Academic literature on the topic 'Formal parameters of discursive and contextual analysis'

The research is carried out through cognitive-discursive paradigm in language learning using the methods of cognitive-discursive, conceptual, contextual, structural-semantic, component, definitional and etymological analysis. The article defines the concept of situational equivalence and sets its parameters in a hybrid literary-legal discourse, which is formed in the narrativedocumentary space, dealing with the content of the novel by I. McEwan “The Children Act” and the real law of 1989, adopted by the British Parliament. At the same time, the hybrid literary-legal discourse, marked - due to the interpenetration of two conceptual spaces - by intertextuality and interdiscursivity, is considered to be a special socio-cultural practice designed to reveal urgent social problems and highlight them not only from a legal, but also from a humanistic aspect. The narrative model of literary-legal discourse is emphasized to generalize the elements of five levels of its formal and meaningful organization: 1) the surface structure of the text (event series, factual information); 2) the “semantic core” of the content; 3) detailing or generalization of the description of the situation; 4) grammatical means of expressing the meaning; 5) proto-text (non-literary text that formed the basis of a literary work; here - “The Children Act”). The concept of situational equivalence is interpreted taking into account three parameters: the identity of the main essential properties of conceptual spaces and their functions; the equivalence of situations from a legal point of view (constant parameters); the presence of additional connotations (variable parameter). The subject of this research is the linguistic markers of legal discourse and the units of a literary text, considered in a comparative aspect from the point of view of their situational equivalence. We also speak about full and partial situational equivalence from the point of view of the presence or absence of the connotative potential of the studied thematic units. The presented conceptual theory is demonstrated by the example of the concept REASONABLENESS, which explicates the idea of rightness (seriousness, correctness, rationality) of professional actions of judicial representatives and their decisions. It is noted that the interpretative potential of this concept is significantly expanded due to the integration of language markers of legal discourse into the narrative space of a literary text; reliance on prototext allows us to identify thematic units of hybrid literary-legal discourse that make up the “semantic core” of the analyzed conceptual space. Due to the fact that the concept obtains additional connotations in the semantic structure of the literary text, thus, the corresponding fragment of the conceptual space of the legal document is also enriched. The study of the concept REASONABLENESS as a special dynamic complex of specific properties and characteristics shows the process of modeling a cognitive phenomenon in the process of hybridization of two conceptual spaces (literary and legal).

Reference as a logical-semantic category is implemented in the blog text based on a variety of lexical and grammatical means (personal, demonstrative and possessive pronouns, definite article, nominative phrases). At the same time, we consistently differentiate the functional and formal level of analysis (connectivity relations – means of expressing connectivity). The conceptual difference between the functional category and the formal implementation of this category reveals some implications that are important for our study. First, the noun or nominative phrase that acts as a segment of the propositional stimulus message is repeatedly replaced by a certain range of formal (and contextual) anaphoric means. Responding to this message, the interlocutor constructs a mental representation of the relationship of formal or contextual connectivity between the antecedent and the substitute. At the same time, the connectivity tool performs a specific referential function in the mental map of blog communication participants. If the referential interdependence between the antecedent and the substitute becomes contextual, the blogger and respondents identify the similarity of the concepts manifested by these components of the stimulus and reaction, establish not only formal equivalence, but also semantic and pragmatic similarity of the conceptual meanings of the associated language units. In the developed blog, there is a contextual relationship between the indicators of connectivity of thematically correlated constituents and the pragmatic consistency of messages of participants in computermediated communication. In the blogosphere, lexical and grammatical tools that function in an anaphoric or cataphoric function are endowed with such semantics that acquire relevant meaning for the interlocutors only taking into account the previous or subsequent messages. These messages, in turn, turn out to be the context against which these units are identified and interpreted by the blogger and respondents. The relationship of connectedness is manifested not so much in the blog text, but at the moment of perception by the interlocutors of each other’s discursive works. The category of connectedness is a value proportional to the communicative ability of the interlocutors to compare and coordinate the semantics of discursive elements, taking into account the referential schemes activated in their minds.

The article raises the problem of the rhyme classification, in particular, in the matter of supplementing it with actual parameters. Interpretation of the rhymed text as a creative process determines its analysis in two diametrically opposite aspects: individualauthorial and general-cultural. In the discourse of author’s creativity, the rhyme is analyzed in terms of the stability of the component composition, the compliance with the completed text, the mandatory employment. In the discourse of national and world culture, rhymes are analyzed on the basis of intertextuality. The rhyme transformation is described in the direction from the original rhyming compound to the result of its development in the new text. Intertextual rhymes are analyzed according to their perceptual potential, the accuracy of the reproduction of the original rhyme, as well as the contextual parameter.

The study of literary texts from the purely formal-sentence linguistics is less helpful because it undermines contextual effects on the use of language in literature. Discourse analysis, unlike formal sentence-level linguistics, is more robust in its analysis of literary texts since it provides insights into how sociocultural and historical factors influence, to a large extent, writers’ use of language. Against this backdrop, we examine Mary Specht’s use of “Nigerianisms” in her novel, Migratory Animals (Migratory), to account for the context-specific ways through which language has been used, and how these articulate transcultural identity. The analysis draws deeply from the theoretical provisions of literary discourse analysis (LDA), a branch of discourse analysis devoted to the analysis of literary texts. From the analysis, three major forms of Nigerianisms which play up specific transcultured identities have been identified: code-switching, semantic shift/extension and Nigerian pidgin (NP) expressions. Code-switching, for example, allows characters in Migratory to switch from one code to another, thereby providing information about their “multiple” selves. By broadening different communicative contexts, semantic extension transforms the characters’ settings, drawing attention to their fragmented identities. Through NP expressions, Specht showcases the different linguistic backgrounds manifest in the English community in the text, which reflects the different the socio-cultural identities in Nigeria. From these, we argue that Specht’s use of “Nigerianisms” in her novel discursively depicts the present reality of existence – people’s “transcultured selves”. Hence, Nigerianisms are exquisite examples of how contextualised uses of language reveal the very polygonal cultural existence of humanity.

This article attempts a comprehensive discourse analysis of the metaphor using the lexeme “вкусный” (tasty) as an example. Considering that metaphor can be viewed from the perspective of its ability to create social reality, and that reality images are discursively conditioned, the authors explore metaphor as a discursive agent that implies information about the basic parameters of discursive instances: metasubject, metaobject, and meta-addressee. The tasks of discourse analysis of metaphor in the article include: 1) consecutive explication of metaphorically conditioned components of meaning; 2) reconstruction of the constitutive parameters of discursive instances of subject, object, and addressee, based on these components; 3) reconstruction of the worldview and articulatory possibilities of the speaker who occupies the position of discursive subject. The study was conducted on the material of the National Corpus of the Russian Language using descriptive, contextual, interpretative methods, and the method of component analysis. Discourse analysis of linguistic material allows for the reconstruction of two possible types of discursive subject. The first one (nominally designated as DS1) represents the subject as a prepared listener, viewer, appreciator, or expert. Its discursive orientation realizes such intentions as: recognition of the complexity and intrinsic value of objects in the surrounding world; readiness to expend one`s own resources to interact with them; existential needs to act as a subject of love, care, and knowledge; and transfer of the value center from one`s own “self” to the surrounding world. With such a focus, the source of positive emotions (“satisfaction”) becomes the discursive subject itself, which is characterized by the ability to valorize objects and endow them with meaning. These constitutive parameters of discursive subject DS1 are implicated in such metaphorical constructions as “tasty music”, “tasty picture”, “tasty space”, “tasty design solution”, “tasty movie”, “tasty goal”, “tasty opponent”, and so on. The second type of discursive subject (DS2) can be reconstructed based on metaphors like “tasty assets”, “tasty prices”, “tasty discounts”, “tasty offer”, “tasty text”, “tasty position”, “tasty option”, “tasty life”. Unlike DS1, its attitude towards things, phenomena, and events in the surrounding world is determined by the ratio of “resources spent – satisfaction received”, which characterizes the subject of this type as a consumer. The main intentional characteristics of DS2 are: a primary desire for satisfaction of their own needs and desires (receiving positive emotions, material benefits, achieving an attractive social status); the devaluation of the sovereign value of objects and the unwillingness to make an effort to interact with them; the devaluation of all qualities and properties inherent in an object, except for the consumer ones (capable of bringing satisfaction to the speaker); a fundamental unwillingness to expend their own resources, avoidance of novelty, and a desire to maintain the stability of their own internal and external space. These two configurations of discursive subject allow the speaker to articulate almost diametrically opposed attitudes towards the surrounding world. In general terms, they correspond to two worldviews: modernist and postmodernist.

Taking into account recent pragmatic and sociolinguistic approaches to irony, the present study investigates irony as a discursive resource Greek parliamentarians employ to fulfill their institutional roles and to negotiate verbal rules of conduct in highly institutionalized and confrontational debates. It is suggested that, besides criticism, parliamentary irony is used to sharpen attacks against the Opposition, to elicit vivid reactions from the audience and disaffiliate from, or align with, participants, to restore parliamentary order, and to establish cohesive ties between successive parliamentary speeches. Moreover, the recorded reactions to irony reveal that irony is considered a common and ‘legitimate’ discursive practice in the Greek parliament and is not negatively evaluated by Greek MPs. Such findings highlight the significance of contextual parameters for the sociolinguistic analysis of pragmatic phenomena and lead to a critical evaluation of those previous results which are based on the study of decontextualized and/or fictional ironical utterances and exchanges.

Issues of language and political discourse form a very dense framework for theories and studies of argumentation, the new rhetoric. The political discourse analysis is gaining in scope and epistemological precision. However, discursive effects remain largely understudied regarding linguistic means as manipulative tactics. This phenomenon shapes the relevance of this study. It also analyses how linguistic traces of political discourse affect the population in terms of psychosociology and manipulative tactics. The ideology of discursive persuasion reveals issues in cognitive activity (meaning, intentionality, and strategy) that the speaker performs, as well as the impact on a known target. The study focuses on the norms and use of language, image, text, and sound in political advertising. It also analyses scholarly works related to the topic, offering an analysis based on observations on political communication and its media staging of the functioning of sociolinguistic variation regarding the norms and representations that operate in this official/dominant language market and specific to the language of politics. Research related to advertising and advertising language in relatively recent studies is still approached with some caution. Therefore, this paper attempts to deal with them from the perspective of linguistics in its broader discussion. To do so, the article focuses on studying linguistic means specific to political advertising on billboards during political campaigns. The most peculiar aspects of the contextual and formal expression of political advertising on billboards are identified.

In this paper the term objectivity refers to a discursive phenomenon, mostly defined like distance of the arguments toward meanings expressed by predicates and so toward a whole text’s content. Its impact depends on the frequency of any formal parameters, lacking grammatical information in the text: agentless passives, impersonal structures, nominalizations, and, on the other hand, to a low frequency of deictic pronouns. Our detailed, corpus-based analysis confirms its high and pragmatic importance in scientific texts. Inside scientific-academic discourse the phenomenon suffers a numerical variability that may be related to three criterions: type of text, part of text and scientific discipline.

The three papers in this ‘suite’ have a special background and context. At the 2010 conference SoundActs in Aarhus the three panellists were each given the task to provide a paper with an analysis of the same sound object, thus exhibiting and contrasting different scholarly approaches to sound studies. The object was selected by Torben Sangild, who was familiar with the chosen context: the signature of the US radio programme and podcast Radiolab. The two other participants did not know the context and chose to analyse the sound object without further contextual investigation. This object was chosen for several reasons. First of all, it is brief (less than 17 seconds), which meant that it was possible to make a detailed analysis; at the same time, though, it is relatively complex, which means that it can accommodate three different analyses. It is a sound object with a global audience, taken from one of the most popular podcasts worldwide, accessible on the internet. Finally, it is a piece of functional sound design, rather than a work of art, which raises the question of context more clearly. The result is three rather different approaches: 1) a process analysis, observing analytical listening strategies towards the constructed object, 2) a vocal analysis, regarding the sound object as a polyphony of voices, and 3) a contextual analysis, framing the sound object as a radio signature. Ola Stockfelt analyses the sound object as something that is constructed via his own repeated listening process – as a scholarly-analytical analysis of the subjective act of creating meaning. He draws on presumptions and prejudices, demonstrating the impossibility of a purely structural listening. The analysis relates these hermeneutical reflections to formal musicological observations of harmony, timbre, space and rhythm in some detail. Ansa Lønstrup’s paper analyses the sound object as a polyphony of voices. Her analysis is inspired by two phenomenologists: Don Ihde, whose notion of ‘voice’ is understood in a more general sense as the voices of all things, and Lawrence Ferrara, who methodologically operates within tree levels of investigation: 1) the syntax, 2) the semantic and 3) the ontology level. Accordingly, this analysis is conducted, as if the sound object was performed by a vocal ensemble oscillating ‘between a musical and a speech act’. Torben Sangild’s paper focuses on the concrete function of the sound object as a radio signature. This prompts a generic analysis and a semantic model of radio signatures in general, eclectically employing formal, indexical, gestural, discursive and contextual levels of meaning. The analysis of the Radiolab signature focuses on the overall gesture of tension and release as well as the semantic elements in a constellation with the content and style of the radio programme. After the three individual contributions, a brief summary and conclusion will follow, answering any questions that may arise in the process.

The subject of the study is the functional and semantic features of emotive vocabulary. Based on a review of works on related topics, it is concluded that the neologism "new ethics" correlates with linguistic material, which is the rhetorical antipode of the rational mode of discourse. The object of the study is represented by statements and lexemes conveying the ideas of the new ethics as a denial of the practice of discrimination based on gender, nationality, appearance, religious affiliation, self-identification and others. The article provides examples of discursive markers that function in the texts of news articles, as well as occur in network communication in the form of posts and comments. The hypothesis is presented that the new ethics has a certain linguistic expression and has discursive emblems that act as indicators of the specifics of discourse and perform certain functions. During the work on the article, the continuous sampling method was used to collect empirical material. The units that actualize the semantic field of ethics and shaming were selected. The fragments extracted from the texts were analyzed using the linguistic stylistic method and contextual analysis to identify the formal and expressive content of the text units. The main conclusions of the conducted research are the conclusions that the discursive emblems of the new ethics are easily recognizable signs that have the following functions: unification, polarization, mobilization of society. These signs, being correlated with existing classifications of emblems, are presented in the work as open sign phenomena. Their belonging to historical, cultural, moral and other values is shown. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the criteria of the language of new ethics are proposed and described in the form of inclusivity, sensitivity to context, trigger, virality of content. A special contribution of the authors to the study of the topic of influencing in communication is the description of the linguistic symbols of the new ethics in the media discourse, which receive an emblematic interpretation. An intermediate conclusion is that emblems can serve as a kind of codes that convey certain ideas or values, both negative and positive properties.

Consacrée à l’emploi de uže, la thèse vise à décrire le fonctionnement de cette unité polycatégorielle définie dans les ouvrages lexicographiques comme adverbe de temps et comme particule de renforcement. En tant qu’adverbe, uže assure le repérage du terme ou du contenu qu’il commente par rapport à un point sur l’axe spatio-temporel ; en tant que particule, il rend saillant le contenu de sa portée par rapport à une portée concurrente ou susceptible de l’être. Ces deux fonctions, celle de repérage et celle de focalisation sur un contenu, sont complémentaires et trouvent leurs origines dans l’étymologie. L’étude cherche à formaliser le mode opératoire de uže pour démontrer qu’indépendamment de son statut d’adverbe ou de particule, le fonctionnement de ce mot obéit aux principes de régularité qui déterminent la riche variation sémantique des contextes dans lesquels il est employé. L’analyse proposée s’appuie à la fois sur l’étude de données formelles (l’étymologie de uže, la position de uže dans la proposition, ainsi que la prosodie de celle-ci) et énonciatives (localisation et identité des instances énonciatives, leurs points de vue respectifs sur le contenu de la proposition, existence de valeurs préconstruites ou présupposées). La démarche adoptée permet de constater que uže intervient invariablement dans l’expression de l’avis subjectif du locuteur qui s’oppose à un autre avis concurrent porté sur la même situation. Quelle que soit la nature de l’altérité mise en place par uže (temporelle, existentielle ou bien appréciative), sa construction atteste de la vocation discursive de cette unité de langue qu’on propose d’envisager comme un marqueur discursif
Devoted to uže, the present thesis aims to describe the functioning of this poly-categorical unit, defined in dictionaries both as a time adverb and as an intensifying particle. As an adverb, uže locates the term or the content it comments on in relation to a point on the spatio-temporal axis; whereas, as a particle, it makes salient the content within its scope and opposes it to some other content perceived as competing or potentially so. These two functions – location and focalization – are complementary and find their origins in etymology. The study seeks to formalize the operating mode of uže, demonstrating that, regardless of its classification as an adverb or a particle, its functioning obeys regular principles that account for the wide semantic variation of the contexts in which it is employed. The analysis is based on both formal (etymology, the position of uže within a sentence, as well as the sentence prosody) and enunciative data (enunciative positions at play, corresponding viewpoints on propositional content, presence of preconstructed or presupposed information). This approach shows that uže invariably contributes to the expression of the speaker’s subjective opinion, contrasting it with another, competing, viewpoint in relation to the given situation. Whether the opposition expressed by uže is temporal, existential, or evaluative, its mere construction attests to the discursive nature of this linguistic unit, thereby supporting its classification as a discursive marker