POPULAR SCIENCE LINGUISTIC DISCOURSE IN MASS MEDIA: UPDATING LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

The article deals with the specifi cs of functioning of popular scientifi c linguistic discourse in mass media. Popular science content is not mandatory for mass media. The main task of mass media is to communicate relevant information to the addressee. The functioning of popular scientifi c linguistic discourse in media sources of this type is conditioned by a number of factors that make scientifi c information relevant to the mass addressee. Based on the analysis of three print media (the newspapers Argumenty i Fakty, Izvestia and Kommersant) three factors of actu-alization of scientifi c linguistic knowledge have been revealed: 1) intellectual; 2) pragmatic; 3) informational and entertaining. The popular scientifi c linguistic discourse, the actualization of which is conditioned by the intellectual factor, helps the reader to comprehend actual facts and events. Linguistic information in this case can be presented in diff erent amounts and represented in diff erent ways. But at the same time popular scientifi c linguistic discourse is not independent, it is presented in the context of an event relevant to the reader. With the help of scientifi c knowledge, the mass addressee gets an opportunity to critically evaluate this event. Popular scientifi c linguistic discourse, the relevance of which is conditioned by the pragmatic factor, can be used by the addressee in practical speech activity. These are materials about the normative use of individual units of the Russian literary language and articles about the rules of speech interaction. The relevance of popular scientifi c linguistic discourse can be conditioned by the informational-entertainment factor: the reader as a language user shows interest in certain linguistic phenomena. On the basis of thematic analysis, the spheres of linguistic knowledge which are of the greatest interest to the mass addressee are singled out: 1) history of words and phraseologisms; 2) lexical meaning of obsolete and new words (neologisms); 3) the use of proper names. As the analysis has shown, popular scientifi c linguistic discourse in mass media is subordinated to the main principle of content formation — the principle of relevance. Communicative, genre and style specifi city, as well as the way of representation of linguistic information are determined by the in-tellectual, pragmatic or informational and entertaining factors of actualization of this discourse.