TEMPORALITY IN MODERN MEDIA GENRES (on the material of German and Ukrainian languages)

Abstract

The article aims to answer the question: is there any correlation between the temporality and the genre affiliation of media texts? And, if it is a case: how does it manifest itself in the structure of media texts? The research is carried out on the material of modern frequency genres selected from German and Ukrainian newspapers. In the study we use the Сhi-Square-Test and the coefficient of Chuprov. The analysis revealed a correlation between the temporality and the genre affiliation in both media cultures. In news genres the past tense dominates, the present tense is less used and occasionally the forms of the future tense occur. In media text-interviews, on the contrary, the present tense dominates, the past and future tense forms are less represented. In the analytical genre the present tense dominates, followed by verb forms in past and future tenses. In the structure of German and Ukrainian news genres the following algorithm can be traced: in the lead – present (frequently), past (less frequently) tenses, in the body – past, present, and future tenses, in the final part – past, present, and future tenses. The interview-texts are characterized by the following sequence of tense use: in the lead – present and past tenses, in the body – present and past tenses, in the final part – present, past, and future tenses. For the analytical genre, the following algorithm is inherent: in the lead – present and past tenses, in the body – present, past, and future tenses. According to the statistical calculations, statistically significant results were obtained for the past tense in the German news items, for the present tense – in the German text-interviews, and for the future tense – in the Ukrainian text-interviews.