“Aesthetics of Kantselyarit” in the Genre of Review-Postcard

• Main Author: Tarasova, Irina Anatolyevna
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Saratov State University 2020-06-01
• Series: Жанры речи
• Subjects: newspeak (kantselyarit); review-postcard genre; culture of speech; the culture two; genre incompetence
• Online Access: https://zhanry-rechi.sgu.ru/sites/default/files/110-117_0.pdf

The paper focuses on the problem of genre­-style in­competence of students, its linguistic and sociocultural reasons. This article is aimed at establishing the stylis­tic nature of a new genre of a review­-postcard. The results of the stylistic analysis show a certain contra­diction between theoretical ideas about the genre of the review­-postcard and its real embodiment in the students’ works submitted to the contest of pedagogi­cal reviews-­postcards for a modern children’s book. The data contains 25 reviews written by the students of Faculty of Pedagogical and Special Needs Educa­tion of Saratov State University. For comparison the author uses 25 reviews of the winners of a similar contest conducted by the Institute of System Projects of MSPU. From the point of view of functional stylistics, the review is an analytical genre of journalistic style. Its style dominant is supported by its advertising com­ponent. However, in the students’ works, the style parameter is significantly deformed by the influence of the so called “kantselyarit” (officialese/newspeak). The stylistic analysis of students’ postcards reveals the main features of the official style: standardization, an abundance of official phraseology, non-­personal char­acter of the narration, the predominance of nouns over verbs. In the postcard reviews of more mature partic­ipants of the contest (teachers, librarians), “kantsel­ yarit” stylistics are not actually represented. The author believes that the cause of genre­-style in­competence is not limited to a low level of speech culture (in particular, the violation of the principle of the sphere of communication differentiation). The “return” of “kantselyarit” is one of the typological fea­tures of the conservative Culture–2, when documents influence other types of literature, and the bureau­ cratic language is perceived as the norm.