Communicative and Pragmatic Effects of a Negative Forecast in Terms of Determining an Indecent Utterance

Abstract

The article discusses the use of speech act of a negative forecast affecting the personal sphere of the addressee in order to insult him. The indecent semantics of an utterance that violates ethical norms and communication conventions is considered as one of the indecent forms (methods) of expression. Pragmatics presents the study of the ethical aspect of communication in the conversational postulates, the principles of politeness. However, these principles can hardly be used for linguistic examination to detect the infliction of psychological damage. The affecting negative forecast is of undoubted interest for the theory and practice of linguistic examination, since the influence of a forecasting text may cause psychological harm to the addressee in the form of humiliation of his honor and dignity. Since the negative forecast often represents a mixture of fact and predictive version it becomes an effective tool of influence. Critical publications in Omsk media are analyzed to consider the problem of detection of indecent form as a way of transference of indecent content in the speech act of a negative forecast. The author concludes that a speech act of negative forecast with taboo or ethically questionable semantics can be considered as a marker of indecent form. The emotional nature of the forecasting text makes it an effective tool for influencing the personality and its psychological sphere. This provides an added incentive for an in-depth study of these issues in the aspect of the legal assessment of verbal aggression and cases of offence in particular.