Pragmatical, terminological and functional analysis of the UN corpus Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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УДК 81

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Язык науки и профессиональная коммуникация. 2022. № 2 (7)

DOI: 10.24412/2658-5138-2022-7-25-43

PRAGMATICAL, TERMINOLOGICAL AND FUNCTIONAL

ANALYSIS OF THE UN CORPUS

Elena Yu. Balashova, ORCID ID 0000-0002-9993-8116, Saratov State Law Academy,

1, Volskaya Str., Saratov, 410056, Russia, [email protected]

Ekaterina A. Bogacheva, ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0340-840X, Saratov State Law

Academy, 1, Volskaya Str., Saratov, 410056, Russia, [email protected]

Nikita I. Ilyukhin, ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8890-093X, Saratov State Law Academy,

1, Volskaya str., Saratov, 410056, Russia, [email protected]

Genre annotation for UN Corpus has linguopragmatic and functional grounds in modern

linguistics. UN Corpus contains legal terminology and this makes its annotation more

complicated. The analysis of legal papers and documents, belonging to UN Corpus, shows that

some basic communicative functions (argumentative, informative, regulative, the function

of command, analytical function) represented by a limited set of Functional Text Dimensions,

are manifested in legal corpus either. In our study we offer genre annotation of UN Corpus based

on text-external and text-internal properties of genre prototypes. For this purpose, we will describe

linguistic features, genre prototypes, key words and the most frequent collocations. To textexternal features we refer text-level features (for example, means of structuring a sentence

or a legal document, annexes, extra information: years and dates, references and citations etc.) and

part-of-speech features (verb forms, pronoun forms). Text-internal features are considered

to be lexical (metaphors and comparisons, official cliché, legal terminology, verb groups like

suasive verbs, necessity verbs, possibility verbs, modal verbs) and syntactical (amplifiers,

rhetorical means of argumentation, parentheses as a means of text logical organization, complex

sentences, adverbial phrases). The inter-textual and extra-textual corpus analysis shows that

communicative functions are connected with linguistic features of corpus texts.

Key words: UN Corpus, Functional Text Dimensions, genre annotation, text-internal

features, text-external features, corpus analysis.

Introduction

Genre differences have complicated natural language processing and linguistic

annotation of corpus texts for years. Well-annotated gold standard data includes

sentence boundary detection, tokenization, part-of-speech tagging and syntactic

parsing. Corpora in special areas (for example, CRAFT – Colorado Richly Annotated

Full Text Corpus) sometimes may contain the annotation of concepts and specific

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terms. So one of the language processing tools CRAFT creators have performed

is terminology recognition, specifically of gene names and ontological concepts [1].

Like CRAFT creators, V. Zakharov and M. Khohlova extract terminology

automatically and build up distributive thesaurus in their research [2; 3]. They

classify morpho-syntactical, lexical and semantical types of words’ compatibility

and single out one-word terms and terminological collocations which are typical for

particular genres. As a rule, terminological collocations are normative and

statistically frequent. V. Zakharov and M. Khohlova describe theoretical aspects

of statistical approach to terminological collocations’ study and practical methods

of their identification like finding n-grams (normally digrams or trigrams) within

the given context and determining syntagmatic and associative links between words.

One of the easiest methods is to make the list of the most frequent collocations for

a specific genre. Besides statistical criteria of automatic extraction of terminological

collocations, the above-mentioned researchers point out the methods based

on linguistic models like describing lexico/morpho-syntactic patterns [2: 185]. This

allows to conduct analysis of text-internal properties in corpus-driven study.

Corpus data enable to solve theoretical and practical issues of genre studies.

V. Dementiev and N. Stepanova offer to classify key phrases characteristic for

a number of speech genres. These key phrases may be described as the text

markers of speech genres and statistically analyzed via corpus manager toolkit.

Besides, the mentioned scholars single out the particular speech genres which are

easily identified by simple grammatical patterns: imperative – a request,

performative – an order, infinitive – a command, invective – an insult, pronoun

as a subject and compound nominal predicate with positive or negative

connotation – a compliment/a blame [4: 61]. V. Dementiev and N. Stepanova offer

the following algorithm of genre study on corpus data: genre – key lexeme – key

phrase/-es for genre identification – the quantity of entries into corpus/sub-corpus

– key phrases for context analysis – the quantity of entries into corpus [4: 57].

Still genre annotation remains one of the most difficult tasks for corpus

creators and under-researched topics in papers dedicated to corpus linguistics.

FTD and genre annotation of UN Corpus: the correlation

of pragmatic functions and text properties

We believe that genre identification in corpora should be based on analysis

of pragmatic functions for communicative needs and linguistic features which are

typical for specific genres.

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In the Functional Text Dimensions (FTD) framework [5] the former are

presented as text-external properties, as they are defined by the communicative

situation and their similarity to the genre prototypes, while the latter are presented

as text-internal properties in the form of linguistic features.

In our study we experimented with annotation of the UN Corpus [6] with

respect to text-external and text-internal properties. In this paper we will describe

genre prototypes, their linguistic features, key words and the most frequent

collocations for each function. For example, the common communicative functions

are the argumentative and regulatory texts, as well as texts aimed at providing

reference information. The range of text-internal features include the distribution

of POS tags, lexical properties (such as metaphors and comparisons, official cliché,

legal terminology, verb groups like suasive verbs, necessity verbs, possibility verbs,

modal verbs) and syntactical properties (amplifiers, rhetorical means

of argumentation, parentheses as a means of text logical organization, complex

sentences, adverbial phrases). We will present our analysis of how communicative

functions are connected to linguistic features of texts in the UN corpus.

Corpus annotation, based on 20 functional text dimensions is suitable to any

traditional general reference corpus with a minimum of special terminology.

However, the analysis of legal papers and documents belonging to UN Corpus,

shows that some basic communicative functions represented by a limited set

of functional text dimensions are manifested in legal corpus either. The study

of UN Corpus allowed to single out basic FTD for its annotation and to describe

text-external and text-internal properties of corpus texts.

FTD scale represents the following communicative functions of a text:

the argumentative function is realized in texts A1 (argumentative), A13 (ideopuff),

A17 (evaluative); informative function (reporting function is closely connected

with the latter) can be manifested in texts A8 (hardnews), A16 (info); the function

of command is represented in texts A7 (instruct), A20 (appell); the function

of analysis is realized in texts A14 (scitech); regulative function is represented

in texts A9 (legal).

Linguistic features are subdivided into typical lexical features, syntactic

features, part-of-speech features and text-level features [7]. The inter-textual and

extra-textual corpus analysis shows that communicative functions are connected

with linguistic features of corpus texts.

We present the description of linguistic features of UN Corpus texts

according to the principles of FTD annotation.

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I.

Argumentative function (FTD: A1, A13, A17)

Lexical features:

- Suasive verbs (require, encourage, recommend, propose, call upon, offer,

suggest, urge, appeal to etc.)

- Modal verbs (need, should, may, would)

- Verbs denoting mental processes (bearing in mind, taking into account,

consider, note, believe, feel)

- Necessity verbs (need, should)

- Possibility verbs (may, might)

- Evaluative adjectives (helpful, worrisome, peaceful, welcome, unfortunate,

sincere) and verbs with evaluative semantics (condemn)

Syntactic features:

- Amplifiers (do promote)

- Interrogations as a rhetorical means of argumentation

- Sentences with indefinite-personal subjects “one”, “who” (one could argue,

one might argue, no one knows)

- Impersonal sentences (It should be noted…; It must be kept in mind…;

It should be emphasized…)

- Composite conjunctions (on the one hand – on the other hand, in such a case

– in any case)

- Parentheses as a means of text logical organization (as mentioned above,

in addition, in this regard)

- Subordinate clause (if-sentence)

- Concessive clause (conjunctions “while” and “since”)

Part-of-speech features:

- Future verbs

- 1st person singular and plural subject

- Present verbs

Text-level features:

- Ordinal numerals structuring parts of a sentence (first, second, third…)

II.

Informative function (FTD: A8, A16)

Lexical features:

- Modal verbs (only for A8)

Syntactic features:

- Time clauses (only for A8)

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- 3d person singular and plural subject (he, she, they)

- Compound sentences with the conjunction “that”

- Interrogative sentences

- Indirect speech

Part-of-speech features:

- Past verbs

- Possessive pronouns (his, her) and personal pronouns (he, she)

Text-level features:

- Future years and dates (only for A8)

- Exact past dates and exact data – per cents, sums of money, statistics

(for A16)

- Annex in the text

III.

The function of command (FTD: A7, A20 as a fragment in texts

A16, A9)

Lexical features:

- Necessity modals

- Suasive verbs

Syntactic features:

- Conditional clauses (if-sentences)

Part-of-speech features:

- Imperatives (imperative verbs)

- Future verbs

Text-level features:

- Instructions have a strict logical structure and are divided into items and

paragraphs

IV.

The function of analysis (FTD: A14)

This communicative function has no specific lexical features, but it possesses

a special recognizable syntax.

Syntactical features:

- Composite conjunctions and connective words structuring the text

(for instance, at the same time, primary, secondary or tertiary, in some cases)

- Homogeneous parts of the sentence

- Coordinating and subordinating conjunctions (on the contrary, therefore…)

for organizing the text

- Amplifiers

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- Interrogations, metaphors and comparisons (ex. The door is still left open)

- Complex sentences with comment clauses (ex. While it is true that…),

adverbial phrases (typically, as a result, as a consequence)

Part-of-speech features:

- Present verbs

- 1st person pronouns (we describe, we recognize, we compiled data)

Text-level features:

V.

Well-organized and structured text with logical parts, paragraphs and

conclusions.

VI.

Regulative function (FTD: A9)

Lexical features:

- Legal terminology (multilateral agreement, legislation, obligation)

- Modal verbs (shall, should, must)

- Official cliché

Syntactic features:

- Compound sentences with connective words

- Homogeneous parts of sentences

Parts-of-speech features:

- Gerund forms (ex. Stressing that…; Reaffirming…; Expressing…)

- 1st person plural pronoun as a subject (ex. We acknowledge)

- Present verbs (in legislative draft documents)

Text-level features:

- Standard structure of legislative documents: introduction, general

provisions, specific provisions, recommendations, conclusions, annex

- Homogeneous gerunds and numeration of legislative decisions

in resolutions (ex. Considering…, taking into consideration… 1. Expresses…, 2.

Invites…, 3. Requests…)

- References, citations and quotations of earlier documents

Legal genres via Functional Text Dimensions

All UN Corpus texts and their genres were categorized according FTD.

Genre annotation is a flexible technique allowing to adopt legal texts

of UN Corpus to functional text dimensions. Structurally UN Corpus texts can be

classified into 4 types:

1)

Texts consisting of large fragments (sometimes more than

2 paragraphs) with distinctive genre borders are more preferable for genre

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annotation. The most characteristic genre combination is A9 (legal texts) and A16

(informative texts).

./1994/a/49/pv_84.xml

A9 The draft resolution which the Sixth Committee recommends to the General Assembly

for adoption is reproduced in paragraph 8 of the report. Under the preambular part of the draft

resolution, the General Assembly would, inter alia, declare itself convinced of the continuing

value of established humanitarian rules relating to armed conflicts and the need to respect and

ensure respect for these rules in all circumstances within the scope of relevant international

instruments. It would also stress the need for consolidating and implementing the existing body

of international humanitarian law and for the universal acceptance of such law. Under the

operative part of the draft resolution, the General Assembly would, inter alia, note that,

in comparison with the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the number of States parties to the two

additional Protocols is still limited.

A16 The General Assembly would further request the Secretary-General to proceed with

the organization of the United Nations Congress on Public International Law, to be held from

13 to 17 March 1995, within existing resources and assisted by voluntary contributions, taking

into account the guidance provided by the Sixth Committee at the forty-eighth and forty-ninth

sessions of the General Assembly. The Assembly would also recognize the relevance

of international humanitarian law and, in this connection, would invite all States to disseminate

widely the revised guidelines for military manuals and instructions on the protection of the

environment in times of armed conflict received from the International Committee of the Red

Cross and to give due consideration to the possibility of incorporating them into their military

manuals and other instructions addressed to their military personnel.

2)

Texts consisting of relatively small fragments (1-2 paragraphs) with

blurred borders and changing each other subgenres. A9, A1, A14, A16

is a frequent combination. Genres are changing in the context of one or two

paragraphs. Texts of this type are hardly suitable for genre annotation but they

might be fruitful for effective analysis of subgenres and borderline genres.

./2014/ctoc/cop/wg_3/2014/2.xml

A9 In addition to requiring States parties to deem offences under the Convention

extraditable under existing treaties, the Convention also encourages States parties to give effect

to its provisions when concluding new bilateral or multilateral agreements. Thus, pursuant

to article 18, paragraph 30, a State party concluding a new bilateral or multilateral agreement

on mutual legal assistance is to consider reflecting key provisions of article 18 of the

Convention in the new agreement, including the types of assistance that may be requested

(art. 18, para. 3); requirements for the content of the request (art. 18, para. 14); grounds

for refusal of the request (art. 18, para. 21); a prohibition on declining requests on the ground

of bank secrecy (art. 18, para. 8); and provisions on costs (art. 18, para. 28).

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A1 The inclusion of such provisions in bilateral and multilateral agreements reflects the

modern judicial cooperation practice drawn from a wide range of treaties. In addition to the

provisions of the Organized Crime Convention itself, the Model Treaty on Extradition and the

Model Treaty on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters are valuable tools for the development

of bilateral and multilateral arrangements and agreements in the area of judicial cooperation.

A14 Of relevance are also the model bilateral agreement on the sharing of confiscated

proceeds of crime or property and model treaties on issues where the Organized Crime

Convention contains generic provisions, such as article 21, on the transfer of criminal

proceedings, and article 17, on the transfer of sentenced persons. From the perspective of the

Organized Crime Convention, many of the provisions on extradition and mutual legal assistance

closely reflect the approach of the Model Treaties. The Model Treaty on Extradition,

for example, contains 18 articles covering, inter alia, extraditable offences; mandatory and

optional grounds for refusal; channels of communication and required documents; simplified

extradition procedures; provisional arrest; surrender and postponed or conditional surrender;

the rule of speciality; concurrent requests; and costs. A review of bilateral extradition treaties

reveals both a number of similarities and differences with the Model Treaty on Extradition.

3)

Texts with unclear genre borders, genres intermingle in the context

of 1-3 sentences. Texts of this type are not suitable for genre annotation.

./2007/s/2007/10/add_43.xml

A9+A8 Summary statement by the Secretary-General on matters of which the Security

Council is seized and on the stage reached in their consideration Addendum Pursuant to rule

11 of the provisional rules of procedure of the Security Council, the Secretary-General

is submitting the following summary statement. <…> The Security Council resumed its

consideration of the item at its 5771st (private) meeting, held on 29 October 2007 in accordance

with the understanding reached in its prior consultations. At the close of the meeting,

in accordance with rule 55 of the provisional rules of procedure of the Security Council, the

following communiqué was issued through the Secretary-General in place of a verbatim record:

On 29 October 2007, the Security Council, pursuant to resolution 1353 (2001), annex II,

sections A and B, held its 5771st meeting in private with the troop-contributing countries to the

United Nations Mission in the Sudan. The Security Council and the troop-contributing countries

heard a briefing under rule 39 of its provisional rules of procedure by Jean-Marie Guéhenno,

Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.

The analysis of UN Corpus according to FTD technique allowed to describe

its genre composition. UN Corpus contains genre prototypes belonging to the

following functional text dimensions: A1 (argumentative), A7 (instructive),

A8 (news, coming events), A9 (legal), A14 (analytical), A16 (informative), A20

(appellative).

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Genre composition of UN Corpus according to FTD annotation technique

FTD

Code

A1

Genre prototype

policy recommendations; public speech; official letters;

conclusion/observations (the final part of a report can also be

argumentative); working paper (recommendations with guidance);

argumentative part of the report; recommendation, note.

Note: all types of recommendation documents belong to A1.

A7

administrative instructions; technical instructions; working

paper (recommendations + guidance); white paper (its instructive

part); guidelines; information circular.

A8

informative report; outline

of meetings; provisional overview.

A9

Act; agreement; amendment proposal; amendment; article

(article of declaration/convention/statute/charter); Bill; bulletin;

Case Chapter of a doc; charter; circular; commitment;

Constitution; convention; court decision; court statement;

covenant; decision; declaration; decree; directive; draft; draft

manual; draft ministerial declaration; general or specific

provisions of articles; individual opinion; International Covenant;

judgement; legislative programme; memorandum; norms; optional

protocol; ordinance; outcome document; pact; programme

of work; proposal; protocol; provisional rules of procedure;

provisions;

regulation;

requirements;

resolution;

rules

of procedure; special provision; statute; technical regulation; note

by the President of the Security Council; views; White Paper

(commentary and analysis).

A14

analytical part of White Paper; analytical report/review;

background; inquiry; legal analysis of legislation; legal analysis;

legal research/legal research paper; study.

of

schedule;

programme

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A16

A20

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a progress report; a verbatim record; agenda; analytical

report; annex; annotation; annual report; assessment report; audit

report; background paper; briefing; combined report;

communiqué; comprehensive report; conclusion; draft report;

evaluation report; executive summary; explanatory note; fact

sheet; final report; financial report; flagship report; follow-up

review; information circular; initial report; inventory report; joint

report; leaftet; letter; major report; memorandum; monitoring

report; news report; note; notification; official records; oral

briefing; oral report; outline report; performance report; periodic

briefings; periodic report; periodic review; progress report;

provisional agenda; quarterly report; recommendation report;

record; regional report; regular report; report on the

implementation of convention/legislation etc.; report; review

report; review; statement; statistical report; status report; summary

of the report; summary records; summary statement; survey;

synthesis report; the Trade and Development report; work

programme.

request, recommendations, programme of meetings.

D. Berūkštienė points out, that different legal texts have different functional,

structural and linguistic features, they are classified into genres on the basis

of different criteria [8: 89]. Still it is sometimes difficult to attach a particular legal

text to a particular genre. FTD annotation allows to take into consideration

all those features while analyzing genre composition of UN Corpus.

Texts belonging to the same genre should have similar lexico-grammatical

and functional properties. Swales considers, that «a genre comprises a class

of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative

purposes <…> exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarity in terms

of structure, style, content and intended audience» [9: 58].

D. Berūkštienė treats legal texts like «special-purpose texts, which

are different from other kinds of texts in respect of their text-internal and textexternal properties» [8: 95-96]. Legal texts are drafted in legal language, which

may be defined as a language for specific purposes. J. Lehrberger described legal

language according to the following 6 text-external and text-internal parameters:

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Text-external parameters:

1. Limited subject matter (law)

2. The use of special symbols

Text-internal parameters:

1. Lexical, semantic and syntactic restrictions (e.g. the use of legal

terminology)

2. “Deviant” rules of grammar

3. High frequency of certain constructions (e.g. formalized sentence patterns

in statutory texts)

4. Text structure (e.g. legislation or contracts) [10: 22].

According to the text-internal parameters №1 and 3 we conducted lexical and

quantitative analysis of UN Corpus and determined that each functional text

dimension and genres belonging to it contain statistically significant list

of particular terms and collocations.

FTD

A1

Frequent terms and collocations

achieve; aim; a final consideration is that…; accordingly; another

advantage of; another consideration is; approach; as a matter of course;

as a result;

as mentioned above; as noted above…; balance; based on this

position; beyond the example; conflict resolution; consider; development;

emphasis; factor; finally; for example; for example; for instance;

fundamental; further/further more; goal; however; however; therefore;

in fact; in order to; in our view; in this connection; in this context;

intention; international policies; issue; it could be argued; it is advisable;

it is important; it is important to emphasize; it is necessary; it is particularly

important; it may be advisable; it would seem that…; key; lack of; legally;

means; measures; moreover; need; on that basis on the other hand; policy;

presumably;

programme;

promotion;

purpose;

recommend;

recommendation(-s); region; require; role; similarly; specifically; strategy;

submit; support; sustainable; taking into consideration; the abovementioned; the evidence implies; there is a strong need; this means/

it means;

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A7

A8

A9

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to achieve; tools; to stress the importance; to stress the need; we are of

the view; we are open; we recommend/propose; while

are required; are responsible; encourage; ensure; have to (modal verb);

in order to…; it is essential; it is expected that; it should be noted; please;

pursuant to rule…; this requires…; urge

a follow-up; expected outcome; in the near future; it is expected; now;

ongoing; onwards; outline; then; tomorrow

acknowledge; act; administration; administrative measures;

administrative; adopted unanimously; adoption; agreement; amend to read;

amendment; appeal; applicant; are subject to; article reads; article states

that…; article provides…; article; as follows; authorities; authority;

available; be entitled; be exercised; bilateral; bound; budget; state budget;

by law; case law; case; chamber; chapter; chief; citizen; civil action; claim;

complaint; concept; conformity with…; Constitution; constitutional checks

and balances; control; cooperation; council; count court; crime; criminal

proceedings; criminal responsibility; de facto; de jure; decide; decision;

defence; delisting; directive; discrimination; document; domestic law;

domestic legislation; draft law; drafting; effective remedy; embody;

enactment; enshrine; entitled; entry into force; enter into force; equality

before law; European Court of First Instance; European Union; executive;

expiry; fair trial; for the purposes; framework; free; freedom; fundamental /

human rights; good faith; guarantee; guidelines; guilt; have agreed

as follows; herein; human rights (economic, social, political, cultural, civil);

human rights law; implementation; in accordance with; in compliance with;

in order to; in respect of; indictment; individual; innocence; instruments

and programmes; inter alia; International Court of Justice; international

law; investigate; judgement; judicial review; judicial; Jurisdiction; jus

cogens; norm; justice; juvenile justice; law and practice; law enforcement;

law; legal authorities; legal basis; legal issues; legal obligation; legal

system/practice/entity/instrument; legality; legally binding; legislation;

legislative; legislative framework; list; listing; management; means

of redress; measures; mechanism; media law; model legislation; national

law; negotiation; notwithstanding; obligation; office; optional protocol;

organ; package of legislation; paragraph; part; parties; penal code; pending;

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A13

A14

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people; peremptory; person; petition; plea; policies and institutions;

policies; prevent; principle; private; procedure /-es; proceedings progress

achieved; proposal; prosecuting; prosecution; prosecutor; protect;

protection; provision / article…reads / states; provision; pursuant to /

resolution…; article…; rate; ratification; ratify; read as follows; reference;

reform; refugee law; regions; regulations; regulatory; relevant to;

representation; resolution; respect; revised version; right/s; rules; rules

of procedure; rule of law; sanctions; section; sentence; separation

of powers; signature; staff; standing case law; state; stipulate; subject to;

take effect; terms; the proposed model; thereto; thereto; third party;

to amend; to ensure; to file a suit; to grant; to oblige; to provide; to read;

to rule; the rule of law; to state; to submit; to take measures; transmit;

treaty; trial; tribunal; violation; whereas; working group

challenge; citizens; civil society; democracy; democratic institutions;

democratization; development; diversity; equality; equitable; equity;

freedom; freedom of association; freedom of assembly; freedom

of expression; human rights; mutual respect; non-discrimination; people;

political rights; progress; promotion; social; social integration; social

justice; tolerance; value

academic institutions; accordingly; additionally; affect smth.;

alternatively; although; analogous; analysis showed; analysis; analyzing;

approach; as a result; as follows; as noted above; as previously noted;

as shown; as well as; aspect; at least partly; at present; at the end of the

paper; at the same time; background; basis; by definition; categories;

comprehensive overview; concept; conclude; consequently; criteria;

criticism; democracy; described above

deserve attention; development; directly; due to; economics;

especially; examination; expert; factor; focus on the problems; focus; for

example; for instance/for example; for this reason; fundamentally; further;

furthermore; given…; guidelines; however; however; imply; in addition;

in comparison; in contrast; in fact; in other words; in part; in particular;

in practice; in recognition of this fact; in sum; in that sense; in the context;

in the light of; in this connection; in this regard; in this respect;

in this/that/the case/some cases; institute; issues; it is certainly known;

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A16

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it is clear from; it is on the other hand; true that; it is questionable; it is to be

emphasized; it should be borne in mind; it should be noted; it should be

pointed out; it should be stressed; knowledge; lastly; legal bases; legal

scholars; likewise; mainstream; mechanism; mentioned-above; more

specifically; moreover; moreover; nevertheless; on the ground of; on the

other hand; opponents; overview; paper; partly resulting from…;

phenomenon; policies; prerequisites for work; qualitative analysis;

questionnaire; rather; recent works on…; regarding; related; relevant;

representative; research results; research work; research; result (verb);

review; reveals; science; scope; scrutiny; similarly; since; so far; source;

statistics; strategy; studies; study carried out; survey; technologies; tend;

the following; the key question is…; the present paper; the question is; the

study aims at therefore; thinking; this is due to the fact; this results…;

throughout its history; thus; to a certain extent; to argue; to present; to

some/the extent; to stem from; the fact; trend; type; typically; ultimately;

upon analysis; with regard to

access; accordingly; account; accused; ad hoc; adopt; adoption of the

report; agenda; analyst; announce; appeal; approach; as a consequence /

consequently; as a result; as mentioned in report; as of the date of this

report; assure smbd.; at its meeting; at the time of drafting the present

report; available from; be in a position; bilateral; briefing; case; chairman;

commission; committee; companies; conference; consideration; contained

in the report; continued report; contract; core issue; country; court; current

session; currently; data; decide; delegation; detailed information;

developed/less developed/developing countries; development; discuss;

documents; during the reporting period; education; efforts; emphasize;

employment; evidence; factor; fair; finally; furthermore; gap; government;

guidelines; having considered the report…; herein; highlight; human rights;

impact; implementation; improvement; in addition; in conclusion;

in contrast; in general; in particular; in past decades; in recent years;

in short; in that regard; in the context; in this respect; income; indictee;

indictment; inform smbd.; information; information provided/contained;

information, said that…; inter alia; international; internet access;

investigation; issue; it should also be pointer out; it was agreed; it was

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A17

A20

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mentioned; it was noted; it was reported that; item; labour market; lack;

latest report; lawyer; legal; letter; list; mandate; measures; meeting;

member states; millennium; monitoring; more importantly; multilateral;

nevertheless; nonetheless; officials; on a more positive note; on a regular

basis; on the one hand – on the other hand; organization; organization;

panel discussion; participants; people; pilot; policies; present a report;

presentation; president; pre-trial; principle; problem; process; programme;

progress; project; promotion; prosecution; prosecutor; provide information;

rapporteur; rates; ratio; record; refugee; region; report concluded that…;

report indicates; report on smth.; reported cases; reporting; reporting

period; reporting status; research and analysis; resources; respect;

responsibility; review; safety; said that…; secretary; security; Security

Council; similarly; since; smbd. stated that…; staff members; state party;

state; statement; statistics; strategy; submit; summarize; summit; support;

tendency; testimony; The council decided; the report stated…; therefore; to

launch; to provide; to report back; to show that; to show; to welcome;

trend; trial chamber; trial; tribunal; United Nations; urge; website; witness;

working group; workplan

commend;

condemn;

conditions;

degradation;

intolerance;

is concerned/concern; lack; slum dwellings; unhealthy; unsafe; violence;

welcome

contact; encourage; for further details; indicate; note; please; provide;

recommend; request; urge

The conducted analysis shows that pragmatically, functionally and

semantically FTD A1, A9, A14, A16 are the most perspective while annotating

UN Corpus. The markers of these FTD are statistically significant and they

contain more frequent terms and collocations than FTD A7, A8, A13, A17, A20.

Borderline genres and subgenres in FDT framework

The analysis of text varieties in UN Corpus shows that each functional

dimension has specific set of genres and subgenres. However, there are lots

of borderline genres like assessment report, summary report, memorandum,

request, recommendations, conference programme belonging simultaneously

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to FTD A1, A8, A9, A16, A20. These can be considered complicated cases of

genre annotation.

Some legal texts of UN Corpus contain large fragments of legal subgenres

with distinctive borders performing specific pragmatic functions. For example,

large fragments belonging to FTD A17 perform evaluative or critical function

in argumentative (A1) and informative (A16) texts. The fragments of FTD A13

perform the communicative function of propaganda in argumentative (A1),

analytical (A14) and informative (A16) texts.

The fragments A8 (descriptions of future events and activities) can often be

seen in informative texts (A16) in such subgenres as summary reports, work

programmes and conference programmes. For example, the subgenre performance

report:

./2004/a/59/547.xml

A8 The Investigations Division is headed by the Chief of Investigations (D1), who is responsible for the overall management and efficient performance of the

Division, including the Information and Evidence Section and the Request for

Assistance Unit. The Chief is currently assisted in those functions by three

deputies (P-5). With the planned reduction in staff and the corresponding

reorganization of the Division in 2005, there will no longer be a need for three

deputy chiefs.

A16 Experience has shown that the resources approved for 2004-2005 were

not sufficient to support the increased workload of the Appeals Unit both in terms

of numbers and complexity of cases. To date, almost every person convicted by

the Tribunal has exercised his or her right to appeal and to bring a second level

case to the Appeals Chamber. The prosecution has also exercised its right to

appeal. In addition, numerous complex appeals are raised during trial to address

issues that require resolution before the trial can be completed.

The main legal subgenres belonging to different FTD are the following:

1)

assessment report is a legal subgenre containing analytical part (often

in the form of research – FTD A14) and informative part (typical of any kind

of reports – FTD 16);

2)

conclusive part of legal documents is often both argumentative (FTD

A1), analytical (FTD F14) and informative (FTD A16);

3)

memorandum is informative reference document containing views

and opinions (argumentative part – FTD A1 and legal legislative part – FTD A9);

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4)

work programme and programme of meetings are often borderline

genres, as they contain information about future events (FTD A8), instructions

(FTD A20), general and specific information (FTD A16) and sometimes legal

components (FTD A9);

5)

recommendations and requests are complicated subgenres for

annotation due to their multi-structural composition with argumentative (FTD

A1), instructive (FTD A7), legislative (FTD A9) or appellative (FTD A20)

components;

6)

Summary/review reports are legal subgenres containing informative

(FTD A16) part with information about future events (FTD A8);

7)

Analytical report is a borderline genre representing combination

of research paper or background paper (FTD A14) and comprehensive informative

report (FTD A16);

8)

Working paper usually contains both legal recommendations and

instructions (FTD A1, A7, A9);

9)

White paper, representing both commentary and legal analysis,

is a legal subgenre including argumentative (FTD A1), instructive (FTD A7) and

analytical (FTD A14) parts;

10)

Legal analysis of legislation is often incorporated into different legal

genres and usually combines legislative (FTD A9) and analytical (FTD A14)

parts.

Conclusions

Genre annotation is one of the most complicated kinds of corpus annotation.

There are several main difficulties genre annotation presupposes in corpus-driven

study. Firstly, if a corpus belongs to any sublanguage and contains a specific set

of genres, its genre annotation is an elaborate task for corpus creators, as a special

corpus contains many subgenres with intermingling borders. To determine the

borders between genres of a special corpus belonging to a certain thematic area

(for example, legal corpus) is always a difficult work. Secondly, any special

corpus always contains numerous terms and terminological collocations.

Terminology can also be an impediment for qualitative and quantitative corpus

analysis. Thirdly, genre annotation also implies pragmatic study of extra-textual

and intra-textual properties according to their functions in corpus texts. The set

of pragmatic functions correlates with functional text dimensions (FTD).

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Extra-textual properties contain text-level features like syntactical means

of organizing sentences and structuring texts, extra-linguistic data (i.e. future and

past dates, exact information – per cents, sums of money, statistics, annexes in the

text, references, citations and quotations of earlier documents). Intra-textual

properties include lexical (i.e. verbal categories: suasive verbs, necessity verbs,

modal verbs, possibility verbs, verbs denoting mental processes; evaluative

adjectives; legal terminology; collocations; cliché, etc.), syntactical (subordinate

clauses of different types: conditional, time, concessive clauses; amplifiers;

interrogations; impersonal sentences; composite conjunctions; parentheses;

indirect speech; adverbial phrases; metaphors and comparisons, etc.) and part-ofspeech features (present, past and future forms of verbs; possessive and personal

pronouns; imperatives; gerund forms, etc.).

So genre annotation of a special corpus, representing a certain thematic area

allows to analyze its statistically significant terminology, to single out the

functional set of genres and subgenres and to distinguish the borders between

them, to describe morpho-syntactical patterns and extra/intra-textual properties

of corpus texts.

References

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a robust evaluation tool for revealing differences in performance of biomedical natural language

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2. Zakharov, V.P., Khohlova, M.V. (2014). Avtomaticheskoje vyjavleniye

terminologicheskih slovosochetaniy [Automatic identification of terminological phrases].

Strukturnaya i prikladnaya linguistika [Structural and Applied Linguistics], 10, 182-200

(in Russian).

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[Corpus-Based Approach to Thesaurus and Ontology Construction]. Strukturnaya i prikladnaya

linguistika [Structural and Applied Linguistics], 11, 123-143 (in Russian).

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УДК 81.111’42

ББК 81.2 Англ.-5

DOI: 10.24412/2658-5138-2022-7-43-54

ОБРАЗ ГОСУДАРСТВА В МАССМЕДИЙНОМ ДИСКУРСЕ

Зарайский Александр Александрович, доктор филологических наук, профессор

кафедры иностранных языков. Саратовская государственная юридическая академия.

Саратов, Россия, [email protected]

Трудно переоценить роль массмедиа в современном мире. Они обеспечивают

процесс массовой коммуникации, то есть взаимодействия всех социальных субъектов,

и играют ключевую роль в процессе общественного познания и самопознания.

Массмедийный дискурс имеет ключевое значение как при формировании общественного

мнения, так и при формировании индивидуальной картины мира отдельно взятого

человека. Массмедиа производят, воспроизводят и транслируют обществу ценностные

смыслы, тем самым во многом определяя отношение людей к окружающей

их реальности.

Ключевые слова: дискурс, массмедийный дискурс, образ государства, оценочная

лексика, медиатекст.

THE IMAGE OF THE STATE IN MASS MEDIA DISCOURSE

Alexandr A. Zaraiskiy, ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6928-713X, Saratov State Law

Academy, Saratov, Russia, [email protected]

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