Discursive functions of the Russian constructions po suti and po sushchestvu in spoken and computer-mediated discourse
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17308/lic/1680-5755/2023/2/32-39Keywords:
language corpus, discursive marker, reliability, epistemic evaluation, metalinguistic usageAbstract
The article examines the functioning of Russian parenthetic constructions “po suti” and “po sushchestvu” (essentially / in effect). The available research on these constructions focuses mainly on the functioning of these linguistic units in written texts. The purpose of this study is to describe the semantic and pragmatic pro perties of contexts in which “po suti” and “po sushchestvu” function in oral and computer-mediated communication. The study is based on the data of the oral subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus and the General Internet Corpus of Russian. The semantics of the constructions “po suti” and “po sushchestvu” determines their functioning as discursive units: in most contexts they are used as discursive markers, the general pragmatic function of which is to indicate the reliability of the information being reported. The analysis of the two concordances suggests that there are other variants of their use, related not so much to epistemic evaluation, as to the speaker’s need to mark the way of nominating an object or phenomenon (this is the so-called metalanguage usage). In both oral and computer-mediated communication, the marker “po suti” is used in explanatory contexts, where the speakers paraphrase their idea, making it more understandable to the addressee. Another common case is the use of both constructions in defi nitions. Also, the constructions “po suti” and “po sushchestvu” are used in contexts when speakers or writers indicate the optimal choice for naming the object. Finally, there are contexts in oral speech where the use of the marker “po suti” may not be associated with any indication of the reliability of the information. These are contexts in which “po suti” is used as a hesitative. Thus, corpus analysis allows us to conclude that the two constructions develop new pragmatic functions and can now be use as metalinguistic discourse markers.
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