Modern popular science radio discourse: The principle of dialogicity

Abstract

The article is devoted to identifying specifics of modern popular science media discourse. The authors conduct a comparative communicative-pragmatic and stylistic analysis of composition, speech means and discursive techniques of educational radio programs which have such feature as explicated dialogicality — representing conversation between a journalist and an expert. The leading principle of popular science radio program is dialogization: actual dialogue between a journalist and an expert is supplemented by conditional dialogue between a journalist and a scientist who does not participate in the program, as well as between a journalist and a generalized addressee — a representative of mass audience. The article notes such journalist speech moves that contribute to dialogization of discourse, as evaluation and criticism of expert’s statements by the program host and also use of “naive listener” speech mask. The tactics of illustrative explanation, appeal to personal experience, and stylistic transformation used by radio journalists are considered. The authors note the redistribution of lexical means between participants of the dialogue, characteristic of the era of Internet communication: scientific terminology is actively used by the presenter, and stylistically low lexemes — by the expert, which entails a relative stylistic uniformity with the predominance of conversational tonality. This set of techniques determines the priority communicative position of journalist, which is not typical for classical popular science discourse. The authors conclude that the popular science sub-style belongs to the journalistic style of modern Russian language. The principle of dialogicality of popular science discourse creates in the listener the idea that the authors of radio program conduct a conversation with him on an equal footing. The willingness of a journalist to model in his mind the image of a possible recipient and act in his interests ensures the effectiveness of popularization of scientific knowledge in modern mass media.