Mitigation in the Scientific Discourse

Darya Abuzyarova,Svetlana Takhtarova

doi:10.7596/taksad.v7i4.1839

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of mitigation strategies and tactics in scientific discourse on the material of English, German and Russian languages. Objectivity, accuracy, consistency and clarity of presentation are traditionally distinguished as the main style-forming factors of scientific discursive practice focused on scientific knowledge. At the same time, the anthropocentrism of modern linguistic science naturally led to the inclusion in the focus of research interest of the subjective components of the scientific discourse, in which the personality of the addressee of the scientific text is reflected and to which the category of mitigation can be properly attributed. The strategy of assertive mitigation is realized in the scientific text through ritualized tactics of deictic depersonalization and modalization. These tactics reflect the interaction of two tendencies - the subjective (the author's desire to show the scientific significance of his personal contribution to scientific research, or, on the contrary, to preserve the face by softening the categoricity of the presentation) and objective (the desire to present only facts and strong evidence). The paper proves that the assertive mitigation strategy realized in the analyzed languages by ritualized tactics of depersonalization and modalization plays an important role in scientific discourse and serves, in the final analysis, to preserve the face of the addressee of the scientific text.

Highlights

Linguistic science is characterized by the active development of cognitive and discursive paradigm, which is based on "the definition of language as a cognitive process performed in communication activities and provides special cognitive structures and mechanisms in the human brain" (Kubrjakova, 2004: 406)
The category of communicative mitigation defined in western linguistics by the term "mitigation", which was introduced into pragmatics by Fraser in 1980 in the context of language techniques aimed at minimizing the possible unwanted effects in communication (Fraser, 1980: 341) refers to such structures that determine the communicative behavior of the speaker in various types of discourse
Despite the fact that the abovementioned motives seem to contradict the basic characteristics of the scientific discourse aimed at the transfer of objective, proven, verified knowledge, concrete tactics that implement the assertive mitigation strategy are actively used in scientific communication, being predominantly stereotyped, cliched in various linguocultures, and the reference to these tactics is often automatic

Summary

Introduction

Linguistic science is characterized by the active development of cognitive and discursive paradigm, which is based on "the definition of language as a cognitive process performed in communication activities and provides special cognitive structures and mechanisms in the human brain" (Kubrjakova, 2004: 406). As applied to the analysis of discourse, this paradigm is defined as the cognitive-pragmatic, involves, on the one hand, the consideration of the discourse in terms of speech acts and speech events, as well as the analysis of the actual linguistic properties of the latter and the relevant extralinguistic (sociopragmatic) factors, and on the other hand, - a description of the structures of representation of various types of knowledge that determine the speech strategies of communicants and the choice of specific language forms in the process of discursive activity (Tsurikova, 2006: 6)

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Conclusion