АНАЛИЗ КОММУНИКАТИВНЫХ СТРАТЕГИЙ И ДИСКУРСИВНЫХ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИК РАЗЛИЧНЫХ ЖАНРОВ АНГЛОЯЗЫЧНОГО ВОЕННОГО ДИСКУРСА

Military discourse is a complex communicative-speech process that includes a combination of both written and oral texts used in the sphere of military intercourse, thesaurus of precedential statements, a set of speech actions and genres typical of this type of communication [8, p. 39]. It is marked by the strict hierarchy of the main participants of communication, the definite chronotope and open representation of values and norms of the military institute. The aim of the military discourse is determined by the key function of the state that is directed at providing the security of the country. This purpose is concretized by the corresponding intentions which determine the communicative strategies and tactics of the military discourse. The latter are actualized in its genres thus modeling their informative structure.

The genre of the military discourse can be defined as “a verbal formalization of the typical situation of people’s interaction, a mixture of textual works united by the common aim, similar or the same theme, compositional forms which are actualized in the typical communicative situation” [9, p. 261]. 

There are numerous classifications concerning genres of the military discourse. In accordance with the fact that speech intentions are genre-making, there exist directive (instruction, order, command); business-organizational (direction, charter, guidance); informative and reference genres (report, recommendation) in the military discourse [2, p. 66].

According to the functional purpose of military texts G. M. Strelkovsky singles out informative texts (military-scientific, military-technical, military-informational and military-publicistic) and texts regulating the life and activities of the armed forces (charters, instructions, directions, guidances, reports and recommendations). This group is usually called “military documents” [6].

Taking into account the character of the leading intention D. R. Fakhrutdinova writes about informative (report, introduction), imperative (command, detailed order) and etiquette (military salutation, greeting) genres in oral military communication.

Written genres take the central place in the military discourse. The nuclear “prototype” genres based on the leading intention of the military communication include orientation (informative), action-stimulating, epideictic (ritual) genres. Each of them is represented by the corresponding texts united by the common aim and strategy.

Orientation (informative) genres are represented by the texts of informative-prescriptive character (military doctrine, military and combat charters, instructions and reports).

Action-stimulating genres include appellative texts (directives, orders, prescriptions, commands).

Epideictic (ritual) genres are etiquette formulae of military salutations and greetings and the text of the military oath of allegiance.

Since one of the aims of this research is the analysis of the communicative strategies determined by the intention of the addresser we will use the gradation of the military genres which was suggested by D. R. Fakhrutdiniva.

The intentions of the addresser in communication consist of his aims and intentions and define the form and content of the military text. The “intention of the text” is usually understood as “the common aim, direction of the text towards receiving the definite result” [3, p. 159]. For example, informing or convincing the addressee of something.

The aim of the addresser is determined by his motivation which appears in the concrete communicative situation as a result of the preliminary evaluation of the wide sociocultural context by the addresser [1, p. 103]. The achievement of aims is carried out with the help of the corresponding strategies.

The strategies, in their turn, are realized by means of actualization of tactics. It includes the choice of definite means allowing to achieve the set aims in the concrete communicative situation with the help of language means. So, the communicative strategy is defined by means of the aim of communication. Let’s use the scheme to represent the above mentioned definition.

Aim     →     Strategy      →       Tactics     →    Language means

So, a speech strategy is a complete system of operations performed by the addresser in order to achieve the definite communicative aim in the concrete communicative situation by choosing optimal language means [11, p. 28].

It’s impossible to give a complete and universal gradation of communicative strategies because of the variety of communicative situations. Let’s consider some classifications of communicative strategies.

From the functional point of view there exist primary and auxiliary strategies. Primary strategy is the most significant strategy in terms of the hierarchy of motives and aims at the given stage of interaction. Auxiliary strategies contribute to the effective organization of the dialogical interaction and optimal influence on the addressee [4, p. 106 – 108].

Makarov M. L. gives the following classification of communicative strategies: propositional strategies, strategies of local coherence, productional strategies, macrostrategies, schematic, scenic and stylistic, speech strategies [5, p. 194].

The classification of strategies given by S. V. Datsuk is widely recognized. He investigates presentations, manipulations and conventions. By the level of openness, symmetry and the means of produced communication they are differentiated in the following way: presentation is a passive communication, manipulation is an active communication and convention is an interactive one. In the same way the main means are a message for presentation, a statement for manipulation and a dialogue for convention [7, p. 101].

Depending on the type of language personality A. V. Ulanov distinguishes three types of strategies: informing, manipulation and cooperation [7, p. 105 – 109].

Shkuratova E. A. underlines the strategy of confrontation which is represented by the strategy of speech manipulation and the strategy of speech aggression, the strategy of positioning and the strategy of cooperation [10, p. 205].

This article describes the way how the above-mentioned strategies of presentation, manipulation and convention are realized in orientation (informative), action-stimulating and epideictic (ritual) genres of the military discourse.

At the same time we will analyze the three above-mentioned genres of the military discourse by the following criteria:

Authorship, i.e. belonging of the text to a definite author. Here we can talk about four possible variants of authorship – when the creator of the text and the official author are the same or different people; the formal absence of authorship or the author’s institutional status. The authorship is closely connected with a “language personality” which is an essential constituent element of any speech strategy. Scientists discuss various aspects of the language personality based on verbal-semantic, cognitive and pragmatic levels. In this paper we will consider the pragmatic level which includes the revealing of intentions, motives and aims of the addresser in his speech. Thus, we single out three main types of a language personality – informer (active and passive), cooperator and manipulator. The function of an active informer is to give a message which requires instantaneous fulfillment while a passive informer gives reference information. A manipulator manages information for his own use, his communicative behavior depends on the situational and pragmatically determined. A cooperator performs the cooperative function of communication (shows admiration, congratulates on festive events, etc.).
Addressness, i.e. the type of the addressee of the text. We will distinguish between group addressee, a specified single addressee and mass addressee.
Intelligibility, i.e. understandability of the text by general readers or by definite specialists.
Informativeness, i.e. presence in the text of new information or the statement of known facts.
Evaluativity, i.e. presence or absence in the text of evaluative addresser’s characteristics of the discussed facts.
Institutionality, i.e. predominance of personal and institutional aspects in the text.
The degree of completeness of information, i.e. if the addressee gets complete or reduced information.
The material for the analysis is the texts which belong to the three written genres of the military discourse.

Let’s take a close look at some points of the National Military Strategy of the USA, It was presented to general public in 2015 by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey, This fundamental document belongs to the orientation (informative) genre of the military discourse and constitutes the basis of the American Armed Forces. This official document is obligatory for fulfillment in the Armed Forces and other military structures of the USA and it’s a doctrine which is presented to the whole world. It’s a document with a formal absence of authorship, i.e. it was prepared by a group of military specialists and presented to the involved military agencies and the wide public on behalf of the state or authorities of military departments. The communication is conducted in two simultaneous lines “representatives of the institution – representatives of the institution” and “representatives of the institution – representatives of general public”. The language personality in the person of Martin Dempsey performs the function of the informer of the mass addressee of the President’s Administration views on American security and welfare. He uses the communicative strategy of informing. Evidently, informativeness, i.e. newness of the given information without any evaluative or emotional component comes to the foreground. So, we can conclude that the analyzed document uses the strategy of presentation to achieve the aim of informing.

The General declares that America needs “to counter revisionist states that are challenging international norms as well as violent extremist organizations (VEOs) that are undermining transregional security” [14].

As we see, this extract presents only factual information and is characterized by the pithiness and succinctness, the use of standard official language means which are characteristic of the Army as a military institution and underlines its institutional character. Nevertheless, the outer plainness of the given information is accompanied by some sense indistinctness. At the same time, the document uses the lexical units of wide semantics such as «international norms», «transregional security», etc. To understand the document correctly one should have a wide scope of special knowledge, i.e. one should be a specialist in this field. Further on some indistinct terms are concretized. For example, hostile to America “revisionist states” are headed by Russia.

For comparison let’s analyze directives and orders as constituent parts of action-stimulating genre of the English military discourse.

It is well-known that directives and orders are characterized by the strict structure and precise wording, exactness, clearness, objectivity, conciseness, accented logicality of statement. Their main mission of this type of documents is to manage and control the activity of the addressee.

Let’s quote some military orders.

“The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy shall coordinate Defense Support of Civil Authorities policy with other Federal departments and agencies, State agencies, and the DoD Components, as appropriate” [13].

From the communicative point of view action-stimulating genres of the military discourse demand the fulfillment of the order contained in the document, i.e. the imperative characteristic of the text expresses the fact that the main attention of the addresser-manipulator which has the institutional status is directed towards the specified institutional addressee (a certain military authority or a department) in order to make them perform some concrete actions. Consequently, we can speak about the manipulative communicative strategy in the analyzed document. The information of the analyzed orders lacks informational superfluity and is understandable only by the involved institutional specialists. The line of communication looks as follows: “representatives of the institution – representatives of the institution”.

For comparison, epideictic (ritual) genres of the military discourse are characterized by the predominance of fanaticism over informativeness, i.e. they don’t contain new information but draw the addressee’s attention to already known facts. The addresser tries to influence the emotions of the addressee.

The official speech of Ashton Carter (the American Secretary of Defense) in honor of the Armed Forces Day on May 20th runs as follows:

“Today is Armed Forces Day, an opportunity for all of us to express our gratitude, our admiration, and our support to the men and women who have answered the noble call of service. They defend American security, American prosperity, and American values … . We are so proud of you” [12].

The main aim of this ritual speech is integration and unification of the nation on this special day for Americans. In this document we deal with the “cooperator type” of the language personality and the mass addressee, i.e. all the Americans and people all over the world. The speech is directed not only to the military men but to civil people as well, i.e. the communication is conducted in the line of “representatives of the institution – representatives of the institution” and “representatives of the institution – civil citizens”.

The creator of speech and the official author are the same person. The speech is characterized by the intelligibility, i.e. it is very well understood by the mass audience. The speech doesn’t contain new information; the emphasis is laid on feelings and emotions of the addressee. The addresser softens the official character of his speech, expresses admiration, congratulates all the people on the Armed Forces Day, underlines the precious input of American military men into providing American security. The addresser uses emotionally colored lexical units with positive connotations such as “noble” and “remarkable” to make the audience feel gratitude and pride for the military men. So, manipulative strategy comes to the foreground. But in this case we deal with emotional but not behavioral manipulation of the addressee.

Having analyzed some texts of different genres of the military discourse we can come to the conclusion that the military institutional discourse is a complex multidimensional formation characterized by two general communicative strategies – presentation and manipulation. Presentation is typical of orientation (informative) genres of the military discourse, while manipulation characterizes action-stimulating and epideictic (ritual) genres. The above-mentioned strategies differ from each other by the content and means for its representation. All the analyzed genres of the military discourse are marked by a definite set of discursive characteristics – authorship, addressness, intelligibility, informativeness, evaluativity, institutionality and completeness of information.