Scholarly record

HIDDEN RESERVES OF PRECEDENT UNITS IN MODERN RUSSIAN MEDIA TEXTS

Lyudmila Shatalova, N. Shatalova, V. Cherepko, M. Bulavina, O. Glazova

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study of using precedent units as a frequency type of evaluative statements in modern Russian media discourse. An analysis is made of the functional features of precedent units as evaluating tools applied to modern Russian media texts. In this work, the following research methods were used: descriptive analysis, continuous sampling, contextual analysis and structural-component analysis. The descriptive-analytical method, including observation, comparison, generalization and interpretation of the obtained facts, made it possible to have a clear idea of the linguistic subject under study, develop a descriptive sequence, organize and systematize the linguistic material. Due to the contextual analysis, it was possible to distinguish shades of meaning in the semantic structure of precedent units; and the structural-component analysis provided an opportunity to consider the components of precedent inclusions. A modern newspaper publication is defined as a text of a special communicative style, with a pronounced author’s personal attitude, an active arrangement of evaluative accents and a search for new possibilities for transferring evaluations. An analysis of modern factual text materials showed that precedent units are the dominant method of meaning-making, actualization of evaluative meanings, strengthening of expressiveness in general and at the level of a text fragment. Using precedent units becomes one of the style-forming and constructive tools to create a journalist’s individual style. Based on such characteristics as information richness, stability and connotativity, precedent units along with other linguistic means are productively used as a base component of evaluative statements in modern Russian media discourse. The hidden reserve of a precedent unit as a linguistic sign with a “cultural meaning” allows the author to achieve discursively meaningful communicative purposes.

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