The peculiarities of semantic compression implementation in popular English talk shows

ЕМЕЛЬЯНОВА Олена, ТІТАРЕВА Марія, ПОПОВА Тетяна. ОСОБЛИВОСТІ АКТУАЛІЗАЦІЇ СЕМАНТИЧНОЇ КОМПРЕСІЇ У ПОПУЛЯРНИХ АНГЛОМОВНИХ ТОК ШОУ. Стаття присвячена аналізу вживання семантичної компресії у популярних англомовних ток-шоу. У роботі вивчається поняття лінгвістичної компресії та особливості її уживання на різних мовних рівнях. Розглянуто мовні засоби, які слугують інструментом скорочення знакової структури мови. Визначено ключові властивості мовної компресії, що допомагають зробити текст більш лаконічним. Зазначено важливість повної передачі інформації зі збереженням експресивного забарвлення та дотриманням мовних норм.

Ключові слова: семантична компресія, лінгвістична компресія, мовний рівень, стислість, лексико- граматичні труднощі, ток-шоу.

YEMELYANOVA Olena, TITAREVA Mariia, POPOVA Tetiana. THE PECULARITIES OF SEMANTIC COMPRESSION IMPLEMENTATION IN POPULAR ENGLISH TALK SHOWS. The article deals with the analysis of semantic compression application in popular English talk shows. The purpose of this paper is to define language compression, to outline the expediency of its use in English media discourse, to name ways of compression implementation in popular talk shows and to consider the level of influence of principle of linguistic efforts economy on achieving communicative goals between interlocutors. Basic information on the concept of linguistic compression and features of its use at different language levels, in particular phonetic, morphological, lexical, semantic and syntactic is presented. Linguistic compression is used in oral and written discourse, in formal and informal texts. The text gives valuable information on the structure and characteristics of media discourse, its grammatical, lexical and phonetic features. The article focuses on a detailed analysis of the main linguistic means that serve to reduce the symbolic structure of language, which leads to the brevity of expression, contains the data on key properties of linguistic compression that help make the text more concise. Special attention is paid to the phonetic methods of linguistic compression in English talk shows: it is manifested through such means as reduction, assimilation, loss, fusion and other processes. Among the syntactic means of compression, such methods used for linguistic efforts economy as contamination, segmentation and parceling, ellipse, univerbation, abbreviation, composite words, inclusion and use of foreign words or components are analyzed. The article points out the importance of adequate transfer of information with preservation of expressive nuances and observance of stylistic language norms. The article is of interest for further researches on the topic of linguistic efforts economy in oral and written speech styles, can be used in researches in linguistics, lexicology, phonetics. semantic english linguistic compression

Key words: semantic compression, linguistic compression, talk show, media discourse, linguistic efforts economy, communicative goal.

Introduction

The modern world is characterized by a tendency of linguistic efforts economy in communication, and therefore there is a need to investigate the impact of this phenomenon on the language structure. Since the use of compression occurs at all linguistic levels and covers almost all areas of everyday life, it is important to outline the basic rules of its application and translation methods for the accurate content transfer without violating the speech style. In order for a translator to be able to perform an adequate translation, it is important to understand the nature of the semantic compression phenomenon and the main motives for its application. It is important for the translator to have a large amount of background knowledge to identify texts in which semantic compression has been applied to understand what function it performs depending on the context and what forms of manifestation it has at different linguistic levels. The translator should understand the main risks of using abbreviated expressions, because the excessive use of compression can lead to the loss of meaningful, relevant information.

Analysis of recent research and publications. A thorough study of compression began in the second half of the twentieth century and was part of research in the field of psycholinguistics, as the specifics of translation problems were of interest not only to linguists but also to researchers of other branches of science, especially psychology and psycholinguistics. In the process of general linguistic study, special attention was paid to the study of the speech compression. The analysis of this linguistic phenomenon was performed by I. R. Halperin, L. V. Sakharnyi, N. G. Kalashnyk, A. A. Potebnia, Yu. N. Vlasova. Well-known scientists such as G. H. Lerner, I. A. Koshik, G. Jefferson, and I. Hutchby focused their research on the speech reduction processes study.

The relevance of the research is stipulated by the tendency of linguistic efforts economy in the communication process and the importance of accurate interpretation of abbreviated expressions, both in everyday communication and during the translation process. Scientists have long been interested in the linguistic compression phenomenon, but this topic has been considered in more detail in other fields of science. With the advent of new technologies and the spread of media discourse, new areas of compression application and forms of its manifestation are emerging. Therefore, in linguistics this topic is of particular interest.

The subject matter of the study is the analysis of the influence of compression on the language structure and features of its application.

The objective of the research is texts that have undergone linguistic compression. The research material of the study is dialogues from English talk shows.

1. Rendering main material

Nowadays, the linguistic compression is widely used in the mass media. Analyzing the mass media, we are referring to various magazines and online publications, as well as the range of social networks that are fast becoming a major field for self-expression, communication and advertising. Talk shows and entertainment shows are becoming very popular. The mass media is a common resource of new linguistic transformations and new constructions, which are gradually being incorporated into language structures.

Universal and differential extralinguistic features of TV language are based on anthropocentric, organizational and technical factors. During the analysis of the talk show speech features, special attention is paid to how the participants use the conversation for their feelings expression.

The aim of TV language is to interact with the audience in various ways, involving it in the communication process. Rhetorical questions, appeals to the audience, various explanations can be used for this purpose. Speaking of grammar, simple sentences are mainly used, as well as sentences that are not overloaded with adjectives and adverbial inflections. Short expressions are easier to understand in oral speech.

One of the main features of television that directly affects the TV language is the regulations. In contrast to the Internet, television has well-defined time restrictions that results in language segmentation. Therefore, the issue of time economy becomes the main one, so TV presenters turn to the means of linguistic compression. Entertainment programs seek to get closer to the audience, in particular, through the use of specific vocabulary, which often violates the norms of literary language. According to T. Peredriienko, Anglo-American borrowings are the main linguistic compression means in modern media texts, that also demonstrates one of the linguistic compression manifestations at the lexical level (Peredriienko, 2014).

Compression is a very broad concept, the essence of which is a variety of linguistic transformations, ranging from transformations at the word level and to the change of the whole text. Linguistic compression is used generally in oral and written discourse, in formal and informal texts, and each year expands and deepens its sphere of influence. In other words, it is a kind of paraphrasing based on the language system characteristics, the essence of which is to simplify long and detailed syntactic structures to less complex ones, without losing the ability to convey the full amount of information on a par with extended and detailed structures. Compression is related to the proficiency of determination the hierarchical structure in the text content: to understand the idea, to highlight secondary information (Zanina, 2014).

The term “compression” has a wide range of applications, it refers to all legal ways to implement the principle of linguistic efforts economy. Applying compression helps to make the text neater and more concise. When using the principle of compression, the text does not lose important information, retains emotional and connotative shade, but its perception becomes more optimal.

Manifestations of compression can be observed at different linguistic levels and in all cases it is influenced by the principles of information theory, i.e. redundant elements are subject to compression.

Phonetic compression is manifested in the violation of the phonetic norm due to the rapid pace of speech and lack of formality. This occurs when pronouncing some words for which acoustic efforts are minimized (Korobkina, 2013). In the field of pronunciation, for example, there is the phonetic structure compression of the syllable in favor of simplification through reduction, assimilation, loss, fusion and other processes. Examples of linguistic economy at the phonetic level can often be found in the lyrics. In English, the use of abbreviated forms gonna, wanna, gotta instead of going to, want to and got to is quite common. This phenomenon is called phonetic reduction. According to M. Krylova, it is an abbreviated pronunciation of words that occurs in everyday speech (Krylova, 2014).

For example: (T): but everyone was there, the camera was set up... that just like... what am I gonna say it was too late to say «no».

(G): how is thatpossible?(The Graham Norton Show, 2016)

Another type of phonetic compression is speech elision, i.e. the loss of the unstressed sound that precedes the stressed one, in order to facilitate pronunciation.

For example: (E): no, I thought you were just.

(J): just hangin ' out waitin ' to get to the Ellen Show?

(E): right, that's what I thought. I just need to know how you just lounge on chair in the ocean?

(J): you just sort of do that. (TheEllenShow, 2019).

At the morphological level, the creation of abbreviated colloquial forms of words and expressions is achieved through the use of special morphemes. For example, the colloquial form of the words cause instead of because, can't instead of cannot or it's got instead of it has got. The difference between this phenomenon and the elision is that these abbreviated forms are presented morphologically, that is, they are not considered a violation of language structure.

For example:..so they were like: «whatever you do, don't tell them that you're here for work (cause I'll ask for a work visa) say you 're here for pleasure. (The Graham Norton Show, 2016).

The lexicogrammatical level is characterized by the use of short, often monomorphic words, words with broad semantics, pronouns ect. Such linguistic techniques that can perform the role of means of compression are verb and non-verb substitutes. Here is an example of a verb substitute:

(G): this is the picture of Johnny Depp as Donald Trump

(JD): it was just for me it was a weekend..

(G) you just wanted to know what it felt like to be THAT awesome

(JL): I never thought I wanted to kill Johnny Depp

(JD): I can only say that you should (kill Johnny Depp).

(G): did you already do a Donald Trump impression?

(JD): I didn't and I had no idea if I could (do a Donald Trump impression). (The Graham Norton Show, 2016).

The use of a nonverbal substitute is demonstrated in the following example:

(E): there must be so many crazy things that you're looking around at, and yet, you're normal people.

(EC): yeah, pretty much. There's a lot of green.

(E): you mean a lot of green screens. (TheEllenShow, 2016).

The analysis of the researched material testifies to the active use of adverbs such as pretty much, very much as non-verbal substitutes to ensure the linguistic efforts economy.

Syntactic compression involves the reduction of sign structure in such ways as contamination, segmentation and parceling, ellipse, univerbation, abbreviation, composite words, inclusion and use of foreign words or components. Syntactic compression is achieved by articulating statements, increasing the number of nominative and elliptical sentences (Barkhudarov, 2010).

N. Kalashnyk distinguishes between quantitative and qualitative economy. Quantitative linguistic economy is the economy due to the reduction of language units, economy of physical efforts spent on the transmission of information and its decoding, which, ultimately, is associated with economy of time and excessive speech efforts for both partners. Qualitative economy is the economy of mental efforts spent on the selection and organization of language means for the transmission of information and its decoding, i.e. economy due to the “quality” of the selected language units (Kalashnyk and Hetman, 2004).

Features of ellipse, substitution, reduction are that these phenomena are caused by a certain context or extralinguistic situations. They are detailed syntactic structures that have undergone elliptical changes and reductions, and in some cases are widely used, because the language scheme as a carrier of information is able to convey important accurate information within a particular area of communication. Ellipsis is inherent in everyday language, where sentences function within the linguistic unity. Being in close semantic connection with other components of linguistic unity, they are used mainly to express time, place, an action performer, new data about a person or object.

For example: (Т): You trust me?

(Е): Any reason I shouldn't? (TheEllenShow, 2019).

замість “Do you trust me? - Is there any reason why I shouldn't trust you?”

At the semantic level, the compression phenomenon involves the use of hidden meanings, presuppositions, implicatures. In general, the text compression is expressed in the reduction of formal and grammatical means of communication and increase the informativeness of language units.

The pragmatics of the text based on the background knowledge of the addressee is of major importance. Verbal brevity of syntactic units and semantic capacity is achieved by increasing the role of implicit means of communication. The context and situation of communication play an important role in deriving implicit content. Implicit information allows the recipient to independently derive information based on existing lexical items (Kobiakova and Taran, 2017).

For example: (G): what was specific about David Russell kissing?

(А): Oh, he has a thing with tongue.he likes to see it. He's like a 1980s music video or something, you know?(BBC, 2013).

In this example, the joke is based on the features and certain cliches of American music videos of the 80s, which are obvious to the audience.

The analysed material shows that TV presenters often deliberately employ incomplete, unfinished expressions in dialogues. The purpose of their use is due to different extralinguistic situations, so they can be interpreted differently depending on the context. Sometimes, while conversing, a TV presenter wants to get a more detailed reply from his interlocutor. He can intentionally end his remark with a word, often a conjunction, which encourages the other speaker to participate actively.

For example: (Е): What kind of dance did you learn when you were young? Ballet or...

(P) ...ballet yea, it's really hard but I loved it. (TheEllenShow, 2018).

The conjunction or becomes an invitation to complete the thought and give an extended answer. Other words that imply the logical completion of the cue are but, and, like a, so ect.

Leading talk shows can also resort to compression in order to get answers from guests, while avoiding repeating the questions they asked in previous remarks. When a TV presenter asks a question, it is often necessary to clarify it, or there are cases when the guest deliberately avoids answering or deviates from the topic, or is distracted by something else. If that the case the TV presenter may need to ask the question repeatedly. Repetition of the same question may be misperceived by the audience and guests, and so show hosts may use unfinished phrases to avoid this situation.

Sometimes TV presenters may not even say a word, because compression can be seen in a look or a gesture. For example, a gaze at an object may mean that a person wants to get some information about it. As H. Walker points out a gaze, as well as short pauses, rise or fall of intonation can be perceived as a relevant transition move from one speaker to another (Walker, 2012).

The rules of compression application in TV shows provide for the obligatory preservation of the logical and structural coherence and integrity of the text, the preservation of its informativeness and permanent components.

Conclusions

The analysis of the studied material shows that linguistic compression is a multifaceted linguistic phenomenon that is foregrounded at all language levels, in particular phonetic, morphological, lexico-grammatical, syntactic and semantic levels.

At each language level, linguistic compression has its own characteristics, but it is most clearly represented at the syntactic and semantic levels. Each area where linguistic compression is used has special rules that should be followed in order to correctly interpret the content of the message and preserve its semantic content. Leading talk shows use compression to get more detailed answers, initiate a joint completion of the cue, and avoid questions repeating. Phonetic means of compression are also important, such as lengthening a vowel or repeating the last word (phrase), raising/falling intonation, pausing. Incomplete expressions may be accompanied by gestures or looks, which are clues for the interlocutor what action is expected of them, depending on the context and situation. The use of compression in talk shows can significantly save airtime, and is also an example of playful interaction or friendly, sincere talk between interlocutors, that facilitates pleasant emotions in the audience.

Further prospects of research we see in thorough study of semantic compression foregrounding in different types of discourse.

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