Being a much-studied concept in the social and political sciences and cultural studies (Jenkins 2... more Being a much-studied concept in the social and political sciences and cultural studies (Jenkins 2004; Chandra 2006; Phinney 2003; Phinney and Ong 2007, and others) (ethnic) identity has become an object of study of linguistics and intercultural communication (Besemeres
The paper explores the role of the media in influencing public opinion from an inferential-pragma... more The paper explores the role of the media in influencing public opinion from an inferential-pragmatic perspective. It presents preliminary results of the study focused on representation of Russia in Western newspapers. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 1995, 2001; van Dijk 2009) and media linguistics (Fowler 1991, Richardson 2007, among others) the study centres around the linguistic means of construing ambiguity/uncertainty, viewed as a strategy of persuasion. We mostly focus on the semantics of certain groups of words and other textual features such as indefinite pronouns, epistemic modality, passive voice, present perfect tense, interrogative headlines and some other tools used in media texts to construe ambiguity which, in its turn, arguably aims at influencing public opinion. We also look at presupposition, information structure, evaluation and transitivity. Though we have limited our study to the English language sources (The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, news websites of the BBC, Reuters, Express, Politico and Fox News, among others), we are not suggesting that linguistic ambiguity is a feature of Western, rather than Russian, or other languages' media.
Representing an important interface that reflects the relationship between language and society, ... more Representing an important interface that reflects the relationship between language and society, forms of address provide significant sociolinguistic information about the interlocutors' relationship, and the socio-cultural contexts. The present article aims at identifying some types of Arabic address forms (mainly kinship terms and teknonyms) that may be used in different socio-cultural contexts and the factors that affect them. It is also aimed at finding some evidence of the fact that Arabic forms of address are derived from Islamic teachings and Prophetic traditions. For this purpose, one hundred and eleven of the Prophet Muhammad's hadiths have been analysed. The data was also collected from multiple Arabic studies and books on titles, names, and teknonyms by Arab scholars, and through ethnographic observation as well. Admitting the fact that the Arabic language is the root of different Arabic dialects, such as the Syrian, Palestinian, and Jordanian ones, we focus, in this study, on Standard Arabic language in an attempt to find out some general features of the forms of address typical of the Arab world, though we admit that every dialect has its own specificity in terms of addressing others and needs special study. The findings show that although Arabic forms of address share some universal features with other languages, they display many culture specific peculiarities, which are predetermined by culture and cultural values. The paper contributes to our understanding of Arabic address forms in different social contexts and may be applied in the classes of second language teaching and intercultural communication.
This special issue of our journal is devoted to a topic that is increasingly attracting the atten... more This special issue of our journal is devoted to a topic that is increasingly attracting the attention of linguists in the 21st century, namely the expression of emotion in discourse. We are addressing this subject for the second time: The first issue came out exactly three years ago (2015-1) and it was devoted to Russian studies on emotion. This time we have invited leading scholars in the field from all over the world. The main goal of this issue is then to make the reader familiar with the main avenues of research on language and emotion that have been developed by these specialists and other scientists from different corners of the planet, as well as to build academic bridges for further collaboration.
This paper attempts to define a culture-specific communicative style which I call communicative e... more This paper attempts to define a culture-specific communicative style which I call communicative ethno-style and determine the factors which lead to its formation. While defining communicative ethno-style some generalizations are unavoidable and reference is made to a typical user of standard language and his/her communicative behaviour in interpersonal interaction in everyday situations. At the same time it is not possible to take a dichotomous approach in describing the communicative styles as they form a continuum and need to be viewed in comparison. In this paper I demar-cate the dominant features of Russian communicative style as opposed to British and emphasize the importance of a systemized description of culture specific communicative differences through communicative ethno-styles. This is important for developing pragmatic and discourse competence necessary for intercultural communication. The study is based on empirical data obtained through questionnaires, interviews and observations and follows contextual, pragmatic, discourse analyses. The theoretical framework is based on Politeness Theory (Brown
Being a much-studied concept in the social and political sciences and cultural studies (Jenkins 2... more Being a much-studied concept in the social and political sciences and cultural studies (Jenkins 2004; Chandra 2006; Phinney 2003; Phinney and Ong 2007, and others) (ethnic) identity has become an object of study of linguistics and intercultural communication (Besemeres
The paper explores the role of the media in influencing public opinion from an inferential-pragma... more The paper explores the role of the media in influencing public opinion from an inferential-pragmatic perspective. It presents preliminary results of the study focused on representation of Russia in Western newspapers. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 1995, 2001; van Dijk 2009) and media linguistics (Fowler 1991, Richardson 2007, among others) the study centres around the linguistic means of construing ambiguity/uncertainty, viewed as a strategy of persuasion. We mostly focus on the semantics of certain groups of words and other textual features such as indefinite pronouns, epistemic modality, passive voice, present perfect tense, interrogative headlines and some other tools used in media texts to construe ambiguity which, in its turn, arguably aims at influencing public opinion. We also look at presupposition, information structure, evaluation and transitivity. Though we have limited our study to the English language sources (The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, news websites of the BBC, Reuters, Express, Politico and Fox News, among others), we are not suggesting that linguistic ambiguity is a feature of Western, rather than Russian, or other languages' media.
Representing an important interface that reflects the relationship between language and society, ... more Representing an important interface that reflects the relationship between language and society, forms of address provide significant sociolinguistic information about the interlocutors' relationship, and the socio-cultural contexts. The present article aims at identifying some types of Arabic address forms (mainly kinship terms and teknonyms) that may be used in different socio-cultural contexts and the factors that affect them. It is also aimed at finding some evidence of the fact that Arabic forms of address are derived from Islamic teachings and Prophetic traditions. For this purpose, one hundred and eleven of the Prophet Muhammad's hadiths have been analysed. The data was also collected from multiple Arabic studies and books on titles, names, and teknonyms by Arab scholars, and through ethnographic observation as well. Admitting the fact that the Arabic language is the root of different Arabic dialects, such as the Syrian, Palestinian, and Jordanian ones, we focus, in this study, on Standard Arabic language in an attempt to find out some general features of the forms of address typical of the Arab world, though we admit that every dialect has its own specificity in terms of addressing others and needs special study. The findings show that although Arabic forms of address share some universal features with other languages, they display many culture specific peculiarities, which are predetermined by culture and cultural values. The paper contributes to our understanding of Arabic address forms in different social contexts and may be applied in the classes of second language teaching and intercultural communication.
This special issue of our journal is devoted to a topic that is increasingly attracting the atten... more This special issue of our journal is devoted to a topic that is increasingly attracting the attention of linguists in the 21st century, namely the expression of emotion in discourse. We are addressing this subject for the second time: The first issue came out exactly three years ago (2015-1) and it was devoted to Russian studies on emotion. This time we have invited leading scholars in the field from all over the world. The main goal of this issue is then to make the reader familiar with the main avenues of research on language and emotion that have been developed by these specialists and other scientists from different corners of the planet, as well as to build academic bridges for further collaboration.
This paper attempts to define a culture-specific communicative style which I call communicative e... more This paper attempts to define a culture-specific communicative style which I call communicative ethno-style and determine the factors which lead to its formation. While defining communicative ethno-style some generalizations are unavoidable and reference is made to a typical user of standard language and his/her communicative behaviour in interpersonal interaction in everyday situations. At the same time it is not possible to take a dichotomous approach in describing the communicative styles as they form a continuum and need to be viewed in comparison. In this paper I demar-cate the dominant features of Russian communicative style as opposed to British and emphasize the importance of a systemized description of culture specific communicative differences through communicative ethno-styles. This is important for developing pragmatic and discourse competence necessary for intercultural communication. The study is based on empirical data obtained through questionnaires, interviews and observations and follows contextual, pragmatic, discourse analyses. The theoretical framework is based on Politeness Theory (Brown
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