Vol 18, No 1 (37) (2023)
Articles
On the starting conditions of meaning making in written speech genres
Abstract
The article deals with the initial stage of the meaning making process which occurs when a certain request of the reader comes into contact with the inner targeted orientation of the given written saying. The starting conditions of meaning making in written speech genres remind of the effect produced by the meeting of two communicating subjects, with one of them patiently expecting the coming interaction and the other striving to start the immediate interaction to the best of the situationally determined interest of the addressee. Their productive contact is a kind of a cognitive explosion. As a result, there is born a cloud of meanings which do not coincide completely neither with the meanings enclosed in the perceived text nor with the ones felt so far by the recipient. We focus on the factors associated with key verbal aggravators – dominant lexis in the text of the written speech genre and in the updated memory of those who are about to read this text. The reliability of meaning making is determined among other things by a number of intensive contextual coincidences of the key words and notions in the consciousness of the recipient and those which the given written text contains and reveals.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):6-14
6-14
Speech genre “interpretation” in the era of the Russian church schism of the 17th century: Hermeneutic and linguo-personological aspects (based on the “Book of Interpretations and Moralities” by Avvakum)
Abstract
The research presents the description of the speech genre “interpretation” on the basis of the understudied essay of Archpriest Avvakum “Book of Interpretations and Moralities”. The relevance of the topic is determined, firstly, by the small number of publications with the analysis of the source involved, and secondly, by polar and contradictory statements about the composition of the “Book of Interpretations and Moralities”. The article uses the following methods and techniques: description, context analysis, reconstruction, comparison and interpretation. For the first time, with the involvement of third-party handwritten (XIII–XVI centuries) and early printed sources (XVIIth century), both precedent features of the form of the interpretations of Avvakum and his innovation in this speech genre have been identified. The reproduction of the “verse-interpretation” structure, known from the samples of the Slavic translation of the work of Andrei of Caesarea and the explanatory psalters, should be attributed to the precedent features of the form of the interpretations. We refer to the content side of the interpretations as innovation in the speech genre. In particular, it is substantiated that the exegesis of Psalm 102 is accompanied by rethinking of Orthodox hymnography, including the Eucharistic canon, as a result of which the Old Testament source is filled with the content of the worship of the New Testament church and, therefore, turns out to be more significant and valuable than the sum of the texts used as material for interpretation.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):15-23
15-23
In the margins of the speech genres typology: A crossword puzzle
Abstract
A popular socio-cultural phenomenon, the crossword puzzle, is considered a peculiar aspect of uncodified (folk) linguistics, a spontaneous, not conditioned by an institutional intention, practice of reflecting people on the language in the referent-instrumental field of everyday consciousness. The main objective of the publication is to show that the discursive format of the crossword puzzle actualizes fundamental knowledge, concepts and categories from the thematic area of the word linguistics (lexicology). The lack of a unified strategy for the presentation of linguistic knowledge, which appears before the addressee in a wide range of modal-pragmatic intonation – from the ones which are strict lexicographic to the comic ones – is specific for this form of communication as a speech genre. A crossword puzzle acts as a semiotically multifaceted formation, integrating in its substance different aspects of the ontology of the communicative-information product: visual and verbal, play and academicism, standard and creativity. The multifaceted semiotic nature of the crossword puzzle determines its special place in the typology of texts and speech genres – the categories in which the form-creating intention underlying any intellectual work is embodied. It is a creolized (polymodal, syncretic) text dominated by pictorial semiotics and visual representation functions; in the speech genres systematics, the crossword puzzle occupies a peripheral position – due to the combinatorial specificity of its substance and the multifaceted discursive properties. Based on the analysis of the empirical material extracted from two leisure-specialized periodicals, the author reveals the peculiarity of updating knowledge about the linguistic nature of the word due to the format of communication.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):24-35
24-35
Family pedigrees as a speech genre
Abstract
The genre of family pedigrees is now becoming more widespread. However, as a speech genre, it has hardly been studied. The author began collecting data on genealogies in 2002, compiled a personal archive of family genealogies in 30 volumes, which is partly reflected in the database “Fragments of family genealogies”: certificate of state registration of the database No. 2014620814 dated June 3, 2013. Three dissertations on this issue have been defended and a large number of articles and books have been published. Now arises a question of the peculiarities of pedigrees as a speech genre. The preparation of the book “History of the Motherland in the Mirrors of Family Genealogy” (Belgorod, 2021, 420 p.) brings up this topic. It turns out that it is fragments from genealogies, taken in the plural, and comments to them that allow us to more objectively consider the history of the country in all its contradictions and cataclysms. Fragments of pedigrees become research material. The first part of the book deals with history (the revolution, the 1920s, the 1930s, etc.), the second – with family (grandfather, grandmother …). Between these parts there is a life environment, a spatial sector which we cannot avoid. In the end, a forward is made to the present time with the emphasis on how family genealogies insured people against many troubles. The article aims both at the study of family genealogy and at recording what else can be recorded and preserved for future descendants.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):36-42
36-42
Popular science articles about animals: Speech genre characteristics and their dynamics (based on the Soviet press of the 20th century and publications in Runet of the 21st century)
Abstract
The article carries out a comparative genre analysis of popular science articles about animals in the Soviet press of the 20th century, and in the Runet of the 21st century. The research is based on a model that includes the following items: animal; author and addressee; society (community of readers of the article about animals) and the state of literature; language. It is shown that the image of an animal in the article about animals is represented by a number of narrative plots: appearance; nutrition; intraspecific relationships; the birth of the young ones; attitude towards a human, which, being universal, reveal a certain dynamics in details. The image of the reader of the article about animals is also relevant: in the 20th century they were presented as a “simple Soviet person” (tendency for self-education, optimism), in the 21st century – a layman observert, in many ways reminiscent of a tourist: their attitude towards the described animals is characterized by superficial curiosity, a share of indifference, non-involvement, non-empathy, however, not excluding sentimentality. As for the dynamics of the article about animals as a speech genre, the most significant changes are the changes in the state of society / literature: “Soviet society ∼ capitalist society”, “pre-Internet literature ∼ Internet literature”. In particular, the Soviet manner of expression, which was restraint, optimistic and humanistic, is changing to permissiveness bordering on dissoluteness, pedaling “the bottom” and agonal plots. Among the linguistic means of expression in the articles about animals, the author focuses on the method of personification (the similarity of an animal to a human), which at all stages of the development of the article about animals is both a constant factor of the additional interest in the animal and a source of a number of productive models of metaphorization. The main sources of “humanizations”, specific images and precedent texts in the articles about animals are art, fiction, cinema, estrade, etc., in modern times – a new mythology created by “Hollywood-Disney”.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):43-57
43-57
The interaction of the categories of expressiveness and evaluativity in personal genres of the US media discourse
Abstract
The aim of the given research is to elucidate the correlation between lexical stylistic (expressive) devices and their contextual evaluative meanings in the genres of blog and column of the US media space. The categories of expressiveness and evaluativity are the most essential for adequate understanding and interpretation of modern media in the context of technological convergence, information exchange speed increase, tangible transformation of genre systems, and increased subjectivity. The results of linguo-stylistic, contextual, componential and quantitative analyses attest to some similarities as well as a number of significant differences in the expressive and evaluative organisation of the genres in question. The study has determined that idioms and similes are used as intensifiers of primarily negative evaluative meaning in both genres, whereas metaphors and epithets are utilised to augment the positive evaluative meaning in blogs and the negative evaluative meaning in columns. Unlike the column, the genre of blog is characterised by a wider range of combinations of lexical stylistic devices and the evaluative meanings amplified by them. Particularly in blogs, the phenomena deemed as negative can be stylistically presented in the light of positive evaluative meaning; the phenomena which are traditionally considered positive are shown through the prism of negative evaluative meaning; both positive and negative evaluative meaning can be attributed to the same phenomenon within one text; the shift from positive to negative evaluative meaning and vice versa can be observed within the ambit of sustained metaphors.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):58-65
58-65
An Internet comment as a speech genre: Axiological aspect
Abstract
The article presents the analysis of evaluation in the speech genre “Internet comment” and focuses on the ways and means of its expression. The research is based on the comments on Instagram (organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation) posts about sports, namely figure skating. The authors of the article define two relevant factors determining axiological characteristics of the Internet comment: anonymity of Internet communication and the desire of many users to stand out from other commentators. The anonymity factor leads to a more frequent use of negative evaluation and more explicit ways of its expression: online communication gives users more freedom in expressing their opinions. Since for many people expressing their opinion is equivalent to expressing disagreement with an opposite point of view, negative evaluation in the analyzed Internet comments significantly prevails over positive evaluation. Furthermore, anonymous and remote communication in cyberspace provides a suitable environment for criticizing other people’s ideas neglecting etiquette rules obligatory for face-to-face communication. The general tendency towards rather negative attitudes in the analyzed Internet comments results in more various means of expressing negative evaluation compared with the ones of expressing positive evaluation because users criticizing an Internet post may try to find more original ways of articulating their views. Thus, the research revealed that positive evaluation is mostly expressed with the help of evaluative vocabulary whereas negative evaluation in the analyzed comments can be also expressed by means of specific vocabulary as well as rhetorical questions, rhetorical exclamations, metaphors, neologisms. Indirect means of expressing evaluation can draw more attention to a comment, foster linguistic persuasion which finally helps the author of an Internet comment stand out from the crowd.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):66-73
66-73
The speech genre “wish”: An overview of modern linguistic papers
Abstract
The article presents an overview of research literature on the etiquettical conventional speech genre “wish” in Russian and foreign linguistics. The author compares definitions of the lexeme “wish” in various lexicographic sources, considers researchers’ approaches to determining the status of a wish and identifies some debatable problems of studying the genre. Particular attention is paid to the consideration of wishes within the theory of speech acts and the theory of speech genres. The article also compares researchers’ viewpoints on the debatable problems concerning pious wishes and evil wishes, as well as gives an overview of the works concerning grammatical and syntactic means of making wishes and typical models of the genre. The article provides the analysis of works with the existing classifications of wishes based on their structure and on being etiquettical/non-etiquettical, stereotypical/non-stereotypical, etc., as well as the analysis of works based on ideas about the field structure of the genre, where the core consists of clichéd wishes, and the periphery – of non-standard statements, or (according to another theory) explicit statements and imperative/modified wishes, respectively. The research points out the importance of investigating extralinguistic factors (gender, age, status-role relations of communicants) in the study of wishes. The paper reviews articles which deal with the comparison and collation analysis of wishes in different languages (Russian, English, German, Chinese, etc.). The conclusion outlines some directions for the further study of this genre in various areas and situations of communication.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):74-91
74-91
An encyclopedic elucidation of speech genres (Review of the book: Balashova L. V., Dementyev V. V. Russkiye rechevyye zhanry [Russian Speech Genres]. Moscow, LRC Publishing House, 2022. 832 p. (Studia Philologica))
Abstract
The monograph under review is an analysis of the modern state and perspectives of the Theory of Speech Genres development. This theory as offered and worked out by Michael M. Bakhtin belongs to a leading trend of the communication studies in Russia. The authors of the book are well known specialists in this field of the Humanities. They understand a speech genre as a basic unit of speech organization and give convincing arguments in favor of its integrative potential which organically unites the features of communicative, cognitive and cultural description of language. The book deals with axiological and intertextual dimensions of speech genres as well as with their creative and personological properties. A wide specter of Russian speech genres has been thoroughly analyzed with an accent on modern genres emerged in the Internet communication and in various spheres of public and private behavior which have not been described in linguistics.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):92-95
92-95
Friend, Teacher, Genre researcher (Review of the book: Prirashcheniye smysla: sbornik nauchnykh statey k yubileyu Tatiany Viktorovny Shmelyovoy. Moscow, RU-SCIENCE, 2021. 320 p.)
Abstract
This review was written in response to the publication of a collection of research articles dedicated to Tatiana V. Shmelyova’s anniversary. Therefore, all articles included in the collection “Increment of Meaning” are related to one of the leading Russian studies researchers of our time, her scientific interests and studies, among which are syntax, philology, speech genres, onomastics, media linguistics, history of science, and key words of the present moment. This review describes and analyses the research articles and reports included in the collection, describes the structure and contents of the publication, identifies the most distinct tendencies in the study of language. Some of the Tatiana V. Shmelyova’s original texts are mentioned as a favourable feature of the collection – the keynote speech at the VI International Russian Language Researchers Congress which opens the collection “Increment of Meaning”, as well as an interview with Tatiana V. Shmelyova which shows her personality as a Scientist, Teacher and Person. The unique thematic and compositional structure of the collection is especially noteworthy–the fact that along with Tatiana V. Shmelyova’s original texts there are also articles written by her colleagues, students and friends gives it a dialogic quality rarely seen in research papers, creates an impression of an unhurried conversation full of discussions about science and, at the same time, full of memories of days/months/years spent together that have inspired each of the participants of the “dialogue” to actively pursue their research and creative work. This dialogic quality is found in the form of other people’s numerous opinions and impressions of Tatiana V. Shmelyova and their experience of working with her which are present in almost every article in the collection (this review contains their quotations) as well as in a more concentrated form in the final section “Materials and Accounts”. The collection “Increment of Meaning” is not only an important research resource for specialists in the Russian language and modern linguistics, but also an invaluable source of information about Tatiana V. Shmelyova as a Person.
Speech genres. 2023;18(1 (37)):96-102
96-102