Vol 19, No 2 (42) (2024)

The article deals with genrogenic situations (Gg S), i.e. situations marked by speech genres, indicative of the representation of a particular speech genre in a given national culture. The Gg S as a cognitive image corresponding to a speech genre in the human mind includes, on the one hand, a set of components of a communication situation, necessary and sufficient for the generation of this genre, and, on the other hand, the memory of the Gg S, real or reconstructed (by writers, psychologists), in which this genre was generated and developed. These factors determine the theory and practice of speech genres methodology based on Gg S: it, unlike the theory of speech genres in general, has a more distinct applied focus: namely, it is focused on Gg S and the compilation of an anthology/encyclopedia of Gg S. This technique includes two aspects: firstly, a model according to which Gg S are isolated from the speech continuum and systematized (Gg S as a model of article structure); secondly, a model according to which speech genres are studied using the material of the Gg S and taking into account their characteristics (model of filling the «body» of articles with the material). Much attention is paid to reflection (by communication specialists, word artists, journalists, bloggers) on Gg S and genres themselves. The article also considers more general aspects of the Gg S, their place in speech genres theory and linguistic pragmatics in general: Gg S and the integral description of speech genres, Gg S and genre role scenes, Gg S and speech genre primary-secondary nature, Gg S and the relationship between invariant and prototype approaches to the study of text and genre, Gg S and speech genre variantology. As an illustration of the discussed approach the author offers Gg S for speech genre boltovnya ‘≈chatter’. 

The article studies definitions of genre that exist in mass readers’ minds and appear in their book reviews. While readers’ literary criticism and other forms of online-communication per se are now beginning to draw scientific interest, the problem of genre in fiction book reviews written by readers has been underinvestigated. Non-professional literary critics have a rather vague idea of literary genres that often lacks logic and does not comply with traditional hierarchy of genres. Readers try to fit the text they have read into a genre system they understand, but if it does not fit they create or coin a new genre definition that reflects their own understanding of the text, how they define its subject matter and what the text made them think about. In the minds of novice readers genre definition is closely related to the plot and their personal opinion of the book. Genre criteria analysis is often overlooked or seems arbitrary, oftentimes readers use the first genre definition that comes to their minds, i.e. a socially-agreed-upon definition, a convenient definition, a general definition, or a definition that has been widely used lately (for example, in the movie or book advertisements). Using their own reading experience, reviewers create their own reader’s glossary, in which literary movement is intertwined with their own estimation of the book quality, stylistic devices are mixed up with the author’s individual writing style, and reader’s emotional response becomes a genre criterion. 

The paper deals with evaluative characteristics of a fairy tale subject plot treated as a structure of a story about miraculous events narrated mainly to young listeners or readers in an entertaining mode and meant to form in their mind the right world view. The components of a subject plot are its motifs – consequences of actions determined by the choice made by a hero and promoting certain values, norms and practices. A literary fairy tale is an elaborated variant of a folklore story, it usually has a more complicated line of events, it is characterized by individual style of a writer in narration and evaluation of the content, and a happy end is optional in it. The fairy tales by G. Agayan, O. Tumanyan, and S. Zoryan have been analyzed. Axiological properties of these subject plots have been explained. They promote universal human values and specific features of the Armenian world view. Such specificity consists in the description of Armenian realia (nature, dress, food, etc.), the proper names which reveal the heroes characters, the description of magical creatures who inhabit the fairy tale world of Armenia and neighboring countries (mainly vishaps and devas), and in linguistic cultural concepts reflecting severe conditions of life and survival and emphasizing the importance of craft as a personal status, the warmth of family ties, critical exposure of cruel authorities and intellectual incapacity of people. 

 In the “Notes” the author cites the choice of options of a number of Russian words from several issues of the newspaper «Moskovsky Komsomolets» for the summer of 2023: rather frequent usages of dostatochno (≈‘enough’), ochen’ (≈‘very’), dovol’no (≈‘quite’), skhozhest’ (≈‘similarity’), skhozhiy (≈‘similar’), rarer usages of krayne (≈‘extremely’), pokhozhiy (≈‘similar’), podobnyy (≈‘similar’), ochevidno (≈‘obviously’), initial and middle takzhe (≈‘as well’). For even rarer ones vpolne (≈‘quite’), dazhe (≈‘even’), absolyutno (≈‘absolutely’), potryasayushche (≈‘stunning’), the author presents the examples from additionally viewed newspaper issues of 2022 and 2023. The “Notes” present not only examples from the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, but also from other newspapers (primarily “Moskovskaya Pravda” and “Argumenty i Facty”), as well as from academic articles and books of linguists of Perm School read by the author recently. Thus, the author draws a conclusion that largely contradicts the usual ideas about the Russian literary language, including even those in the book “Dynamics of Russian Language Norms: A Response to the Challenges of the Time and New Living Conditions” recently published by the Saratov Publishing House concerning the options of the lexeme dostatochno (≈‘enough’). It is shown which of the possible options currently dominate in the Russian language and when the choice is simply the result of a desire for alternation to avoid repetition.

The article deals with current problems of modern communicative linguistics and network genre studies. The author presents general characteristics of such a relatively new network genre as Internet commentary. The research emphasizes dialogical orientation of this genre, which meets the urgent need of Internet users for feedback and represents a media embodiment of the addressee factor that is in demand and meets the spirit of the times. Internet commentary is characterized as a reactive (responsive) Internet genre, the texts of which are thematically, structurally, semantically and pragmatically closely related to the original (root)  message (post) and form a kind of dialogic unity with it. The author offers a multi-level classification of Internet comments, taking into account the following characteristics: 1) attribution to the Internet resource; 2) discursive affiliation; 3) the nature of the stimulus that caused the reaction (text or polycode stimulus, video content with verbal accompaniment, video content without verbal accompaniment, etc.); 4) place in the information and commentary block; 5) structural characteristics (linear length; mono-code / poly-code); 6) content and thematic features; 7) the degree of dependence on the original (root) message. 

This paper analyses the use of the wishing genre among Russian young people. One of the features of youth speech is a shift from stereotypes, searching for new creative ways of expressing various intentions, such as evaluation, compliment, congratulation and wishing. The purpose of the study is to analyze the texts of wishes from the point of manifesting the linguistic creativity of the addressers; to identify the means and ways of destroying stereotypes. The research material is youth wishes, predominantly students’ wishes (more than 700 text fragments). The analysis of the content of the wishing texts enabled the author to classify all wishes into stereotypical, individual and combined. Empirical material shows that in the communication of friends most wishes refer to individual ones (64%), whereas combined and stereotypical wishes make up 25% and 11%, respectively. The analysis of the texts of wishes identified the ways and means of demonstrating the linguistic creativity of the addressee. These ways and means include the tactics of compliment, appeal, advice, switching the addressee to a humorous tone and some other tactics that are not discussed in this paper. All of them allow to make wishes less stereotypical. The material showed that addressers in wishes aim to supplement the universal components of the wishes with individualized elements, including in the text the utilitarian details of the addressee’s life. Most often, wishes contain references to the addressee’s profession or hobbies. Linguistic creativity of the addressers is manifested at all linguistic levels. First of all, addressees actively use tropes, such as epithets, metaphors, and comparisons. Addressers look for unusual objects for comparison in the linguistic repertoires; they often use hyperbolization. At the level of word-formation, we observe the use of affixes with an augmentative meaning, diminutives (predominantly in wishes to female addressees); speech innovations and occasional word formation. In wishes of young people, a shift from stereotypes reflects in reduplicating letters and symbols, changing letter case, breaking words into syllables and placing a hyphen between syllables; using a wide range of emojis and stickers; playing with colorful highlighting. Precedent texts play an important role in moving away from stereotypes. The author concludes that all the considered methods and means of linguistic creativity that are regularly used by authors when creating wishes make it possible to enhance the expressiveness and impact degree of the texts. They function to avoid stereotypes, achieve a perlocutionary effect, and contribute to the self-presentation of the addresser.

The article features the speech genre “a message in a postcard” in Russian communicative practice of two periods: the period before 1917 Revolution and the Soviet period. The research is based on a subcorpus of 253 postcards written by children from the collection of postcards digital corpus “I am writing to you”. By observing the mastery of the genre canon by non-adult native speakers, we consider both the specifics of the speech genre and the dynamics of its changes that occurred at the turning point of two periods. The analysis showed that the speech genre “a message in a postcard” is sensitive to a large number of factors of different nature: its material substrate; achievements of scientific and technological progress; changes in the worldview and value picture of the world that occur in the linguistic and cultural community; the influence of dominant practices of using the visual component in communication. The changes brought by 1917 Revolution led to serious differences in the genre canon of the pre-revolutionary and the Soviet periods, which were reflected in children’s genre experiences. If in prerevolutionary children’s messages in postcards we observe vivid signs of natural written speech and even oral speech – ease, weak spelling control, phonetic principle of spelling, dialogical structuring, in postcards of Soviet children we see the use of speech templates, frequency of the collective addressee, strong spelling control, isomorphic intention of the text and visual design. Interpreting these differences, we conclude that before 1917, a message in a postcard was considered a kind of everyday family and friendly communication, close to its oral form, whereas in Soviet times the genre acquired a pronounced rhetorical public character. The sub-genre structure of analyzed speech genre also differs: in the pre-revolutionary collection, we find a variety of subgenres genres (“message”, “news”, “for memory”, “story about an event”, “from a trip”, etc.), and in Soviet times the genre repertoire narrowed to congratulations. Thus, a postcard written by children shows the genesis of the genre canon better, since the process of mastering the system of existing genre forms by an immature native speaker vividly profiles the specifics of these forms.