Vol 15, No 3 (2024)

Texts covering environmental problems act as translators of socially significant information that constructs a system of value coordinates and require comprehensive scientific understanding. The parameters of environmental discourse are considered in the «Telegram» social network. The relevance of the study is due to the need for a comprehensive study of the corpus of the latest texts, the unifying thematic component of which is nature and environmental protection. The purpose of the paper is to study the environmental discourse represented in the accounts of eco-bloggers in the Russian-language segment of the «Telegram» social network, in terms of the implementation in it of techniques of speech influence on the recipient. The functional and content complexity of the texts updated in the discursive space under study predetermined the variety of research methods used: from direct observation, continuous and random sampling, content analysis to linguopragmatic and structural-linguistic analysis of eco-blog texts. The study of eco-blogs made it possible to identify their specifics, as well as the range of methods and means of speech influence at the levels of composition and content, used by eco-bloggers in order to have a maximum impact on the worldview and behavior of the addressee and encourage him to take active actions in favor of preserving the cleanliness of the environment peace.

Information construal in cinematic discourse employs different semiotic modes; meanwhile, their variance is yet to be explored. The study is aimed at exploring spatial event construal in the language and image modes of science documentaries. We hypothesise that three major event types - environmental events, human-environment interaction events and interpersonal interaction events - employ different spatial construal patterns in language and image, which results from mode allowances and constraints. To verify the hypothesis, we use spatial image schema topology while identifying the image schemas in the lexical and grammatical structure of language and in the layout of the objects, the manner of their movement and interaction in image. The research data include 353 events in single clauses and in shots extracted from two English-language science documentaries. The results show the prevalence of the source-path-goal schema in both semiotic modes, which consequently prevents it from differentiating between event types both within and across the modes. The schemas scale, straight, and near-far display a tendency to differentiate between events; however, no significant distinctions were observed, presumably due to the ontological nature of events as well as the semiotic characteristics of the modes. Additionally, the study reveals that spatial construal of events can follow parallel alignment, commonly with the schemas source-path-goal, contact, near-far, and complementary alignment with the schemas centre-periphery, scale, up-down, front-back, straight, left-right, which reflects a complex nature of inter-semiotic relations in cinematic discourse. The findings of the article contribute to the understanding of event construal in the multimodal discourse of science documentaries.

The peculiarities of the comic objectification of the socially oriented anti-value concept GREED are determined by applying an axiological approach consisting of five stages. The article considers the features of comic objectification of the anti-value concept of GREED. The research proves relevant as humorous characteristics of greed have been analyzed in detail. The corpus of the study comprises recordings and scripts of 500 episodes of various sitcoms and more than 70 stand-up specials by American and British writers. Disapproving exclamations accompany laughter periodically while actualizing GREED. In addition, the manifestation of greed is evaluated negatively either by the authors of the sitcoms or by its characters. In humorous discourse the concept is emphasized both manifesting the desire to be wealthy and the desire to save wealth. While the desire of being wealthy is expressed through committing immoral acts in order to achieve wealth and through thieving goods the desire to save wealth is realized either by the unwillingness to share goods with other people or by the priority of wealth over other values. The main sociocultural characteristics that are comically exposed in modern humorous discourse while specifying greed include characteristics of success (rich people), professional characteristics (politicians, bankers, etc.), ethical characteristics (Americans) and gender characteristics (women seeking to get the wealth of the men). The main language means of expressing the analyzed concept in humorous discourse are antithesis and hyperbole. In addition, GREED is mocked through actualizing such concepts as ‘intelligence’, ‘cynicism’, ‘anger’ by a comic addresser.

The topicality of the study of nonfiction journalistic discourse concerning the communicative action of objection is connected with the existing changes which happened in the perception of science by the public and the journalistic interpretation of this sphere of activity. The scientific sphere becomes more transparent which demands extra efforts in the broadcasting of scientific knowledge and representation of achievements and discoveries in the field of science to the public reader. This explains the necessity to increase the resistance of mediatext about the science to the objection and denial by the target audience. The purpose of the article is the analysis of mechanisms for increasing the resistance of mediatext to objection. The empiric base includes hypermediatext about scientific discoveries of Rosatom in struggling against cancer. Under the development of new media it is impossible to ignore the new methods of information broadcasting to the final consumer, therefore the base for analysis includes sources which interact differently with the audience: TG-channel “Country Rosatom”, cognominal house publication, non-special media. The selected sources were analyzed from the viewpoint of meaning positions of speech subjects - modality, denotation, communicativeness. It is interesting that in each source there dominates one of meaning aspects, thus, providing the resistance to objection on each stage of information cause presentation. In contemporary media the news discourse is the continuation of promotive discourse, the mechanisms of increasing the text resistance to objection, developed on the stage of promotive discourse, are later performed in the news one. After the analysis it was revealed that the dominant aspect of meaning position of speech subject on TG-channel is modality as a generalized announcement about the significance of the discovery, because it is the first appearance and the easiest for perception. In house publication which follows the TG-channel in the discussion the communicativeness goes forward, here happens the approval of mechanisms for resistance to objection, develops the main system of images, metaphors, representing the role of the discovery for the society, later the approved methods are applied in non-special media - namely journalistic publications. On the last stage in hypermediatext we see the traditional mass media, here denotation as the message about the effectiveness and the opportunity to ensure wide spread and appliance of new technologies goes forward.

One of the topics relevant today regarding the peculiarities of the author’s discourse is the codes of culture, common to native speakers of the same language, but gaining originality in the artistic text. In the selection of units of language, their obvious thematic proximity and concentration, in their content, refracted by the writer’s vision, the originality of the word master is manifested. The novel «Surgeon» by M. Stepnova, one of the prominent writers of our time, has not yet been considered from the point of view of the peculiarities of understanding the vital subject area. The analysis of the novel is aimed at determining the functions performed in the text by units of gastronomic code, such as the names of dishes, drinks, products and their various characteristics. This allowed us to see that the use of edible nominations is one of the striking features of the writer’s style. The meal, as the author shows, occupies a significant place in the value system of the representatives of the older generation of the Khripunovs, and its features were most directly reflected in the formation of the personality and fate of their son - the main character of the story. The theme of food runs through the whole novel: it participates in showing the lifestyle and welfare of the characters, mentality and social position, the nature and motivation of actions, relationships between people, and meeting family members at a common table becomes a measure of the well-being of the family hearth. The author’s amazing skill manifests itself in showing both mouth-watering food and a food nightmare - fatty or sweet; these two vectors in the development of the gastronomic theme are the main ones in the novel, and it was gastronomy that influenced the choice of the main character of the life path. The sweet motif is most widely represented in the novel; it participates in the presentation of events, causal relationships and plot twists - the ostentatious concern of parents for their unloved son, the honey-unnatural manner of behavior and speech of the characters, the rejection of a woman because of her fundamentally different taste preferences, etc. Food code units are used both in direct meanings - when showing «non-conceptual» food, and take on an ideological, figurative and plot-forming function in the text of the novel.