Slang in forensic discourse (communicative and pragmatic aspect)

Abstract

The relevance of the work is associated with the growing interest of researchers to the problem of medical discourse as a holistic communicative education. In this article, we focus on the problem of the functioning of Medical Slang in considering forensic discourse, which, in our opinion, has not yet received a systemic linguistic description. The author of the article presents the results of a communicative-pragmatic analysis of empirical material from fragments of forensic medical discourse. On the basis of theoretical communication and the study of actual linguistic material, some features of the functioning of slang nominations in this discourse were revealed: natural lexico-semantic processes were identified that organize intra-system variation within the thematic group “Slang of a forensic expert”: narrowing and expanding the meanings of slang nominations, activation of semantic transfers. Special attention was paid to the question of interpretation of the most successful nomination for characterizing the described phenomenon. In linguistic research, there is controversy as to which term is the most accurate: «medical jargon», «slang», «professional vernacular», «non-standard vocabulary», etc. In our work we use the term «slang», it seems to us that this term most accurately reflects the content of the studied subject. The reasons for the occurrence of slang words in forensic discourse are analyzed: autonomy of professional communication; saving speech efforts in the process of communication; the psycholinguistic nature of the use of slang nominations. The revealed and interpreted communicative-pragmatic features of forensic discourse allow us to draw the following conclusions: the boundaries of the terminological and non-terminological zones in the space of discourse are mobile; activation of lexical and semantic processes, as a result of which new slang words appear or a rearrangement of the semantic content of existing units occurs. These features allow us to talk about the open nature of the forensic discourse as a cognitive structure.