Innovations of the new public administration language: professionally prestigious sociolectisms or the signs of communicative failures?

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of the formation and functioning of professional innovations in the language of Russian public administration, reflecting the manifestation of tendencies toward standardization and informality in the choice of lexical items and syntactic constructions. To conduct a research, we used methods of linguistic observation and description, methods of component, comparative and lexicographic analysis, as well as the methodology of complex cognitively oriented synchronous diachronic analysis of language subsystems and their units. Printed text versions of speeches by people in the Government and the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation were the materials for the study. A language analysis of the new public administration made it possible to single out a whole series of lexical-semantic, word-formative, morphological and syntactic innovations, which are identification marks of the studied subsystem and necessary elements of the thesaurus of a civil servant personality. A special group of language innovations of the new public administration is formed by the so-called thematically reoriented semantic neologisms. It is established that the language development of the new public administration is on the way to expand the field of functioning and strengthening its influence on the linguistic taste formation of Russian society. It is noted that the written form of communication in the field of public administration is significantly influenced by the oral colloquial element, and the results of this effect are manifested in all aspects: from lexical to communicative-pragmatic. Researchers are particularly worried about the consolidation in the professional language of the studied sphere of linguistic items violating linguistic and ethical-moral standards that create barriers for effective communication. In conclusion, it is unacceptable to actualize reduced professional language elements that contribute to the inefficiency of communication between representatives of authority and the community.