Директивные конструкции в образовательных видеоблогах: выявление кросс-культурных особенностей

Abstract

As videoblogging has become a universal, personalized, and affordable form of communicating diverse content to a wider public, educational video blogs (vlogs) have been gaining popularity as a new medium for self-presentation, information sharing and creating a friendly learning environment. The aim of this research is to uncover cross-cultural features of the use of directive speech acts in educational vlogs in Russian and in English. Directive constructions have been actively studied before due to their complex multifunctional character revealed in different kinds of settings. It has been established that directive speech acts promote clarity and addressee’s engagement in the information flow. To see how directive constructions are used in the analyzed videos, the transcripts of the videos chosen for the study were scrutinized by means of pragmatic and contextual methods. Then lexico-grammatical patterns of directive constructions, identified in these videos, were systematized, classified and statistically processed. It was discovered that the vloggers in both languages, as they become more experienced, tend to use more directives in their discourse. In Russian, explicit imperative constructions are more actively used. Whereas in English, less impositive and solidarity directives prevail. The conclusion is made that directive speech acts promote clarity and dialogue in educational vlogs, yet their types depend on cultural traditions of institutional communication.