Discourse - what is it? Types of discourse. The concept of discourse

We all understand: the distinction between oral and written speech on methods of maintaining contact is, of course, justified. Inefficient will be the circulation of the information transferring to real people in the classical literary language. Also, in turn, it would be ridiculous to consider the attempt to substitute special vocabulary with ordinary everyday expressions.

Definition of discourse

Not only the scientific, but also the information revolution marks the 21st century. The philistine today faces daily with one or another verbal communication. We are all in our daily communication and thanks to the information flows of the mass media surrounding us, we are immersed in discourse. "What is this?" - the thoughtful reader of the article will ask. The answer is a strikingly concise definition given in the New Webster dictionary: this is verbal communication.

Origin of the term

The term itself originated from the Latin discursus, which means "circulation, movement". Over time, the disordered chaotic movements of the physical plane have changed. They became associated with different, "differently directed" thoughts, ideas, different views of different people on the same problem. In the future, another transformation of meaning occurred. The concept of discourse begins to be strongly associated with most people precisely with verbality. What is it, to explain quite simply. Practically any information message: whether household, from the field of politics, ideology, culture, science, military affairs - is one thing, is one of the types of discourse.

Specialist in this field, professor of Amsterdam University TA Van Dyke defines its main function as communication - to transform macrosocial phenomena, such as science, ideology, culture, practically to every person, to the microsocial level, through metered information impact.

Discourse and Text

What is the difference between text and discourse? After all, they have a common feature: a qualitative discourse does basically contain the primary component - the text. However, as we have already mentioned, this text is not academic and not statistical in nature. His effectiveness, that is, the predicted and realized speech influence, actually turns the text into discourse. What is this narrowly directed verbal action? Discourse is always directed to a specific object, staying in a specific situation, and to a certain target audience. And he certainly conveys information about this in a certain context. A separate discourse is a homogeneous (coherent) semantic block.

However, the chain of discourse is not discrete: one block ends, another begins, etc. It simulates a typical conversation, which is a sequence of topics: one ends, and another discourse comes to replace it. That this type of communicative impact has a block structure is eloquently evidenced by the practice of working with the media.

Personal Discourse

Different types of society are easily recognizable by their respective motives and themes, used in their own form.

They are original, on the one hand, and specialized - on the other. The concept of "discourse" sociolinguistics is divided into institutional and personal-oriented (personal).

The first type obliges the narrator to represent a certain social institution, to identify himself as an official. The second involves talking with listeners when addressing them personally. This type of communication places a particular interest on the narrator.

Types of discourse, in turn, are divided into types. So, the personal is expressed in varieties: everyday and being.

Household communication occurs between people who know each other well. Therefore, such a verbal contact is accompanied by a nonverbal contact, complementing it. The speaker means that the listener understands it from a half-word, in connection with this the meanings of the words are very mobile.

The existential form of discourse takes place when one person, using various figures of speech, presents his interpretations of reality, the motives of his behavior, as well as what is called the inner world. It is inherent in works of fiction. The existential communication influence, in essence, is different from the domestic one. However, they also have a common feature: these types of discourse assume an active role of the listener. He must actively comprehend what the narrator said.

Institutional Discourse

This type of discourse is distinguished by its status-role relationships. Verbal communication takes place in various areas of specialization that exist in society, for example, in administrative, military, business, diplomatic, mass information, medical, mystical, scientific, pedagogical, advertising, religious, sports, stage, legal, political.

Each of these institutional types of communication is characterized by two main features: the focus of the given discourse and its audience. The advertising discourse takes place between advertising organizations and advertising recipients in various ways: in mass media, in special glossy publications, through advertising campaigns in the press, and wide application of external advertising (bigboards, lightboards, advertising in transport). The purpose of political discourse is traditionally the coming to power of the party and further finding with it.

Generally speaking, analyzing a specific type of institutional discourse, one should disclose its inherent characteristics: discursive formulas, material (subject matter), precedent texts, varieties and genres, strategies, participants, chronotope, goals, values (including the key concept). Below, we will try to do this by analyzing one of its types.

Scientific Discourse

The participants of the institutional discourse, called the scientific discourse, are researchers of scientific problems and the general public - TV viewers and people reading scientific journals. Its initial condition is the equality of participants, because all of them have to establish the truth in the process of communication in the same way. At the same time, scientific discourse is somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, the participants tend to unify their status, referring to each other "colleague", and on the other - erect barriers to participation in the discourse of outsiders through the introduction of special scientific titles and statuses. In this case, the subject of conversation is extremely abstracted, organized logically. In this case, the principle of evidence is valid.

Concepts of scientific discourse

The concept of the discourse of the scientific presupposes the multifunctional participation of scientists. They uniquely identify themselves as researchers, as educators, as popularizers and, of course, as experts in the matter under discussion.

The value of this type of communicative action lies in its basic concepts: knowledge, truth, research. He has a certain strategy of knowledge. It involves successive blocks of research: limitation and selection of the subject; A review of previous research attempts; Formulation of the hypothesis and purpose; Definition of methods; Creation of a theoretical model of the formulated subject of research; Presentation of research results, commentary to them and peer review; Definition of practical value; Presentation in scientific publications.

Genres

The concept of the genre was formed at the beginning of the XIX century, the notion of discourse - at the end of XX. For the first time they were combined with the Bulgarian scientist Todorov Tsvetan in 1975. A prerequisite for this step was the problem of the development of the scientific category of "discourse": within any of its forms, further detailing into units of verbal communication was required. The extremely broad concept of the genre was ideally suited for describing the regularity of discourse. It consists in the fact that, on the one hand, it is produced by society, and on the other hand it affects its superstructure.

As we have already mentioned, the genres of discourse are correlated with a particular kind of discourse as its individual forms of representation. In particular, the genres of scientific discourse can be called an abstract, a presentation at a conference, a dissertation, a monograph, a scientific and technical report, a scientific report, a review, an abstract, a poster report, abstracts, a scientific article.

Modern genre system of scientific discourse, except written and oral types, includes computer communication (echo conferences, scientific chats, e-mail).

Advertising discourse: mechanism

Let's agree with Doctor of Philology Irina Germanovna Ovchinnikova that the discourse of advertising is different from other types of verbal communication by its autonomy. Unlike other "institutional", it has a strictly unidirectional action: from the advertiser to the consumer. He has a pragmatic character with the sole purpose of making a profit. In addition, advertising communication is subject to strictly regulated order of presentation: channel, time and frequency of transmission. Good advertising should be adapted to the traditions of society, to whose representatives it is addressed.

The multifaceted nature of the advertising discourse is figuratively shown in the accessible form even for the layman Viktor Pelevin in the novel Chapaev and Void. The way it is shown is original: the novel itself is a mixture of discourses, the leading among which is advertising. The protagonist, the copywriter of Tatarsky, creates advertising products of various genres: holistic campaigns, clip scenarios, advertising concepts and slogans. How, according to Pelevin, copywriters stimulate people - the object of advertising - to buy certain goods and services? Tatarsky explains this in an original way. People, in his opinion, are constantly trying to find freedom in their unceasing suffering. And for them, adroit advertisers in this way, through advertising discourse, turn the reality around, that this freedom is represented by gaskets with wings, iron, lemonade, etc.

In the novel "Empire B", the writer cautions, he shows the negative side of disproportionately expanded advertising discourse, mimicking in all spheres of life, replacing the moral principles of society with glamor. He criticizes discourse, which disorients people in the choice of a life goal and supersedes the society-forming principles.

Global network and discourse

One of the signs of the XXI century is the emergence of new types of communication, generated by the development of information technology. In particular, the Internet communication environment today occupies a significant place for most people. Internet discourse acts as a symbiosis of epistolary and colloquial styles. His main way of defining concepts is to become a metaphor - the intellectual transfer of the analysis scheme of one object (phenomenon) to another. Internet-discourse, according to AG. Abramova, has the nature of the chat, i.e., interactive and real-time. In addition, he suggests the anonymity of communication, the propensity to contact. To determine it you should analyze its components, but this is a topic for a separate article.

Conclusion

Today, there is no doubt that one of the social factors in the formation of our consciousness is discourse. Examples of this are well known. After all, the formation of verbal communication of attractive or repulsive images of social objects and institutions occurs on the basis of existing information flows in society. This presents ample opportunities for manipulating the consciousness of people.

Therefore, ideally, verbal communication should more closely follow the strategic goals and morality of society than the immediate interests of politicians and businessmen.