Scholarly record

PRECEDENT NAMES IN PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION AS MEANS OF SHAPING LINGUACULTURAL IDENTITY

N. V. Poliakova

Abstract

Background information The article studies one of the key pragmatic goals of professional communication – influencing the addressee – by considering French and English precedent phenomena consequential to the target audience. Advertising as a goal-oriented speech effort is becoming an increasingly popular object of humanitarian research. The inextricable connection of language and culture has recently become the focus of renewed interest, and in this context of professional communication studies, precedent phenomena can be viewed as a powerful enculturation instrument. Methods / Aims The paper aims to define the key features of precedent names produced in professional communication and describe the way they affect the consumer in the framework of linguacultural identity. This aim determines a number of tasks to be addressed: • to single out the basic functions of precedent names in professional communication; • to consider the examples illustrating the way these functions are being realized; • to specify the way national and universal precedent phenomena, which constitute part of addressee’s worldview, function in professional communication; • to describe the way interaction subjects belonging to various lingua-cultural professional communities influence the processes of intercultural professional communication. The material for the study is represented by the texts of English and French consumer advertising. The study relies on the methods of comparative analysis, generalization and systematization, discourse and conceptual analysis. Results English and French professional communication is marked by a rather frequent use of precedent phenomena. Precedent names are multifunctional in advertising texts. Their key function is the attractive function, which is at all times complemented by an additional function (informative, qualifying, time localization or stylization). The study has illustrated that the choice of precedent names depends on a number of factors: addressee’s worldview, his or her national and cultural background, the type of product being advertised. High frequency of use is typical for precedent names associated with mass culture, existing in the addressee’s cognitive base and valid at the time of advertisement placement. National precedent phenomena are used whenever the target audience is more clearly segmented in terms of geographic, national, social, age and other characteristics. Conclusion Precedent names used in professional communication are intended to make it more expressive and, as a result, more efficient. Therefore, making a reference to precedent names as components of audience’s general knowledge, the advertiser is able to make the content more understandable to a greater scope of target audience members. The peculiarity of advertising language that defines its fundamental role within the social dimension, lies in its capacity to serve as a form of national and other social relations.

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