PRAGMATIC AUTHENTICITY OF CINEMATIC DISCOURSE: PRO ET CONTRA

PRAGMATIC AUTHENTICITY OF CINEMATIC DISCOURSE: PRO ET CONTRA

Author:  I.V. Zykova

Affiliation:  Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Abstract:  This study is devoted to the problem of the relationship and interdependence of natural and artistic communication that manifest themselves in participants’ speech behavior in the process of interpersonal communication as well as in the principles of speakers’ motivated choice of certain linguistic units for the implementation of specific (similar) pragmatic tasks in both types of communication.
The paper aims to develop the approach to identifying the pragmatic authenticity of artistic communication based on the discourse of feature films. A specially compiled cinematic corpus is used as the source of material. It includes contemporary British drama films, selected according to the criteria that correspond to the purpose of our study. The paper proposes a step-by-step algorithm for studying contact-terminating means (CTM) as indicators of “naturalness” of the characters’ speech behavior.
The research conducted resulted in establishing twelve pragmatic types of CTM that were classified into conventional (e.g., parting, thanking) and non-conventional (e.g., stance-taking, approval). One of the important indicators of pragmatic authenticity is the formulaicity of CTM. The presence of formulaic elements in conventional CTM (e.g., See you soon, Keep in touch) increases the level of “naturalness” of cinematic discourse, while their use in non-conventional CTM (e.g., He’s all right, I’m sorry) decreases it. The research findings let us formulate PRO- and CONTRA-arguments regarding the pragmatic authenticity of the analyzed film dialogues. The main conclusion is that along with the reproduction of CTM from real-life communication (more than 50% of cases), films apply non-standard means of closing the conversation, determined by the need to implement specific artistic-aesthetic tasks in them.

Keywords:  pragmatic authenticity, natural communication, multimodal discourse, cinematic discourse, contact-terminating means, formulas, pragmatics.

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Acknowledgments:  This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation under project FMNE-2025-0001.

For citation:  Zykova, I. V. (2026). Pragmatic authenticity of cinematic discourse: pro et contra. Voprosy Kognitivnoy Lingvistiki, 2, 18-31 (In Russ.).

Pages:  18-31