COMMUNICATIVE TONALITY OF YOUTH DISCOURSE

 

Aigerim Smagulova

Candidate of philological  science al-Farabi

Kazakh national University Almaty e-mail

smagulova.aigerm@kaznu.kz

Gulnara Karipbayeva

Senior teacher al-Farabi

Kazakh national University

Almaty e-mail alipbai@gmail.com

Roza Rakhimbayeva

Senior teacher al-Farabi

Kazakh national University

Almaty e-mailroza_madjarova68@mail.ru

 

 

COMMUNICATIVE TONALITY OF YOUTH DISCOURSE

 

National mentality and cultural specificities still take an important part in the formation of the communicative behavior of young people, despite of the culture globalization in the virtual space and real world.  Linguistic cultures of the English, Kazakh and Russian languages initially have quite different nationally indicated communicative behavior. Specifically, the distinctive feature of current English linguistic culture is a maximum democratization of communication between the young generation and adulthood and advanced age. Young people (especially young men) have some tendencies to verbal competition, active aggression and game behavior. Russian linguistic culture is characterized by simplicity and openness at all levels of communication, which are demonstrated by young people. Kazakh linguistic culture is more closed in the manifestation of sincere feelings, but it is opened in relation to representatives of the older generation as much as possible. Age is considered sacred and the level of generational communication is full of restrictions and rules, which are followed by the young people. These properties are inherent in youth discourse in its everyday form, which occurs in real life.

Considering the youth discourse at the micro level, it is necessary to characterize the current condition of its grammatical layer, which as well unique and full of contradictions.   Certainly, not only the lexical level is specific, because the young people are the initiators of language modifications almost at all levels from the phonetic level to the discourse. [1,p.2]

Grammatical side of the speech should not be underestimate, because the language utterances can be effectively interpreted at the intersection of the grammar and the discourse context. I.P. Martinez noted that the grammar of youth language practice is characterized by the following features: a significant simplification of grammatical rules, intentioned ignoring of complex turns of speech, incomplete sentences reasoned by general background knowledge of communicants. It is also possible to add the lack of coherence in the discourse, inversion in sentences, tautologies and excessive use of enhancers of adjectives and adverbs, distortion of orthographic, orthoepic and punctuation norms of the language. A.B. Stanstrom and others emphasized the frequency of the use of several negations in the speech of young people that contradicts to the norms of English grammar, the changing of irregular verbs and use them as correct in the past tense, the adding more to the adjective in the comparative degree where it is not required and so much more.

At the level of orthography among the English-speaking youth, it can be noticed a lot of new variations of words. For example, nuffink, transformed from nothing, originates from cockney, vernacular of the middle and lower classes of the population of London; cos, reduced from because. The distortion of auxiliary verbs with combinations has been transformed, presumably due to phonetic assimilation, for example dunno (do not know), wunnit (was not it), dunnit (does not it). This tendency has already moved from a purely youth to a common speech. In the Kazakh language, arose the adaptation of the proper names to the morphological norms of the Russian language due to of its influence. So, the names, which are not inflected according to the norms of orthography, began to modify and inflect: Айнура (from Айнұр) – Айнуре, с Айнурой, об Айнуре; Жанара (from Жанар) – Жанару, Жанаре. [2, c.96] It is also grammatically incorrect to put the stress at the not last syllable in the proper names. This contradicts the norms of the Kazakh language, which are nevertheless not observed in the current language. These once-emerged innovations of young people are already an integral part of everyday speech and the adult generation for the current day, although not accepted in the literary language. Russian-speaking young people are as much inclined to violate the rules of orthoepy and orthography, which are catch the eye in the social networks.

The verbal system is highly subject to changes in youth discourse. Reduction and simplification in the agreement of the predicate with the subject, the nonagreement of the times are the most frequent forms of violation of the rules. The lowering of sentence members is a common feature for youth discourse regardless of linguistic culture. Availability of the common background knowledge, which allows to speak by reducing the speech to the minimum can serve as explanation of the lowerings of obligatory components. Such form of statements corresponds to the principle of quantity in speech communication, according to which during it shall be said no more and less that is required by this situation. Despite the fact that this phenomenon is intrinsic not only to youth but also to the stand-up genre in general, in the youth discourse there has been the highest degree of spontaneity, rapid speech-reaction to the speech-stimulus (*often including game elements, demonstration of resourcefulness), the desire to reduce utterances. Abundance of negative constructs in sentences is seen noticed among British teenagers comparing to adults. This is due to the cognitive and psychological features of teenage years, when communicants need self-affirmation in the course of communication, a desire to express themselves clearly and categorically is realized. The functions of negative constructions depend on the context.

V.I. Karasik noted that the communicative tonality implies the emotional-style format of communication that arises during the process of mutual influence between communication participants, determines their changing settings, the choice of means of communication. [3, p.388] For example, communication depending on the situation can be regarded by communicants in different ways: in one case as information, in another – entertainment, and sometimes as an empty conversation or even a work of art, etc. The following types of communicative tonality are singled out: informative tonality, which is a serious communication for the purpose of communicating any information; phatic tonality, which are different by dynamism in order to create comfortable communication conditions; status tonality, in which communicants mutually position each other; playful tonality, which is characterized as a frivolous reduced emotional communication on a short distance; solemn tonality, confirming group identity; Ideological tonality, which distinguishes “one’s own” from “another’s”; fascinate tonality, in which attention is paid to the aesthetic side of communication, pleasure from the perception of what has been said; mentorial tonality, in which one communicant emphasizes his superiority over the other. [4, p.390] In addition, there is also a hypothetical, aggressive, esoteric, manipulative tonalities are allocated, the name of which speak to themselves in their determination. Tonality can define both verbal means of expression, and nonverbal (Patting on the back of the interlocutor, frowning browse, a side long glance etc.). Phonetic aspects of communication (Tone of voice, intonation, melodic and temporal components, prosody) are also to be considered important. [5]

Youth discourse in their majority of its personality-oriented, often usable, logically excludes the importance of the faces aspect of communication, because the verbal ways of expressing thoughts and their aesthetic level in this case is not fundamentally important. Also to the untypical tonality for youth communication can be attributed esoteric, as a result of which mysticism and accordingly all related to it (rituals, magic) were among the least popular among the possible interests. Therefore, such a tonality is possible only in joking situations. Informative tonality could be possible for youth discourse because despite the frivolity of communication, the goal of any interaction, most often is the exchange of information. This does not mean that the conversation should take place completely without unnecessary emotions. Tonality can change more than once during the same conversation. Of course, it is possible to speculate about the tonality on the basis of the way, which is used by communicants in order to interpret the mode of communication in this situation. This discourse is a good example, in which the tonalities are changed quickly, and several rather contradictory ones are presented. But taking into consideration the spontaneity and speed of the reaction of youth communication, such transitions are very typical for discourse. In general, in youth discourse, it is possible to observe a wide range of palettes of different tonalities.

References:

1. I.P. Martinez The Expression of Negation in British Teenagers Language: of British Teenagers. A Preliminary Study of its Variations of youth’s tone. – 2011.
2. A. Aksholakova. The Kazakh nyms in Russian speech: norm, adaptation, variability. Doctoral dissertation. – А, 2014.
3. J.L. Mey Pragmatics. An introduction. Second edition. Hoboken, New Jersey: Blackwell Publishing, 2001, – 335 p.

4.V.I. Karasik. The language person expression: monograph – 2nd edition., -M: Gnozis, 2015, – p 383.

5. M.L. Makarov. Basics of discourse theory, -М, 2003.