Linguistic argumentative approach to the analysis of the vestimentary discourse of the Soviet periodical press of the 1960s

Abstract

This article is part of the author’s dissertation research. Our research, which began with the study of fashion discourse in general and the fashion discourse of the 1960s in particular, led us to the discovery of the fact that in this field there are currently no linguistic works covering the period of the second half of the 20th century. The author presents a review of several Russian-language sources — monographs and articles written in the 21st century by Russian researchers in the fields of cultural studies, art history, sociological and economic research, analysing the features of the 1960s era in the spheres of production and consumption in the Soviet Union. Our article presents a linguistic argumentative approach to the analysis of the vestimentary discourse that unfolded on the pages of Soviet printed periodicals in the 1960s; articles and notes from the newspaper “Sovetskaya Kultura” [Soviet Culture] were especially interesting for us. In the article, we pay attention to the following aspects identified by us, inherent in the newspaper vestimentary discourse of the analysed era: the tactics of exposing anti-creativity (detective script); actualisation of the effect of deceived expectations; objectivity and subjectivity of professional discourse; reflection as a factor of the adequate implementation of vestimentary discourse elements (explicativeness of discourse); the tone of discourse (an optimistic ending as the author’s attitude). Each of the listed blocks of our work is illustrated by vivid examples — excerpts from two articles from the newspaper “Sovetskaya Kultura” [Soviet Culture] for 1960 and 1965. Using the methods of contextual and linguistic argumentative analysis, we find that the Soviet vestimentary discourse of the 1960s was characterised by dialogueness, explicativeness, and concern for the addressee. The results of our research can be practically applied in teaching the following disciplines: discourse and communicative practices, linguistic argumentation, text analysis and interpretation, the history of Russian journalism, the language of press.