Dialogue and Dialogization in Modern Russian Scientific Journalism

Abstract

AbstractThe article is dedicated to the speech forms of popularizing scientific knowledge in media discourse. The authors consider the directions of dialogization of popular science newspaper, radio and TV texts, as well as the reflection of media professionals involved in the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The article puts forward the thesis that, despite the difference between print and on-air media, they retain the general key principles of popularizing scientific knowledge: reliability, provability, reliance on authoritative sources, a combination of serious content and an accessible form that is attractive to the mass audience. Media reflect the growing public demand for popularization of scientific knowledge aimed at the rapprochement of the naïve and scientific images of the world, overcoming myths and superstitions. A live dialogue of a scientist and a non-professional must be ensured to achieve this goal. A journalist involved in the popularization of science acts as an intermediary in this communication. The article is concerned with such dialogization techniques as an interview of a journalist with a representative of the scientific community; citing scientists in a media text; a conversation of co-hosts, one of whom represents science, the other represents general public. The authors point out the expansion of colloquial, vernacular, and slang means into a popular science text, which are used to reduce the distance between the author and the addressee. One of the principles of modern popular science media text is to ensure comfortable communication for a layperson. On this basis, the authors of the article recognize the popular science style as a component of not scientific, but journalistic style of the modern Russian literary language.KeywordsPopularization of sciencePopular science styleScientific styleJournalistic styleDialogueDialogization