Everyday Media Discourse as an Interpretive Discourse (Based on Interpretive Utterances of Internet Speech)

The object of the research is everyday media discourse organised around media events. It is considered to be interpretive discourse. The article develops the idea of T. van Dijk, according to which interpretive discourse actualises the mental model of the event. The study was performed in the areas of interpretation linguistics and discourse study. Everyday media discourse is considered to be a discourse whose subject is the narratee of the source-discourse forming interpretive activity regarding the communicative event that organises it. The material for the analysis was statements in the form of Internet comments to the media event “The Crash of the Ukrainian Boeing in Tehran”. The total number of the analysed interpretive statements is 158. To describe everyday media discourse, the terminology of discourse study characterising interpretive discourses is used. Everyday media discourse is considered as the discourse mode and the discourse dictum. The modus of everyday media discourse displays itself in strategies and types of interpretation of the media event. There are the following types of media events' everyday interpretation strategies: identified by the degree of evaluation of the truth/falsity of the media event and identified by the degree of intensity of modus meanings in the interpretation. Among the former, there is the strategy of language skepticism and the strategy of language trust. Rational and emotional strategies are identified by the degree of intensity of modus meanings in the interpretation. Rhetorically- and dialogically-oriented types of interpretation of media events are described. The dictum of everyday media discourse can be traced in the model of interpretation of media events. The model of interpretation is understood as a process of interpretive functioning of the media event in the discourse of ordinary native speakers. The propositional model of everyday interpretation of the media event based on empirical material assuming the actualisation of various actants of the media event proposition is described. The research results are significant for the media industry (medialogy) for they allow predicting the variants of the interpretive functioning of the media event in the everyday language consciousness and using it as a basis to correct the ways of presenting media events in the media.

Keywords

Authors

References