CC BY
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PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES
STRATEGIES AND TACTICS OF WEATHER FORECAST DISCOURSE Pavlichenko L.V.1, Ponomarenko O.V.2, Shaulko D.А.3 (Ukraine) Email: Pavlichenko576@scientifictext.ru
'Pavlichenko Larisa Vasilevna - Candidate of Philology, Assistant, ORCID.ORG/0000-0003-3801-2587;
2Ponomarenko Olga Vladimirovna - Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor, ORCID: 0000-0003-0634-208X 3Shaulko Darina Anatolievna - Student, INSTITUTE OF PHILOLOGY TARAS SHEVCHENKO NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF KIEV, KIEV, UKRAINE
Abstract: the article deals with the analysis and combinations of the strategies and tactics applied in oral weather forecasts reports and specifies the linguistic means used for their implementation. The study offers the general outline and characteristic features of the weather forecast discourse, focuses on the types deictic elements used. The authors offer the classification for the most typical strategies and tactics of the participants. Relevant examples and writing sources are also provided.
Keywords: strategy, tactic, deictic elements, linguistic, weather forecast discourse.
СТРАТЕГИИ И ТАКТИКИ ДИСКУРСА ПРОГНОЗА ПОГОДЫ Павличенко Л.В.1, Пономаренко О.В.2, Шаулко Д.А.3 (У краина)
1Павличенко Лариса Васильевна - кандидат филологических наук, ассистент;
2Пономаренко Ольга Владимировна - кандидат филологических наук, доцент;
3Шаулко Дарина Анатольевна - студент, Институт филологии, Киевский национальный университет им. Тараса Шевченко, г. Киев, Украина
Аннотация: в статье анализируются и комбинируются стратегии и тактики, применяемые в устных сводках прогнозов погоды, и указываются лингвистические средства, используемые для их реализации. В исследовании дается общая схема и характерные черты дискурса прогноза погоды, акцентируется внимание на типах используемых дейктических элементов. Авторы предлагают классификацию наиболее типичных стратегий и тактик участников. Также представлены соответствующие примеры и письменные источники.
Ключевые слова: стратегия, тактика, дейктические элементы, лингвистический, дискурс прогноза погоды.
UDC 811.111 '06'42
In recent years, a significant number of works has been devoted to the concept of communication strategies and tactics. Many linguists associate a strategy with the organization of speech behaviour in accordance with the main intentions of communicators.
According to T. Yanko, a communicative strategy provides a set of measures which are necessary to achieve the goals and are designed for a certain perlocutive effect [5, p. 38]. The approach of Batsevich F.S. suggests that a communicative strategy is the optimal implementation of the speaker's intentions; the latter aiming to achieve a specific goal; the control and choice of effective ways of communication and their flexible change in a certain situation [1, p. 133]. Communication strategies are flexible and dynamic because they are subject to constant adjustments in the process of communication, they depend directly on the actions of the communication partner, the context is constantly supplemented and modified [3, p. 194].
Studies confirm that in any communicative act, communicators set themselves extra-linguistic goals that ultimately affect the activity and consciousness of the recipient [4, p. 65]. The participants of communicative act may use different speech tactics based on the changes in the course of communication, while remaining within the originally chosen speech strategy. Speech tactics are flexible, which allows all participants to quickly choose the most appropriate and effective speech ones for a certain communicative situation.
We'll conduct the research by the approach of O. Issers who argues that "the ultimate goal of any communication strategy is the modification of the addressee's world model". With the help of various means the participants of communication "introduce their own interpretations (of problems, topics, events, images, etc.) into the conversation, want to make them common and thus achieve the realization of their plan" [2, p. 109].
A strategy is associated with the notion of "global" and tactics with the notion of "local". The common purpose of communication and the global level of awareness of the communicative situation as a whole is connected with strategies. A communicative strategy as a certain sequence of communicative actions, organized in accordance with the goal and situational conditions, is one of the most important parameters of pragmatic discourse interpretation. They reflect the peculiarities of communication in the sphere of social interaction.
The material under study includes weather forecasts video reports presented in modern mass media. The topic is insufficiently researched and has attracted attention to its relevance. Weather forecast is one of the types of information messages that are created in the result of scientifically sound predictions about the future weather in certain locality or region and a certain period. It is compiled and developed by private or public meteorological services based on meteorological methods.
The authors of weather forecasts as well as the presenters pursue certain goals. In order to achieve them they implement different communicative strategies and tactics trying to provide the most relevant information, explanation of technical terms in a proper and concise way to make a forecast easy to be understood and remembered.
The weather forecasts' purpose is to achieve two objectives: (1) to communicate current information about the state of weather conditions in a given area; (2) to inform about general trends and prospects for changing weather conditions. Thus, the informing is the main function of a meteorological text, to which lexical and grammatical and syntactical means are subordinated. The brevity of meteorological text requires the speaker to use language tools that will most accurately convey the essence of the synoptic message [4, p. 195].
The strategy of advice is actively used in English meteorological discourse being implemented by means of the tactics of appeal, recommendation, warning, proposal. They include language units that serve as markers that encourage the listeners to use professional advice.
The following examples demonstrate the tactic of appeal being realized by the imperative mood usually used to express demands, instructions or requests:
1) Look, we 're expecting low flows at most locations, although about 30% of locations expecting near-median to high flows which is a better, rosier outlook than the last month [6].
2) Just keep an eye on those temperatures there potentially reaching around the 40-degree mark through the East Gippsland and the southern coast of New South Wales [10].
In the examples above the verbs "look" and "keep in the imperative mood imply a second-person subject
"you".
In the tactic of warning implemented in the next example, we can find spatial deictic elements (demonstrative pronouns "this", "these") pointing at the potential danger and its location, and person deixis ("you") pointing at the message recipient.
1) However, this does bring some dangers, so, if you are going to be out in these areas, please regularly check the radar, stay up-to-date with the latest forecast and warnings and follow the advice of your local emergency services [16].
2) That's the temperature we're talking about here, upper twenties to lower thirties not a hard freeze but very cold. You want to bring in the pets, bring the plants, chick on seniors to make sure they have enough heat and that heat is working properly we're going to need it tonight, big time
here. Temps tomorrow recovering nicely so that's a good thing about Florida then you get these overnight lows in the thirties.
In this example (2) the expression "not a hard freeze but very cold" is an indirect warning for the audience of cold weather, "big time here " is asserting this hard time. The spatial deixis manifested by the pronoun "here" is used to show the location the warning concerns. It is followed by the communicative tactic of recommendation: "You want to bring in the pets, bring the plants... ", where personal deixis "you" is used to address the recommendation.
The tactic of warning can also be realised by a negative imperative. In the example below person deixis (personal and possessive pronouns, the second person) "you", "your" show that the speaker wants the potential recipient to avoid the action.
But any storms that do form are likely to be slow moving, bringing the potential for heavy rainfall. Do not _ forget your umbrella and raincoat [16].
The weather forecasters quite often use the tactic of proposal as it is shown in the following examples. Personal deixis "you" conveys to whom the offer is addressed.
1) Forecasts and warnings are updated regularly and you can stay up to date with these on the bureau website and through ABC emergency [9].
2) Make sure you stay up-to-date with the very latest developments day by day. Best way to do that is to subscribe to our YouTube channels or of course follow us on so media [17].
The weathercasters can also give some recommendations and hints as for choosing of appropriate clothes, as shown in the following example where the personal deixis is realised by means of the second-person pronoun:
You might be able to enjoy short sleeves for a while today [7].
The strategy of attracting and keeping attention is implemented in weather forecasts in the following tactics: addressing, establishing and keeping contact, imitating of friendly communication.
The specific feature of this type of media message is lack of the face-to-face contact between an addresser and an addressee who are separated by a certain temporal and local distance. Furthermore, the communication takes place only in one direction. Consequently, there is a need to attract attention of a recipient. In the process of informing, the weather caster tries to present the material so that it is understood by everyone and the language of weather forecasts is aimed at an addressee. Thus we can highlight some of its functional features.
The addressing tactic can be realised by means of person deixis expressed with vocatives as shown in the example below:
Alright, my dear _ friends, let us take a look at the weather forecastfor tonight [6].
The imitating of friendly communication (tactic) is realized by means of person deictic elements (personal and possessive pronouns "you", "your", "we", "our") and set phrases used in informal everyday conversations ("see you"):
1) Hello and welcome to your weekly weather wrap for Sunday 24th February. The first for 2019, so it's good to see you again! [18]
2) See you next time! [18]
3) We've got our eye on this cold front, way down in the Southern Ocean, connected to a low near Antarctica [11].
4) As we move into this week, shower activity will continue in the northeast, with ex-TC Oma directing strong and moist south-easterly flow onto the coast [18].
5) We don't have visibility problems except in the north ofHudson Valley [7].
The person deixis realized by means of the first person plural pronoun we, you, possessive pronouns our, your can serve as an example of the tactic of establishing and keeping contact with the recipients.
1) We'll wait the coldfront for later on this evening which will bring another line of thunderstorms just about the time you finish up dinner and get ready to watch a movie perhaps with your friends and family [8].
2) If we take a look at the mean sea level pressure chart for Tuesday, what we can see is we had a trough approaching, we had north easterly winds ahead of the trough and then they turned westerly as the trough approached and with the fires in the locations where they are, just caused all that smoke to pool over the Sydney area [8].
The strategy of informing is realized in weather forecasts by means of tactic of informing about present situation, tactic of comparison present and past situation, tactic of forecasting.
The tactic of informing about the present situation can be implemented by means of temporal and spatial deictic elements as well as non-verbal deixis (gestures pointing on the visual material). In the following examples we can observe deictic elements pointing at the present. In the example below temporal deixis is expressed by means of verb forms in Present Continuous:
Meanwhile, a low pressure trough extending through western and northern Australia is helping to keep warm and dry air over central parts of the continent, particularly evident in the building heatwave conditions across inland Western Australia [18].
In the next example temporal deixis is expressed by nouns, adverbs of time:
1) We have, there's no large-scale processes driving our climate at the moment, that's largely neutral that positive Indian Ocean dipole that we saw last year has gone to neutral [6].
2) Fire dangers today will reach extreme levels for many southern districts [9].
3) We could still have severe weather ongoing overnight and tomorrow morning [8].
In the following example Participle I can be considered an element of temporal deixis as it points at the simultaneous action:
This morning thick smoke is blanketing eastern parts of Victoria and southern New South Wales with the ongoing fires we 're even seen some smoke pushing to western parts of Victoria and that's from the South Australian fires particularly around Kangaroo Island yesterday [10].
Based on the example below, we can demonstrate how the tactic of comparison of the present and past situations is realized by means of verb tense forms and adverbs of time:
1) So like we've seen in previous months, there's a really strong chance of above-average temperature across much of the country with daytime and night-time temperatures going into autumn [6].
2) Fire danger today will be on par with what we saw on New Year's Eve, if anything that changes arriving later in the day today in comparison to New Year's Eve, giving more time for those strong north to north-westerly winds to affect the fire regions [10].
3) Yesterday afternoon saw a wind gust of 102 km/h at Broome Port, and currently winds are still gusting to 100 km/h near the centre of the system [12].
4) Over the last week we have seen a real shift in the weather pattern, from the hot and dry conditions that we unfortunately became all too familiar with over the last few months to much more humid conditions [13].
In the following example Participle I can be considered an element of a temporal deixis indicating the action in the past:
The change that we 're waiting for is sitting through West Gippsland this morning having moved through Melbourne earlier this morning [10].
The tactics of forecasting can be expressed by means of temporal deictic elements, for instance, verb forms, adjectives, adverbial modifiers of time, nouns:
1) Tasmania will see some isolated shower activity on Tuesday, as a weak cold front moves across the southeast Onshore flow will maintain slightly milder conditions along Australia's east coast as well [18].
2) And further north as you can see the showers are going to be frequent and that's the reason why there's as an Amber warning for the southern uplands of Scotland [14].
3) But then as soon as we get to Saturday afternoon and evening now you get your chance to see some thunderstorms too [15].
The analysis of these examples has demonstrated that the variations of verbal tenses and adverbial modifiers of time are used in weather forecasts for informing the recipients about the time frames of a given event or action.
Strategy of advice Tactic of recommendation
Tactic of warning
Tactic of proposal
Tactic of appeal
Strategy of attracting and keeping attention Tactic of addressing
Tactic of establishing and keeping contact
Tactic of imitating of friendly communication
Strategy of informing Tactic of informing about present situation
Tactic of comparison present and past situation
Tactic of forecasting.
Conclusion. The main functions of meteorological texts are providing information and keeping the contact with the recipients. They are implemented by corresponding communicative strategies, namely, the strategy of attracting and keeping the recipient's attention, the strategy of informing and the strategy of advice. The set of these speech strategies is not final and exhaustive. The strategy of attracting and keeping attention comprises tactic of addressing, tactic of establishing contact and tactic of imitating of friendly communication. The strategy of informing includes tactic of informing about present situation, tactic of comparison present and past situation, tactic of forecasting. The strategy of advice is implemented by means of tactics of recommendation, warning, proposal and appeal. The linguistics means of the strategies and tactics implementation include all types of deictic elements (personal, spacial, temporal) that can be used for various tactics. The most frequently used deictic elements are personal pronouns (tactics of addressing, appeal, warning), demonstrative pronouns (tactic of warning), adverbs of place and time (tactic of forecasting, informing), imperatives as personal deictic elements (tactic of proposal). Being addressed to a certain audience, the language of weather forecasts is characterised by the usage of the common lexical elements that can be easily understood by the broad public.
The perspectives of further study will be in revealing the combinations of communicative strategies and tactics in written weather forecast texts and linguistic means of their realisation.
References / Список литературы
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