Discourse strategies for eliciting advice in the Agony Aunt column of an American glossy magazine
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17308/lic/1680-5755/2023/3/86-95Keywords:
request for advice, advice, discourse event, magazine advice column, mass media discourse analysisAbstract
This article presents the results of a study of strategies for eliciting advice within the format of a magazine advice section in American media from the perspective of pragmatics and discourse analysis. Request for Advice is analysed as a discourse event comprising a set of speech acts aimed at achieving one single communicative goal to encourage the addressee to provide advice. The Agony Aunt advice column is described as a distinctive type of discourse format typical of women's glossy magazines that has a conventionalised and standardised form with high level of mediation control and various participants involved. This discourse format determines the context of communication for all participants in advice-seeking situation, and Request for Advice as a discourse event is shaped within its frame. We identified and analysed the main discourse moves that make up this event, examined its interactive organisation and the language means regularly used by American native speakers to elicit advice in this context. The most distinctive discourse moves of Request for Advice are presenting the problem by the advice seeker, describing their emotional discomfort caused by the problem, and requesting advice. The act of requesting advice can be performed by American speakers directly or indirectly using explicit and implicit language means, with questions being the most common and frequently employed form.
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