greetings to you!”, which is significant for Russian culture. The study shows that, by its genre, this text is an encomium – a eulogy in honor of a deity or hero, originally in a verse form. The genre of the text determines its eloquent form, in particular periodic and foot rhythmization, which bring this miniature closer to the sound of the verse. Foot rhythmization gives the text the form of rhythmic prose; the interpretation of this text as a “poem in prose” (e. g.: V. V. Litvinov, A. M. Ranchin) is difficult to accept, since a poem in prose as a speech genre is not subjected to either colometric or a fortiori end-to-end foot rhythmization. The text is written in dactyl; dactyl, as a descending meter, gives the miniature an emotional minor. The text is prosaic in its form, since there is no writing “in a column” and, consequently, obligatory terminal pauses in it. In this regard, attempts to interpret this text as a poem are questionable, as well as the opinion that the rhythm in this text changes from phrase to phrase (S. N. Durylin, B. I. Yarkho, S. I. Kormilov, etc.). Terminal, in particular phrasal pauses are inappropriate here, since they break: a) the dactylic structure of the text, changing the minor descending rhythm to the major ascending one; b) the monotonous flow of speech corresponding to the melody of prayer.

The article deals with peculiarities of evaluating Internet news comments. The author raises the questions of the object of evaluation, methods of its expression and innovations of the modal-temporal perspective for the genre nature of comments. To answer these questions, the author analyzed comments on the short media stories that received an active reader response. The methodology is based on the understanding of a media text as a multi-textured organization and the correlation of the content of a media story and comments on it. The analysis of the material was carried out using a semantic and a descriptive method, which, according to V. P. Moskvin, involves two analytical techniques: observation to identify expected characteristics and comparison. The result of the study was the conclusion about the importance of modal-temporal characteristics for the genre nature of the commentary and the idea of the commentary not as a genre, but as a type of text that can contain different genres. Thus, the comments may contain texts of different genres, and their genre palette is enriched due to modal-temporal characteristics.

The article examines ‘well-wishes’ as a speech genre that was initially borrowed from direct communication, but transformed over time and is now functioning in the web environment in the form of pictures or drawings containing poetic and prosaic texts, GIF animations, videos, slide shows of static images replacing each other and accompanied by music, as well as audio files (audio postcards or voice greetings). Most often, wishes alone or together with congratulations form the content of virtual cards (graphic genre), intended for various occasions: official and unofficial holidays, joyful events or development of interpersonal relationships. The research indicates a high prevalence of virtual cards with wishes in the collections of various Internet resources and presents the results of the analysis of digital marketing in the field of holiday discourse genres. Genre innovations give rise to ambiguous social perceptions. On the one hand, virtual cards are in demand and are used as ready-made templates for congratulations and wishes for all occasions; on the other hand, their texts and graphic features become risk factors. The study shows the social perception of texts and graphic design of postcards based on statements collected by the authors on various Internet sites, This perception is clearly evidenced by reflective statements containing rational, linguistic, emotional and ethical meta-evaluations. We have identified meta-evaluative statements based on intercultural differences, in particular, drawing attention to the perception of wishes among young people exposed to the trends of the feminist subculture, which is characterized by ideas that contradict the traditional values of Russian culture. The presented metatexts indicate the processes of change in the everyday consciousness of citizens under the influence of mediatization: preference is given to real communication.

The article presents the results of the linguopragmatic analysis of three evaluative speech genres of the Internet communication: video reaction, trash review and nostalgic review. The study is based on Russian and English YouTube video blogs. Since video reactions, trash reviews and nostalgic reviews originated from the speech genre “Internet review”, their communicative purpose is to evaluate the quality of some content. Nevertheless, all three genres have a number of specific characteristics. Thus, the main peculiarity of video reactions is that they show people watching and commenting on the video they are watching. The key feature of the trash review is that the object of criticism is something initially being considered to be low quality, i.e. the viewers of trash reviews are more interested in how the blogger would express his negative attitudes. As for the nostalgic review, it focuses on once popular films and TV shows which are evaluated from the perspective of the contemporary social attitudes. The ratio between positive and negative evaluation varies depending on the speech genre. However, in all three analyzed speech genres, explicit evaluation significantly prevails over implicit evaluation since blogs (performing primarily the recreational function) do not require a high level of interpretative skills of a recipient. Despite the fact that in the material under study implicit evaluative statements were identified as well, their number is relatively small.