Discourse Genres Research Articles

PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES AND TACTICS IN ENVIRONMENTAL TED TALKS

The article focuses on strategies, tactics and linguo-stylistic means of persuasion in such a prototypical speech genre of media environmental discourse as TED talks: the analysis of TED talks genre peculiarities is presented; the two main communicative strategies of media environmental discourse are identified – the strategy popularizing eco-friendly activities, and the strategy discrediting eco-unfriendly activities; depending on the argumentation principle employed, the three groups of tactics for expressing logos, ethos and pathos are singled out; the most frequent linguo-stylistic means of persuasion in environmental TED talks have been identified. The strategic approach emphasises that to achieve the desirable effect in public speaking within the TED format it is necessary to employ the combination of persuasive tactics to maintain a balance between the ethos, logos or pathos components of argumentation and provide a persuasive impact on the addressee increasing their environmental consciousness and promoting environmentally competent behaviour.

Linguistic picture of the world on the example of the diplomatic discourse of the Russian and Arabic languages

Cultural differences are exacerbated when relations between ethnic groups are not uniform and ideal. In today's uncertain political environment, especially taking into account the Middle East, it is usual to use various methods and strategies to create clarity and confidence to exit the "emergency" in communication processes, regardless of specific political events and circumstances. The author notes that the genre of political discourse has its own vocabulary, which includes certain routine lexical devices and clichés. However, in modern languages (including Arabic), words lose their uniqueness and become polysemic, given the globalized environment and the world in which modern man lives. The study of some languages used in political discourse and the identification of linguistic features in this area are important for linguistics due to the small number of scientific studies in the field of political discourse in Arabic and Russian. It is also noted that today there are few scientific works devoted to some aspects of modern diplomatic issues. The study notes that some linguistic activities aimed at studying and clarifying the meaning of the form of political discourse are important, especially those related to the linguistic picture of the world, Arabic and Russian languages and methods of studying political discourse.

Educational and pedagogical discourse and its axiological component in the framework of the third generation cognitive research

In this review, we intend to consider the possibility of analyzing the pedagogical discourse and its axiological component within the framework of the traditions of the third generation cognitive approach. The study of educational and pedagogical discourse is of interdisciplinary nature. Researchers from various areas of social sciences explore categorical, genre, social, linguistic, and other features of educational and pedagogical discourse. We propose to look at axiological component of educational and pedagogical discourse from the perspective of third-generation cognitive linguistics, in which the main function of language is the orientation of individual members of a particular social group. Within the biocognitive perspective, educational discourse is perceived as a part of linguistic interactions in the public sphere. It is suggested that the domain of written texts have a primary position in the public linguistic domains compared to natural language in the consensual domain of personal and family linguistics domains. In the center of this approach lies the understanding of language as a cognitive activity specific to humans as biological species. Both community and its individuals are co-determined in language and through language, and language is viewed as an interpersonal activity far from a stable system of symbols. In the relational domain of linguistic interactions between individual and society social values have a potential to exert an orientational influence on individuals.

Addressing race in English language teaching

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze a set of didactic materials developed to teach English as an Additional Language at a Brazilian public school in Rio de Janeiro. Such materials were designed to invite 7th grade students with diverse social, racial, and economic backgrounds to learn about the world and the English language from viewpoints that delineate a decolonial stance (Mignolo, 2010; Kumaravadivelu, 2016; Jansen, 2017). Grounded on the notions of Critical Race Literacy (Ferreira, 2014) and Critical Language Awareness (Alim, 2005), this paper looks into didactic activities built upon emancipatory (Freire, 1996) and transgressive (Pennycook, 2006; hooks, 2013) approaches to Applied Linguistics and Language Education, understanding English Language classrooms as privileged arenas for the construction of ideas on race. The methodological approach is based on the premises of a Dialogical Discourse Analysis (Brait, 2006/2018) to identify centripetal and centrifugal forces (Bakhtin, 1981) in the didactic materials produced. Results have indicated that the discourse genres selected (Bakhtin, 2003/1979 apud Tilio, 2017) and the set of activities developed are permeated by social voices (Bakhtin, 1981) that promote decolonial dialogues in the English language classroom.

Коммуникативная категория достоверности в устном научно-популярном дискурсе

The paper examines the peculiarities of the implementation of the communicative category of reliability in the oral popular science discourse on the Internet. The communicative category of reliability is studied using the material of lectures posted on the PostNauka educational platform. The features of the video lectures of the PostNauka project are determined, which indicate the need to consider the Russian-language online lecture as a separate genre of popular science discourse. The results of analysing the material under study are described: the markers of problematic reliability used by lecturers to attract the attention of the audience and increase the involvement of the listener in communication are highlighted, in particular, the specifics of the use of lexical means in lecture materials in Russian are examined. The aim of the research is to describe the specifics of the reliability category expression in the text of a popular science video lecture on history. The scientific novelty of the research lies in identifying the means of the reliability category expression in the oral popular science humanities discourse taking into account the lecturer’s choice of the optimal ways of constructing meanings when conveying information to listeners. As a result, it has been found that the transfer of scientific knowledge to a wide audience is characterised by the presence of problematic reliability markers. Such linguistic means include parenthetical words, indefinite pronouns, adjectives and adverbs with evaluative meanings, semantically empty lexemes, as well as lexemes requiring the communicants to have common presuppositions within the same linguistic culture.

Government statement as a genre of political discourse(on the example of the speeches of the German chancellors A. Merkel and O. Scholz)

The article examines the genre of a government statement in Germany in terms of political content and linguopragmatic specificities. It should be noted that this genre can be described as orientational-ritual, which is characterized by informing and integration strategies, as well as self-praise and tactics of promises. The texts of the speeches follow a virtually set structure. The authors’ aim is to analyze linguopragmatic specificities of the government statements made by German chancellors on taking office using the examples of speeches by A. Merkel in 2018 and O. Scholz in 2021. During the research, the following methods were used: academic literature analysis, discursive analysis, text analysis, contextual analysis, quantitative method, comparison, and generalization. The study is quite relevant due to the fact that the German chancellors’ government statements were practically not analyzed from the linguistic point of view. This approach was partially used in the works of E. Hermann, but at the same time, it is typical of German authors to consider mostly political content and the influence of government statements, which can be seen in the book edited by K. F. Korte. Among Russian researchers, D. S. Slyusarev focused on linguistic analysis of government statements. The work is logically divided into two major parts, namely political and linguistic analysis. In analyzing the political component, the authors examined the political situation in Germany at the time of the Bundestag elections of 2018 and 2021 and the assumption of power by A. Merkel and O. Scholz. In the process of linguopragmatic and discursive analysis of the speeches, the following features were noted: the use of gender-symmetric forms, idioms and metaphors, intertextuality, wordplay. Government statements are characterized by plenty of culturally marked vocabulary, which can be explained by the topic of the speeches.

REPRESENTATIVE FORMS AND SPEECH GENRES OF UKRAINIAN JUDICIAL DISCOURSE

The article is devoted to the definition of linguo-pragmatic parameters of judicial discourse, in particular, formal aspects and types of speech genres are emphasized. Oral and written forms of judicial discourse functioning are considered. The main speech genres of the Ukrainian judicial discourse are singled out and characterized. Genres such as: instruction, announcement, petition, confirmation / denial, interrogation, court speech, court decision were analyzed. It has been proven that the announcement is a monologue speech of a regulatory nature that opens and ends the judicial session; the instruction is a regulatory detailed response of professional participants in the court process; the motion is a request for the involvement of additional information, unknown before the direct consideration of the case in the court process; confirmation / refutation is an argumentative interpretation and commentary on the course of the court session for the direct participants; the interrogation covers the questioning-relevant interaction between the main participants in the judicial process; a court speech is a reasoned presentation of a position in the form of a monologue; a court decision is a monologue speech of a judge, which has a verdictive character.

GENRE SPECIFICITY OF THE VERBAL CONTENT OF THE WEB PAGE OF THE ODESSA ART MUSEUM

The article analyzes various texts presented on the pages of the Odesa Art Museum in social networks. It is substantiated that the positioning of the cultural space in the network discourse has genre specificity and involves the representation of the main genre – the post. Posts are considered as typological manifestations (informational, ritual, presentational, emotional-expressive) of network communication. Informational posts are aimed at communicating new information to addressees and are the most widely presented (post-announcement, post-report, post-statement). Ritual posts in the network discourse are a manifestation of the ritual-etiquette communicative behavior of communicators (invitation, greeting, thanks and obituary). Presentational genres of network discourse represent a certain subject or a certain object of the audience in a positive and evaluative dimension. Emotionally expressive genres are characterized by the expression of positive or negative emotions about a certain situation. Linguistic and linguopragmatic analysis was carried out within each speech genre.

КРИТЕРІЇ НАПИСАННЯ ТА АНАЛІЗ ЛІНГВІСТИЧНИХ ОСОБЛИВОСТЕЙ CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS У РОЗВИТКУ НАВИЧОК АКАДЕМІЧНОГО ПИСЬМА (НА МАТЕРІАЛІ АНГЛОМОВНИХ ТЕЗ ДОПОВІДЕЙ ДЛЯ НАУКОВИХ КОНФЕРЕНЦІЙ)

The article examines not only the issue of determining the list of criteria for successful writing of conference abstracts, but also views the ability to carry out a linguistic analysis of conference abstracts to ensure the development of academic writing skills. It outlines the meaning of key concepts, abstracts, and conference abstracts, known as secondary genres of scientific discourse. The article describes textual characteristics and application of rhetorical strategies in writing effective conference abstracts. The methods of content analysis and systematization have been used to determine linguistic features of the analyzed conference abstracts. Moreover, it claims on the importance of considering the established conventions of their meaningful writing not only for post-graduate students but for young scholars as well, since it is a common problem for all groups. Failing to meet the requirements, conference abstracts are to be denied by the committee board hosting the future scientific conference. Addressing this problem, experts of blind viewing suggest that it may be attributed to poor command of English, lack of knowledge of academic writing skills and of lexical and stylistic features. The results suggest that familiarizing students with the recent scientific data and methodology is crucial but not sufficient to develop their academic writing skills. Implementing the method of content analysis, the study places emphasis on examining various authentic scientific texts. Thus, the conclusion has been made about the significance of following the accepted format of writing conference abstracts and maintaining appropriate rhetoric strategies in the development of academic writing skills. Among the analyzed materials of the English-language conference abstracts, the most typical linguistic characteristics of this type of genre of academic writing were established: the use of Active Voice constructions, mainly verbs of the present indefinite tense, impersonal constructions, personal, possessive, and indicative pronouns in plural form which act as the subject, abbreviations and negative sentences are rarely used.

한 초등학생의 1-4학년 일기글 사례의 연대기성 발달

Objectives Learning to write a diary means learning new ways to write expository and various discourse situations. In present study examined one school aged child’s writing ability with regard to chronological genre.
 Methods The materials of diary from 1-4 grades of one student were analyzed the discourse genres as a chronological text and expressive elaboration.
 Results Results showed that, as the child’s grade level increased, the characteristics of nonchronological genre increased and overall qualitative changes were found in his diary writing. But developmental difference was varied according to the measurements among grades. Additionally, the results showed that the nonchronological genres identified from second grade were evident in diary.
 Conclusions In order to asses a student’s overall writing ability, linguistic qualitative analyses such as expressive elaboration the diary writing and discourse genres are necessary.

Popular music and art-interpretive injustice

ABSTRACT It has been over two decades since Miranda Fricker labeled epistemic injustice, in which an agent is wronged in their capacity as a knower. The philosophical literature has proliferated with variants and related concepts. By considering cases in popular music, we argue that it is worth distinguishing a parallel phenomenon of art-interpretive injustice, in which an agent is wronged in their creative capacity as a possible artist. In section 1, we consider the prosecutorial use of rap lyrics in court as a central case of this injustice. In section 2, we distinguish art-interpretive injustice from other categories already discussed in the recent literature. In section 3, we discuss the relationship between genre discourse and identity prejudice. The case for recognizing the category of art-interpretive injustice is that it allows one to recognize a class of harms as being importantly related in ways that one would otherwise overlook.

Teaching Activities for English Writing: Based on a Process Genre

The objective of this research is to improve the writing abilities of students through a concentrated emphasis on discourse patterns, content, coherence, and language suitability. The conceptual framework of the process genre approach informed the design of the course. The framework outlines the developmental stages of learners, beginning with the acquisition and understanding of knowledge, followed by its analysis, and culminating in the application of knowledge in a creative manner. Furthermore, it provides precise directives for the implementation of said principles. An academic curriculum that is based on genre should include a comprehensive understanding of discourse genres and their intricate characteristics. Proficiency in language and expertise in the subject matter are necessary for teachers to effectively utilize genre analysis in the field of education. The results indicate that educators should underscore to pupils that the attainment of English language proficiency entails the cultivation of communicative proficiency in diverse settings, alongside the acquisition of reading and writing proficiencies.

Жанры учебного онлайн-дискурса: от учебного сайта до синхронного онлайн-урока

The article aims at the substantiation, definition and genre characteristics of a new sphere of Internet communication – learning online discourse, which is becoming increasingly important in modern educational practice due to various social processes and technological development of society, but has not yet become the subject of linguistic and genre analysis. The research is based on observation and comparison of various genres emerging in online learning and illustrated by the online discourse on studying foreign languages. The basis for the analysis is the model of the Internet genre, which includes media, pragmatic, structural and linguistic parameters. The paper gives the definition of the online learning discourse as a computer mediated communicative activity for the formation of subject knowledge and skills of students. The given definition illustrates that it is important to include the leading media and pragmatic parameters in determining the type of discourse or a particular genre. Among the genres of online learning discourse the author singles out asynchronous (based on written speech format) and synchronous (oral) communication forms. Examples of the former are a learning website and its types (a learning website covering a separate course of lessons, a learning website as part of a personal site, a learning site as part of a learning portal), the latter is illustrated by a synchronous online lesson, its video recording and a recorded video lesson. Different genres of online educational discourse are characterized by the explication of the steps of the lesson. In the structure of the genre there is an instructive component, which is characterized by addressing, directiveness and the use of computer vocabulary, as well as an explanatory component, where the vocabulary of the studied subject area and thematic vocabulary are used.

От врачебного диалога к бытийному конфликту: динамика речевых жанров в рассказе А. П. Чехова «Враги»

The article presents the analysis of the chains of speech genres in A. P. Chekhov’s short story “Enemies”. It is argued that the speech genres which formalize the social relationships of the main characters of the story lead to an understanding of the concept of the work, as well as reveal the essence of the title of the story. It is noted that the verbal interaction of the main characters of the narrative is a system of interconnected speech genres. The article describes the speech genres that have developed in the context of the situation of verbal communication between a doctor and a patient, specifically the speech genre of a medical complaint forming the core of institutional discourse, as well as speech genres that go beyond the core area: speech genres of pleading, refusal, appeal, silence, unburdening the soul, payment for medical services. It is stated that integrating into the medical discourse, these speech genres form a functional unity with it. The author concludes that the speech genres of medical discourse reproduce the process of professional speech interaction and qualify both individual and socially conditioned qualities of the originator character and the recipient character, as well as the situation of their conversation. Invective speech genres of accusations and insults inherent in ordinary (non-institutional) discourse are characterized as conflicting speech genres indicating the status-role degradation of institutional relations. Special attention is paid to the speech genres of pleading and the speech genre of the unburdening the soul, the peculiarities of their functioning and language aspects in connection with the general cultural values and traditions of Russian spiritual culture. The article also specifies the role of the author’s remarks in the description of communicative situations.

Особенности жанра и композиции текстов немецкоязычных онлайн-путеводителей

The study aims to identify the corpus of specific linguostylistic means and the genre-compositional originality of the texts of German-language online travel guides. These texts are reference publications aimed at a wide range of readers and they are used primarily by tourists for a more detailed acquaintance with a travel destination. The texts of online travel guides, along with the texts of excursions, audio guides, leaflets, catalogs, brochures, virtual excursions, travel agency websites, belong to the genres of tourism discourse and are characterised by a distinct structural organisation, a variety of speech tactics, verbal and non-verbal codes and perform the informational, advertising, accumulative and regulatory functions. A travel guide is a “calling card” of a cultural and linguistic community, which allows forming certain holistic stereotypical images in the minds of recipients regarding a foreign-language worldview. The paper is novel in that it makes the first attempt to carry out a comprehensive analysis of different-level linguistic means representing the genre-compositional features of modern online travel guides. As a result of the study, it has been proved that the texts of German-language online travel guides have a distinct compositional structure, are characterised by a set of specific linguistic means that implement the general communicative task of tourism discourse, i.e. making an impact on the recipient.

Developing Multimodal Literacy in the Business English Reading Class: A Case Study of Students’ Presentation PowerPoint Slides

This study aims to investigate the students’ multimodal literacies by analyzing their presentation PPT slides in Business English reading class in two dimensions of discourse genre and multimodality. It discovers certain preferences and patterns in their multimodal semiotic practice as well as some drawbacks in the meaning-making process. Students tend to adopt visualizing genre over other genres to demonstrate factual events in their PPT presentations. They are inclined to use language and image more frequently than other semiotic modes in their PPT meaning making. Besides, their technology and media literacy needs to be strengthened in searching, criticizing, analyzing online information resources. Eventually it provides teachers with pedagogical scaffolds to teach the viewing and representing of multimodal texts effectively.

Linguocultural Specifics of Cybersecurity Discursive Practices Representation in Russian Media Communication: Corpus-Assisted Approach

The issue of the semantic, pragmatic and axiological specifics of cybersecurity discursive practices as it is displayed in the genres of media and online communication is considered. The novelty of the work lies in the application of the corpus linguistics methodology to the study of discourse, understood as a language-mediated social practice. The relevance of the work is due to the interest of linguistics in the study of discursive practices that shape a new social reality formed as a result of the Russian language functioning. By using the methods of corpus linguistics, the cognitive-semantic structure of discursive thesaurus, which comprise a new layer of lexical units, has been reconstructed, thematic groups of lexical units have been identified and their distribution in various genres of cybersecurity discourse has been established. It has been found that along with the terminology focused on the transfer of operational, practical knowledge about safe online practices, the texts in the corpus regularly employ lexical units with military and aggressive semantics, which indicates the contradiction between the goals of the discourse aimed at forming a positive attitude towards digital technologies, and language means employed to achieve them. It is shown that due to regular occurrence of neutral lexical units in negatively colored contexts, they develop negative evaluative connotations, which also contributes to the formation of users’ distrust of new technologies, enhances the feeling of risk, and generates anxiety and concern.

Muslim preachers’ pandemics related discourses within social media: A corpus-based critical discourse analysis

Pandemics have been extensively represented in different discourse genres including journalistic discourse, media discourse, medical discourse, social media discourse, and academic discourse. This study explores the representation of COVID-19, Swine flu, and Monkey pox in the Arab Muslim preachers’ discourses on Twitter and Facebook. The Muslim preachers’ discourses remain one of the influential discourses that informs the ideology of its believers, as it is largely based on the Islamic authoritative discourses of the Quran and the Hadiths of Prophet Muhammad. The data set of 538 postings was generated through an extended observation of purposively recruited Arab Muslim non-mainstream scholars’ postings on Facebook and Twitter from March 2019 to August 2022. The data were analyzed using corpus-based critical discourse analysis. The twofold analytical lens involving CL and CDA revealed that Muslim preachers frequently used ideological semantic patterns in communicating to the Muslim society at large regarding the pandemics. The utilized semantic patterns emerged as embedded in certain ideological frames established in the Islamic authoritative discourses of the Quran and the Hadiths of Prophet Muhammad. In their ideological representation of the pandemics, Muslim preachers framed the entire three pandemics mostly as the wrath of God. Religious scholars’ postings cannot be considered an account of teaching and preaching; rather, they merely consume and produce Islamic ideology in a way to manipulate and influence Muslims’ knowledge of existing reality by adding new meanings in line with the chosen ideological frames.

Peculiarities of Advertising Information Representation in the English-Language Mass Media Discourse

The relevance of the study is driven by the role of advertising as a genre of mass media discourse in the formation of collective and individual conceptual and linguistic pictures of the world, the conceptual system of the subject of interpretation of the world around him, human consciousness, structuring, formation and transformation of knowledge about the world, and interpretation of knowledge. The research material was modern English-language advertising messages on the English-language Internet. The analysis of the practical material has shown that although the analyzed advertising messages do not directly indicate the evaluation of a product or commodity, it is still implicitly traced: some advertising messages advertise high-quality, new products, while others contain an appeal. It is concluded that the linguistic interpretation of advertising messages is represented by three types: selective, classifying, and evaluative. When interpreting an advertising message, a person, as a representative of a certain society, chooses in his or her mind those units of knowledge about an object of the surrounding world that he or she possesses. In other words, selective conceptualization takes place, which means that the selective function of interpretation is realized. The classifying type of linguistic interpretation implies an appeal to certain emotions and feelings of the subject of interpretation, as well as the division of goods into categories (tasty, useful, high-quality, new), which is evident in advertising messages. It has been proven that the implicit evaluation of goods and services as objects of interpretation indicates the evaluative type of linguistic interpretation.

Positioning as discursive struggle for equity: a critical discourse analysis of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of African countries

ABSTRACT Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are critical climate policy documents formulated by the Party countries, under the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, to communicate their goals and commitments to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. As an emerging discourse genre, it has attracted increasing attention from discourse analysts. However, few studies have specifically focused on the NDCs of African countries as a whole, leading into the situation in which their positions and voices are largely underrepresented in the current climate negotiation. Using a combined method of positioning theory and critical discourse analysis, this paper aims to explore the African countries’ positioning in the climate change agenda by examining the discursive narratives around three prominent thematic categories in their NDCs, i.e. responsibility, vulnerability and conditionality. It is found that the African countries intend to position themselves as non-villains, victims, and demi-heroes by strategically highlighting their insignificant historical responsibility, exceptional vulnerability, and conditionality of implementation on the external support from the international community. Furthermore, it is argued that the commonality of their self-positioning is conducive to forming a collective identity to resist the hegemonic discourses of inequality and struggle for equity in the current climate negotiation.