I AND WE IN CORPORATE DISCOURSE: THE REALIZATION OF SOCIOCULTURAL AND LINGUOPRAGMATIC CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMUNICATION

Abstract

The paper outlines the significance of the opposition I : : We within corporate discourse, the study of which claims to become one of the main areas of studying professional communication in the age of globalization. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to establish common and different forms of expressing personal and collective aspects in social communicative content in the genre of congratulatory speech. The research material is represented with the texts of congratulatory speeches in the German, Russian and Czech languages. The authors focus on the implementation of the current social and cultural status of a person in the texts, belonging to the genre of corporate discourse, which is defined in the paper as a type of institutional business communication, realized both in special, documentary texts of a given professional sphere, and in a complex of ritual, etiquette and ceremonial texts. In selected language versions, the authors reveal the common rigid structure of speech and the insignificant linguopragmatic and stylistic variability of language means caused by the general positive perlocutivity of this performative genre. The revealed features include, in particular, the self-orientation of congratulatory speeches in German as an explication of active self-presentation, that expresses rationality and individualism of the German collective style; reflection of the collective consciousness of the Russian society in the forms of deixis associated with the expression of intentions We : : I+everyone; as well as obligatory explication of close friendly relations of the sender and the recipient of congratulations in the Czech linguistic culture.The uniformity of linguistic means, noted in the acts of congratulatory speech, is explained as an intention to follow common discourse rules and universal commandments of global professional communication, shared by all discourse participants.

Keywords

• opposition i : : we
• linguoculture
• corporate discourse
• professional business communication
• genre
• congratulatory speech
• performativity
• perlocutivity