Mass Media Texts Research Articles

Колоративные тропы в современном англоязычном массмедийном тексте

The paper aims to identify the peculiarities of using colour tropes in the modern mass media text in the English language. The scientific originality of the research lies in the fact that it considers the specificity of colour tropes functioning in the mass media text of different types (historical-cultural, economic, scientific, political, etc.), identifies the multifunctionality of colour tropes in the non-fiction text for the first time, as well as carries out an analysis of colour semantics as a component of a trope means used in the English mass media text. As a result, political and economic texts have been considered priorities in terms of colour tropes usage by journalists; the main functions of colour tropes realized in mass media texts of different focus have been viewed; the peculiarities of semantic transformation of colouratives within a trope have been analyzed and the conclusion that the colour component enhances the expressiveness and effectiveness of the trope has been made.

Медиаобраз как совокупность идеологем (на примере медиаобраза Виктора Януковича, репрезентированного в англоязычных СМИ)

The purpose of the study is to reconstruct the media image “Viktor Yanukovych” created by linguistic means in the English-language mass media texts by identifying its constituent ideologemes. The work is novel in that it the first to single out a set of ideologemes that form the media image of the Ukrainian politician in the press of Great Britain and the United States during the information confrontation. As a result of the study, it has been found that during an information confrontation, mass media act as communicators of political views, which are represented in texts through ideologemes carrying an evaluative connotation in order to have an impact on the addressee. Tropes and figures of speech contributed to the creation of a negative image of Viktor Yanukovych in the English-language press, which consists of four ideologemes: “a politician who did not meet the expectations of Ukrainians”, “a weak politician lacking independence”, “a politician who thinks only about personal gain”, “a cruel tyrant”.

Modalization of Speech Actions as the Basis of the Metaphoric Transfer (on the Example of German Economic Discourse)

The question of the nature of speech modalization has been repeatedly considered in linguistics from various positions, which is partially reflected in the text of the article. The authors of the publication propose to look at the points of intersection of the process of metaphorization of statements within the framework of one type of discourse with the expression of the author's attitude to and/or assessment of its content. To substantiate the validity of this approach, the authors refer to the methodology of logical analysis of language, the theory of intersubjectivity and the theory of evaluativity, linking cognitive methods of analyzing the process of metaphorization with a broad understanding of the category of modality. This formulation of the problem fits into the modern scientific paradigm of interdisciplinarity and the actualization of interdisciplinary relations, which reflects the relevance of the proposed text. The scientific novelty of the topic is an attempt to determine the correlation of the category of modality in its axiological and ideological aspects with metaphorization as a means of actualizing evaluativity in economic discourse. Commonly, denoting phenomena, processes or results is not limited to their nomination, but the producer of the utterance gives them a modal assessment. The empirical material containing fragments of texts of the German-language mass media on economic topics reflects the validity of the proposed interpretation of the issue, shows the potential relationship of phenomena in the intersection of various connotative meanings of a cognitive metaphor, potentially serving to express the attitude to the proposition of an utterance at the level of intersubjective assessments that create a modal frame of the text. The given examples clearly demonstrate that cognitive metaphors in various forms of their implementation could serve to express ideological modality from the standpoint of intersubjectivity, since the producer of the text relies on the reflection of a fragment of reality in the communicative and cognitive activity of subjects of the national-cultural community of people. The article recognizes a certain ambiguity of the proposed interpretation of the category of modality, which is considered in the traditional grammar as an expression of possibility, ought and desirability, or as a confidence, doubt and assertion that the action is carried out at different time levels using phrases with modal verbs, modal words or adverbs, particles, etc. Thus, the article can be considered as an indirect invitation to a discussion on the issue.

Verbal manipulation in mass media text / discourse: the problem of recognition

The article presents short analytical review of the mass media texts researches devoted to the problem of recognition of verbal manipulation. It was found that in addition to traditional algorithms of “hand” identification of manipulation in the text / discourse (with the help of linguistic analysis), there are automatized systems of verbal manipulation recognition in mass media being developed. Despite the fact that at the current stage of science development the automatized systems which can recognize potentially manipulative texts of some types (fake texts; texts of negative tone including verbal aggression) have been already established with philologists’ participation, the problem that has been mentioned cannot be considered as solved in general due to diversity of manipulation and exitance of the number of problems among which there is a lack of uniformity in the interpretation of the key terms and the lack of dictionary of manipulation techniques and devices, all these makes the parametrization of indicators (markers) more difficult. The Kazakhstani researchers’ idea stating that the text manipulativity is determined by its intensity level of the set of indicators of a particular type requires further experimental confirmation using various materials. The author of the article believes that the last word in identification of verbal manipulation should belong to a man.

Frame as a cognitive structure in the mass media texts

This article discusses the concept of "frame", which is used as the study of artificial intelligence. Currently, the term "frame" is widely used in sociology, psychology, linguistics, journalism. Frame has acquired several clarifying definitions in each individual humanitarian science. The article also gives interpretations of the "frame” concept by various researchers, the key characteristics of the frame structure. The classification of frames presented distinguishes the following types: frames-samples; frames-instances; frames-structures; frames-roles; frames-scenarios; frames-situations. The frame structure including constitutive, formal and target sub frames is described. The goal is to study the language of media text viewing the main cognitive knowledge formats and their linguistic objectification implementation. The main directions and ideas of scientific research: the existing typology of concepts is unstable, as evidenced by the identification of subspecies of existing types of mental units by researchers; in media texts, information is recognized in the following frequency cognitive formats: concept, concept, frame, scenario, gestalt. The theoretical relevance is that it makes a certain contribution to a new stage of understanding the problem solving of language correlation and thought structures, language and cognitive processes at different levels of their interaction of the mass media text. The research results increase the ways of presenting new knowledge about the world in the media. A significant research result is the classification of the main language cliche characteristics based on the studies as a focal point for the further concepts typology development. The practical relevance is the opportunity of the obtained results to apply in the following elective cycle disciplines: "Cognitive Linguistics"," Linguoculturology", etc., in the preparation of textbooks for students, postgraduates of philological and journalism faculties. The article consists of the following parts: introduction, statement of goals and objectives, comparative review of the "frame" concept by various linguists, discussion of research methods and conclusions. Keywords: frame, cognitive linguistics, slots, typical slots, frame-scenario, sketch-frame.

Translation Genius and Social Networks

The paper attempts to consider changes in the translator's activity caused by the turn towards digital transformation in the institutional sphere. The analysis is based on material from German social networks, their content being the subject matter for the modern translator who is a specialist in cross-cultural and cross-lingual communication. The study describes the algorithm for implementing social management at the macrostructural and compositional levels. The emphasis is also placed on the institutional spheres that are most susceptible to digital transformation, which include nutrition and healthy lifestyle, education and many others. Total digital transformation of these institutional spheres is primarily evidenced by an increase in neologisms recorded in electronic databases, and dictionaries with an indication of their contextual use and their further popularization, first of all, in mass media texts. The results of the analysis lead the authors to conclude that training a new generation of interpreters and translators should include mastering the skill of working with big data, different corpora of texts, neologisms marked by or containing the industry component, as well as the need to develop glossary-type dictionaries for branches of knowledge. Considering the controversial content of social networks, the authors of the paper come to the conclusion that it is necessary to develop the code of ethics for the social networks translator.

The problem of text generation in teaching philological fundamentals of professional activity

The subject of this research is the problem of text generation in teaching students the philological fundamentals of professional activity. The practice of creating media texts and communication products implies not only a set of representations on the media trends, process of medicalization, and pragmalinguistic characteristics of mass media texts, but also consistent philological knowledge, specific condition and strategies of media education, which contribute to successful production of the necessary content. Methodological framework is comprised of the general scientific method of comparative analysis, as well as the methods of philology – compositional and semantic-stylistic analysis that allowed determining typical difficulties faced by the students in the process of text generation: incomprehension of the genre boundaries and content benchmarks, problem of selecting the necessary text modality, lack of factual information on the topic, its unreasonable duplication. The author assesses the quality and specificity of the creative speeches of the students (announcements, peer reviews, interview texts); as well as analyzes their perception by the students for clarifying the problematic area of text generation and search for effective solutions within the framework of educational communication. The acquired results allow outlining the key and additional conditions for the improvement of text generating skill of the future specialists in the field of mass communications, the stages of solution of the problem of text generation and their content. The defining in formation of the text generating skill became the approach towards media text as a multilevel message, the key parameters of which are determined by the implied communication medium, form of perception, peculiarities of creation, category of authorship, and thematic orientation.

Phraseological picture of the world in the texts of modern mass media

The article deals with the definition of the phraseological picture of the world, reviews the existing approaches to its study in modern linguistics, and analyzes the objects of existing research that affect the problems of national representation of fragments of the phraseological picture of the world in the minds of native speakers. Also, the article examines the language picture of the world as a subject of study in the theories of modern communication. The article gives an up-to-date description of the content of this concept and its classification on various grounds (based on the object, subject, principles, and methods of language representation). The role of the linguistic picture of the world in the framework of the theory of intercultural and mass communication in semiotic and cognitive research is analyzed. The article further deals with the development and research of the linguistic picture of the world by both foreign and domestic scientists in this field. It describes the influence of the language of mass media on the picture of the world, namely, the work of journalists, where they use phraseology not only as it exists in the language, but also in a modified form, updating the semantics, structure and expressive and stylistic properties of phraseological turns.

Адаптація запозиченого компонента «арт» у сучасній українській мові

The article examines the features of grammatical adaptation of the borrowing “art” in the modern Ukrainian language, identifies typical violations of current spelling rules in words with this component, suggests the correct options and clarifies the feasibility of its frequent use in modern Ukrainian speech. It has been found that the English borrowed component “art” is well adapted to the recipient language. This is evidenced by its active use in both oral and written speech, the ability to be used independently with a fixed meaning, high word-forming productivity. It is revealed in the texts of the mass media that English borrowing “art” functions in the modern Ukrainian as a inflective masculine noun of the second declension of the hard group with the semantics “art, fine arts”. It is observed that having entered the modern Ukrainian lexical system, it takes an active part in word formation, showing high productivity in the process of forming compound nouns. Two models of forming new nouns with the component “art” are differentiated, in which “art” with the meaning “artistic” is the first part of a compound word and “art” with the semantics “art” is the second part of a new lexeme. It is established that the first model is the most productive because of the largest number of these nouns in Ukrainian. It is proved that according to their grammatical nature lexemes with “art” as a reference word are not Ukrainian juxtaposites, as they are not formed on the basis of the Ukrainian, but are borrowed in it like ready-to-use integral lexical units, which speakers adapted to the grammatical structure of modern Ukrainian. In accordance with the current spelling rules the nouns with borrowed component “art” have to be written together. Found in the texts of mass media and oral speech the new lexemes with two prepositive foreign attributives are classified as juxtaposites with a declension of the second part; it is recommended to write them in accordance with the norms of the current “Ukrainian spelling” with a hyphen. It was found that the names of establishments, events, places of cultural events, etc., which consist of proper names or abbreviations combined with borrowing “art”, completely copied from the English word formation, are not typical for Ukrainian and artificially adapted to it in violation of current spelling rules. The article offers their alternative names that meet the grammatical and spelling rules. The analysis of the peculiarities of the adaptation of English borrowed component “art” in the modern Ukrainian will promote a faster study of the grammatical nature of borrowings, their word-forming potential, the correct linguistic qualification of new derivatives and their further normalization.

Коннотативные макротопонимы: динамический аспект

We present an analysis of the connotative potential of macrotoponyms Asia, America, Europe, China, Russia, whose emotional-evaluative connotations form a fragment of the value world picture of modern native speakers of the Russian language. The purpose of the undertaken research is to find out onymic and postonymic connotations of the onyms which have taken shape under the influence of political, economical and cultural factors in the Russian society for the last three decades. To evaluate these connotations we analyze the contextual usage of the studied onyms in connotative usage in texts of mass media and journalism. We determine the dynamic of the research macrotoponyms connotations in the designated period. We identify persistent connotations of research toponyms, connotations which are losing their relevance and connotation which are forming last several years. This indicates the mobility of the language consciousness of native speakers of the Russian language, also this shows that this or that connotative meaning of onym is relevant in a certain period of time. An interesting fact is that by macrotoponyms Europe and America positive connotations are replaced by negative connotations. Toponyms Asia, China and toponyms China, Russia has synonymous connotations. Connotations of toponym Europe are often contrasted with connotations of toponym Russia. The obtained results can be used by the lexicographic description of the research connotative toponyms.

СЕМАНТИКА СОМНЕНИЯ И СПОСОБЫ ЕЁ ВЫРАЖЕНИЯ В ТЕКСТАХ СОВРЕМЕННЫХ РУССКОЯЗЫЧНЫХ МАСС-МЕДИА

Modality was a logical concept originally, but it has become a linguistic concept now, which gets new interpretation and development in linguistics. It has experienced a dynamic development process from sentence modality to discourse modality. As the human factor in language has become the focus of linguistic research, the subjective factors embodied in language, namely subjective modality, have also received more attention and esearch. The mass media is one of the main objects of modern linguistics research. Its rapid dissemination and development have provided a large number of fresh corpus and many new research topics for linguistics. Subjective modality is one of the essential properties of mass media. As an integral feature of media text, subjective modality expresses the author’s evaluation and attitude towards the content, conveys the author’s emotions, reflects the author’s thoughts and worldview, and it is a means of interaction between the author and the reader. It directly affects and determines the definition, classification and characteristics of mass media. Doubt as an expression of personal attitude in the process of comprehending the facts and phenomena of reality is traditionally considered in the area of subjective modality and presented as one of the subjectivemodal meanings. This article uses mainly the methods of interpretation and analysis to introduce the doubt as one of the author’s subjective modality in modern mass media. By analyzing “Explanatory Dictionary” by Morkovkina, “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language: 80,000 Words and Phraseological Expressions” by Ozhegov and “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D.N. Ushakova, we found that typical for expressing doubt is the use of indirect markers, namely: modal-doubtful particles, introductory-modal words, modal phrases. Based on variants of the semantics of doubt, described by I.G. Nikolskaia, using the text of modern Russian-language mass media as corpus, we have analyzed the typical contexts of expressing doubt in media texts, as well as its realization in modern Russian mass media texts.

The image-concept of Russia in the British mass media texts (2017-2019)

The subject of this article are the linguistic means used to form the image-concept “Russia”. Corpus content analysis on the wide range material of the British print and electronic press for 2017-2019 is the base for constructing the nominative field with the core and near, far and final peripheries of image ”Russia”. The conceptual analysis revealed verbal means used for expansion of the concept volume and its component layers- metaphorical, nominative, evaluative and associative. These devices create the negative image-concept of state Russia in British public consciousness.

Font and Colour Attributes as Manipulated in Mass Media Texts: Psycholinguistic Implications

This paper is aimed to analyse font and colour as non-verbal and paralingual components which have the capacity to influence and manipulate recipients of a message. On the basis of an extensive body of illustrative material, it has been established that by the use of colour variation, a single text fragment may be interpreted in several different ways, and may also be perceived differently by men and by women. It is demonstrated that colour and font characteristics are not exclusively graphic shells whose function is merely to record an oral statement in writing. They are semantically significant and multifunctional. It has been determined that font and colour are form-creating elements, which make possible the graphic reproduction of objects in everyday use, objects relating to reality and actuality. Variation in font and colour enable us to hypothesize that the mass media communication space is now characterized by a type of linguistic play utilizing these traits so as to render possible the projection of multiple-reading promotional texts. They also permit an economy in terms of space because of the fact that font techniques can perform formative and content functions simultaneously. Based on an experiment involving 60 participants, 30 of whom were male and 30 female, it was found that the information encoded in colour and font graphics shells is not difficult to perceive and to decipher. However, the survey found that women are more likely to perceive that information, although the difference in perception is not striking. When asked whether a sample of illustrative material stirred an appetite by using stylized fonts consisting of foods to convey a food-related message, 74 % of men and 37% of women in both articles answered in the positive, which in our study confirms the claim that food advertising promotes appetite arousal. The study also showed that most women who read the information perceive it holistically–their attention is not attracted solely by verbal and nonverbal components. On the other hand, only half of the men surveyed saw it as a whole, and almost a third of them initially noticed the verbal components first. Most participants in the experiment claimed that it took them from 5 to 10 seconds to realize that a single message could be read in several different ways. The participants who took part confirm that a single text string can be interpreted in multiple ways due to the font and colour attributes that are utilized in forming them.

POLITICAL METAPHOR AS A MEANS OF LINGUISTIC REPRESENTAION OF DONALD TRUMP’S IMAGE IN MASS MEDIA

The article under discussion has focused on the peculiarities the conceptual metaphor usage in the speeches of the 45th and current president of the United States Donald Trump. The topicality of the investigation is predetermined by the steady increase of professional interest of political discourse participants, mass media in particular, in the choice of effective instruments of political and ideological relations coverage with a simultaneous public request for quality of the politically directed content. The differentiation of political metaphor features and its functions in publicistic discourse is essential for the exploration of efficient linguistic means of impact on the political mediatext audience. Grounding on the empiric material analysis (leading English-language mass media) the linguistic factors of the leader of a democratic country political image formation have been considered. The characteristics of the use of metaphor as a multilingual means of a politician mass media image formation based on the contemporary mass media have been outlined. The article suggests a complex study of the use of political metaphor in the texts of English-language mass media with the emphasis on the leading tendencies of the political utterance metaphorization within the framework of the contemporary political discourse. The major types of conceptual metaphor, facilitating the political image formation, have been studied.

Адаптация личных имен собственных: транслитерация, транскрипция или реноминация?

Lexical-and-semantic class of personal names is characterized with a number of specific properties and functions. Synchronically, without appealing to etymology, those individual (individualized) names fulfil a secondary nomination function due to their semiotic function, which makes it possible interpret personal names as symbolic cultural codes belonging to national linguistic worldviews. Still, in course of cross-cultural communication, linguistic contacts demand personal names be translated from one language to another one. The aim of the article is to demonstrate the possibility of adaptation of personal names conserving their own semiotic and national identity while being globally transposed both into various languages and linguistic worldviews, including the general global linguistic worldview. As is generally acknowledged, due to the intranslatability of personal names, though languages of the European area reveal some correlations, the principle method to adapt them in literary and mass-media texts as well as in course of colloquial communication is the transformation of their exterior sound-and-letter form, so the foreground is made by the norms and rules of transliteration on the basis of the so-called “ideal” Latin alphabet and “practical” transcription which are closely interconnected and fixed as standard ones in the documents of international associations, e.g., ISO, MFO, etc. However, the alphabets and pronouncing norms of national languages are realized controversially which inevitably leads to developing variations and the necessity to revise the established standards. The implicitly positive result of personal names adaptation is the unification of transliteration, considering that even for languages using the hieroglyphic or letter-syllabic writing systems, special alphabets are developed, e.g., pingyin for Chinese or hangul for Korean, which have to provide the conventional communication in the intersection of languages and culture.

THE DRAWING METHODOLOGY OF STUDYING THE READER’S ATTITUDE TO MEDIA TEXTS: THE OUTLINES AND PROSPECTS FOR IMPROVEMENT

The article focuses on the necessity of the reader to navigate in modern mass media and be willing and able to resist the aggressive manipulative influence by the means of a text, which is based on the analysis of scientific sources and personal research. Nowadays it is relevant to create methodologies that enable the study of the peculiarities of the perception of different kinds of texts in order to help an individual to obtain benefits from the consumed information as well as get or regain emotional balance. The article presents the results of the approbation of the authorial methodology of studying the modern Ukrainian reader’s attitude to media texts, precisely to dialogue-based and manipulative ones. The obtained data of the empirical study prove its relevance as it provides the psychologist with information about the peculiarities of the perception of media texts and attitude to them. Furthermore, it offers guidelines on how to help a citizen to resist the manipulative media-influence and enable them to feel emotionally safe and secure. The knowledge of the peculiarities of the reader’s perception of the text delivers the tools to activate the person’s subjective activity and the urge to take personal responsibility for the consumption of information from Internet sources and printed mass media. The article provides the aspects of the analysis of pictures and the generalisations of the results of the interpretation of the drawings of manipulative and dialogue-based texts by the surveyed. The attitude to media texts is considered from cognitive, emotional and behavioural perspectives. The findings show that the surveyed citizens-readers generally “perceive” and “recognize” both dialogue-based texts and manipulative ones and react to them anyway. Nevertheless, the surveyed sometimes admit to being unable or struggling to identify a fine, almost imperceptible manipulation and thus require professional help. The reader needs to be aided in identifying the influence of a manipulative text on their emotional state and behaviour as well as assisted in resistance to detrimental changes. The article presents the prospect for enhancement and improvement of the projective technique “Dialogue-based and manipulative mass media text: my attitude”. Even though we forecast the further approbation and validation of the drawing test, the question of the reliability of the suggested projective drawing technique remains to be unanswered. We plan to involve expert psychologists to identify important features in the drawings, which are related to the reader's attitude to texts of different orientations.

ЖАНРОТВОРЕНИЕ И ЖАНРООБРАЗОВАНИЕ

The article focuses on the topic of genre formation in Soviet journalism, and how genres have developed in the contemporary Russian mass media. The author is of the view that journalistic genres developed intuitively, rather than on the basis of a thorough investigation of the typology of mass media texts, and therefore bear all the hallmarks of a professional agreement. These practical, formally logical standards have no basis in scholarship, and as a result many publications dealing with questions of journalistic genres have no connection with the theory of journalism. They merely serve the «commonly accepted professional view» of the form that texts should take. This explains why there is continual discussion of the interaction, diffusion, mimicry and changes in the «identified genres» in a situation where there are no grounds for distinguishing between them, or fixed criteria for defining them. Introducing American forms of journalistic texts into the Russian genre system leads to an even greater entropy of established concepts. Concentrating on the study of the genre forms of journalistic texts in journalism education often hinders students in the acquisition of the habit of writing materials on specific thematic issues.

Innovations as a Reflection of the Current Epidemic Situation in the World

The article considers word-building neologisms as a reflection of the current epidemic situation in the world. The material for the analysis was mass media texts. The sociocultural aspect of the language of the media led to the emergence of a large number of new nominations. The author makes an attempt to single out the common ways of word formation (prefixation, suffixation) and notes the expansion of affixoids. With the help of neologisms, journalists express a negative attitude towards the epidemic situation in the world, exert a psychological influence on the reader, ironically comprehend the surrounding reality, bring media communication closer to speaking, and designate high-tech phenomena. The author describes such occasional methods of word formation as contamination, tmesis, interword overlapping and substitutional derivation. The study reveals that occasional derivative means allow journalists to achieve a comic effect, attract the attention of the addressee; violating the principle of the integrity of the word, as well as to express negative expression. Structural-semantic and derivational types of analysis of innovations are carried out. It is concluded that extralinguistic factors have a great impact on the language.

Proper names as a part of telescopic nomination in English-language publicistic texts of the modern mass media

This article examines the telescopic nominations as a peculiar type of tropeic utilization of proper names, in which anthroponyms are used as the foundation from the perspective of the method of introduction into a publicistic text, as well as specificities of their functionality within modern English-language mass media. It is demonstrated that telescopy as a special type of abbreviation is one of the most productive means of enrichment of the mass media language, as telescopic nominations in publicistic texts combine high expressiveness and informativeness of provided material. This article analyzes the form and function of onyms as a part of telescopic nominations in modern English-language publicistic culture. It is established that in the modern English, telescopic nominations represent a rapidly growing layer of the lexicon, confirmed by the active use of this word-forming model that includes proper names. The scientific novelty of the research consists in a comprehensive lexical stylistic analysis of the process of formation and proliferation of the linguistic novelties, peculiarities of their application in speech, as well as character and dynamics of the global linguistic processes. The practical importance of the acquired results lies in the fact that they can be used within the framework of teaching such disciplines lexicology, linguoculturology, stylistics, as well as creation of textbooks on these disciplines.

Комбинаторные особенности лексем “election” и “seçim” в поэтических текстах политической тематики

The article analyses combinatorial peculiarities of the lexemes “election” and “seçim” in the English and Turkish poetical texts - elements of political discourse. The author identifies the combinatorial potential of the mentioned lexemes in poetical texts, reveals similarities and differences in the structure and semantics of the English and Turkish word-combinations with the lexemes “election” and “seçim”, considers specificity of their functioning in poetical texts in comparison with the mass media texts. Special attention is paid to analysing the notions “collocation” and “political discourse”; the role and place of poetical texts in the genre space of political discourse are determined.