Филологический класс (Mar 2023)
Optative Modality in Publicistic Discourse
Abstract
The aim of this article, dealing with the problem of realization of the category of optativity within the framework of publicistic discourse, is to consider the linguistic means of expressing optative modality on the lexical and lexico-syntactic levels. The urgency of the study is determined by the anthropocentric nature of the category of linguistic modality and the related need for further development and clarification of the corresponding principles of the theory of modality, in particular, the theory of optative modality. The research material, which involves identifying the specifics of the modal potential of the publicistic text, determined, presumably, by the peculiarities of the author’s worldview and the national picture of the world, includes the texts of public speeches by R. Kipling, collected by the author himself and published in 1928 in the collection of speeches “A Book of Words”. To solve the research problems aimed at identifying the trends in the implementation of optativity in the texts of the discursive type under consideration, a complex methodology was used, including the method of continuous sampling, the method of component analysis, as well as elements of structural-semantic, interpretive, contextual and statistical analyses. The study of the ways of expressing optative modality in Kipling’s texts of public speeches reveals a tendency toward the predominant use of lexico-syntactic means expressing modal desirability categorically enough, which, however, can be reduced via a complicated syntactic context. This tendency, covering optative utterances that express such shades of meaning as “desire proper”, “desire coupled with compulsion” and “wish”, allows the authors of the article to argue that the choice of the linguistic means of realization of the category of optativity in publicistic discourse depends not only on its communicative purpose, but also on the peculiarities of the individual author’s worldview, determined, in turn, by the specificity of the national picture of the world. The practical significance of the study consists in the possibility of using the results obtained when reading courses of lectures for students-philologists in theoretical grammar, stylistics and translation studies, as well as at sessions on interpretation of publicistic text.
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