СТИЛИСТИКА ПОСТМОДЕРНА В ДИСКУРСЕ СМИ: ФУНКЦИОНАЛЬНО-ПРАГМАТИЧЕСКИЙ АСПЕКТ

Introduction

In recent decades, an active understanding of the aesthetics and the worldview of postmodernism is observed in the relationship with the communicative parameters of the media. The system-forming features of media discourse in itself comprise at the intersection of the modern cultural paradigm of the postmodern and the prevailing method of social communication – technically mediated mass communication. For the linguopragmatics it is relevant to clarify the question whether the style of postmodern in contemporary media is a "purely aesthetic" form and / or a tool of influence on the mass consciousness of a modern man. When solving this question a number of related questions appear: to what extent the practice of the postmodern writing makes the media discourse free from authoritarianism, manipulation and other manifestations of the affecting function? Is it justified from the point of view of pragmalinguistics and linguoculturology to oppose the pluralism and expressiveness of expressive means of postmodern to the simplification of “totalitarian Newspeak” of the Soviet period? Are the “informality” and the dynamism of modern media discourse really testifying for the democratization and strengthening of the informativeness of media messages?

Discussion

The content of the postmodern paradigm can be generally represented as a set of the following key characteristics: the antisystematic worldview, fragmentation and relativistic pluralism in ontology, impersonality and refusal of reflection of reality in gnoseology, illusionism and eclecticism in aesthetics [10, P. 38-39] (based on [3], [4], [5], [7]). The postmodern creates its special pseudo-reality of “Simulacra”, where the text is a kind of the “pure art”, for which is not important a referential relationship with reality, but the „game” of meanings inside the semiotic unity of “signifier” and “signified”. The reader, in understanding of postmodernists, strives not to the understanding of being, but to its "deconstruction" (J. Derrida), which is the basis of the text perception strategies.

Namely from these positions many features are clarified which are characteristic for the texts of modern media discourse. So, for example, S.I. Smetanina identifies the following dominant characteristics of postmodern expressiveness in the media text: fragmentation, nonlinearity of narration, disruption of cause-and-effect relationships, composite and syntactic disruption, intertextuality, game-carnival power, pastiche, combining of the votes of author, narrator and characters [11, P. 87].

If we evaluate these features and techniques from the point of view of linguopragmatics, then their significant impact potential should be stated. So, the study of the language game, carried out on the material of the news genres of the press, showed that the game occurs as a powerful means of interpretation of reality and, therefore, of the influence on the recipient’s worldview. The degree of gaming transformation of reality varies in the news media from a minor stylistic nuance of the event up to the “reformatting”, i.e. transformation of its structure and substitution of components [10, P. 73-97]. Also, the range of communicative functions of intertextuality lies from the documenting of information up to the expressive intensification of pragmatically significant information fragments [ibid, P. 53-73]. In general, the use of postmodern stylistic devices in media texts leads to the displacement of the accent from the content to the form: it becomes more important not what is said, but how is said (cf. [12, P. 90-91]). This inevitably leads to the weakening of the significance of the relationship “Reality – Text” in favour of the relationship “Meaning – Text”, where the meaning becomes a self-sustaining force subordinating the event reality. We are talking about the generating of virtual reality instead of reflecting the objective reality, which means actually the departure from the principles of traditional journalism values to reflect the objective reality. If we consider that the corporate interests of media enterprises have a significant influence on the process of “creative rethinking” of reality, then we can state, that the media text, written in the postmodern style, cannot but occur as a means of creating that virtual reality, which reflects the position of a direct or mediated customer of the information product.

 The ontology of postmodern in its anti-systematic worldview, fragmentation and relativism is clearly implemented in those features that were once revealed by H. Schiller for the postindustrial society: multichannel communication, mass character, fragmentation and immediacy of information [13, P. 36-47]. The reality in the media itself, as we found out, is not so much reflected, but constructed by means of images, forming a fragmentary, “clip” consciousness [8, P. 313].

Such an influence affects the formation of a special attitude to reality as to the show, in which the concepts of truth, responsibility, moral etc. are abolished. In this “Society of Spectacle” (Guy Debord) for the fore come the show-politics, show-justice etc. [2]. Postmodern consciousness, refusing to understand reality, turns to its experience as a show, which director are the media. In the show the main thing is to participate, “joining” without the need of a rational understanding, the viewer and the performer are merged, they are not individual, the momentary atmosphere of the carnival becomes a permanent form of life [8, P. 307-308]. In media stylistics there appeared a concept of a “light reader” [6, P. 65], which, unlike the “elite reader”, is in the mood for the “ritual consumption” of entertainment information as a part of the mass culture – "business on consumption" [ibid, P. 61]. In such information the outrageousness, sensation and “shock aesthetics” are inseparable from the pragmatic task, which means to “attract the attention of the reader and to increase the circulations” (ibid, P. 35). Natural in such a situation is the reduction of critical perception and the abolition of ethical standards, that creates a situation where “people have no time to “absorb” values, correlating them constantly with the previous one. They begin to consume them” [8, P. 306].

In a number of characteristics of the postmodernist aesthetics of the media, united by the phenomenon of the “mass”, “impersonalized” author, researchers point "the inaccuracy, blurring, tendency to ambiguity; fragmentation; irony and the desire to remove any canons; carnivalization; intertextuality as a “ligament” of conjugated concepts; constructivism implying continual generation of multiple conflicting versions” [9, p. 55]. Thus, the “clip”, “mosaic” culture of the postmodern, strengthened through the technical means of modern mass media, forms a special type of “pluralistic consciousness”, deprived of integrity and moral grounds and, as a result, to the maximum degree predisposed to any kind of communicative impact. As a means of such an impact the expressive tools of postmodern narrative are actively used.

The media narrative is formed under the influence of the factors discussed above and is determined, unlike the fiction discourse, not by the personal creative method of the author, but by the requirements of the media system itself. The "self-expression" of a journalist on the air or on the pages of the print media objectively cannot be only his “private matter” as the creator. The author, practicing the postmodern style of writing and striving to pull the reader into the game, to carry him away by irony, banter, “multi-layered” meaning, is hardly guided only by the “aesthetic” intentions. “Art for art's sake” is possible only in rare specialized media with their “elite” audience and non-massive demand. In the mass circulation media the market conditions dictate the need to search for new expressive means for quite pragmatic goals lying not in the field of virtual "hypereality", but in the field of practical tasks of the editorial staff as a manufacturing enterprise. Under these conditions the postmodern stylistic devices are used as one of the means to influence public opinion, in particular, by manipulation.

The pluralism and expressiveness of postmodern stylistics could be considered as a sign of greater democracy of the media language with assuming of at least the following conditions. 1. The mass reader would know no less than the authors the “laws of the genre” of postmodern, “the rules of the game” and in general, would be in the mood for this game, and not only for receiving information. 2. “Ease of manners” would not be accompanied by the removal of ethical restrictions, which is so characteristic for the relativistic worldview of the postmodern, which does not recognize any “absolutes”. 3. The “alienated” world perception of postmodern would not lead to the “loss of sociality” directly caused by the habit of “quasi-real” gamelike perception of information [1, P. 253]. As it is easy to see, none of these conditions can be considered implemented into the communicative space of the media, which means that the postmodern situation in the media discourse does not exempt it from manipulation and does not make it more democratic. Rather, it makes sense to talk about the change of communicative tactics of impact. If in the discourse, which is called totalitarian, the explicit methods of repeat and appraisive nominations prevail, then in the “democratic” discourse the impact means are moved to the implicit level and become finer, “intellectual”, but from this – no less effective.

Conclusion

Thus, the cultural situation of postmodern with its antisystematic worldview, relativism and illusionism, intersecting in the functional-pragmatic space of the media with its characteristics such as multichannel communication, mass character, fragmentation and immediacy of information, leads to the formation of a “mosaic-carnival” type of technologized pop culture in which a rational critical assessment of reality is inferior to its virtual-irrational consumption. This creates favorable conditions for various types of communicative, including manipulative influence, whose technique, in turn, is updated and improved by means of postmodern writing. The visible “aesthetism” of the form appears, thus, as a tool of intellectual impact, allowing to mask the pragmatic intentions of the sender of information under the “democracy” of expressive stylistic devices.