The evaluation vector of a review in musical discourse

This paper is the first to present the results of discourse analysis of the music disc reviews from BBC Music Magazine. Music communication management aims music values distribution and music and aesthetic tastes cultivation at the audience. This process takes place both at traditional philharmonic and concert hall stages as well as via media sources, such as radio, television and the press. A modern music magazine exceeds the scope of a print version and becomes a multimodal and multisensory resource. Music critics, whose reviews compile a significant part of the BBC Music Magazine volumes, play an important role in attracting readers to music life. Being members of a professional discourse community, the authors of these articles indirectly influence the development of music communication in the English-speaking world. The addressee of such journalistic messages are not only educated, by and large, music lovers, but also performers and sound companies. The article provides the notion of musical discourse. The results received in the process of qualitative and quantitative text analysis show, what lexical and stylistic means the music critics use to influence the audience, creating positive, satisfactory or negative image in readers. Evaluation requires the correspondence of the critic's inner scale with the one offered in BBC Music Magazine. Thus three basic evaluation modalities resulted in the division of star rated reviews in three groups. The first group includes four and five star reviews, where positive image of music is created with the help of adjectives sometimes intensified with adverbs and positive nouns. Comparison and metaphors are also frequently used. The balance in the description of positive and negative elements obtained by the use of contrasting conjunctions together with the verb lack form three star satisfactory reviews. Finally, negative lexical means and irony are characteristic of negative two star reviews. The explanation and the origin of nowadays modern star rating is also given in this article. The basic differences between the reviews of different types (positive, satisfactory and negative) were distinguished with the help of Tropes 8.4.4. program. The quantitative analysis revealed the highest subjectiveness in negative reviews, the balance of positive and negative features in satisfactory ones and small or very small quantity of negative elements in positive reviews.

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