Categoricalness in Scientific Discourse

Категоричность в научном дискурсе

Н.Н. Панченко, Я.А. Волкова

One cannot ignore the fact that the phenomenon of categoricalness attracts researchers of various paradigms of knowledge in human sciences, such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, and, of course, linguistics.

From a philosophical point of view, categoricalness is interpreted as an unconditional statement or negation that excludes an alternative, thus appearing as a category identical to lack of alternatives (Kont-Sponvil', 2012). In this regard, one cannot help recalling Kant's categorical imperative, which functions as a moral law, unconditional, not recognizing excuses, an absolute requirement and compulsion to moral actions.

The psychological paradigm of knowledge interprets categoricalness as non-admittance of another opinion and defines it as straightforwardness and frankness, confidence in one's words and actions, the reasons for such outwardly manifested confidence being often found in internal psychological problems, primarily, deep self-distrust.

In sociology, categoricalness is again associated with a high degree of the speaker's confidence, motivated and partly justified by his/her high social status. “By acquiring a status, an individual masters the roles that correspond to him, carrying out this process through the prism of his personal social and emotional experience, and also under the influence of the environment to which he belongs” (Topka, Koneva, 2015: 176). According to the authors, in the space of institutional discourse, the situation of demand, because of the social status and the corresponding right of the speaker to categorical speech actions, is often associated with situations of order and accusation (ibid.), which is inevitably manifested in the decisive demand for unconditional, unquestioning execution of orders.

In linguistics, categoricalness is defined through semantically related concepts, which allows us to recreate its “semantic portrait”: категоричный - безапелляционный, безусловный, догматичный, императивный, конкретный, не допускающий/не терпящий возражений/иного понимания/иных толкований, однозначный, решительный, твердый, ультимативный (peremptory, unconditional, dogmatic, imperative, specific, not allowing/not tolerating objections/other opin- ions/other interpretations, unambiguous, decisive, firm, ultimatum) (Aleksandrova, 2011; Ushakov, 2000).

Thus, we can see that all approaches to categoricalness in human sciences associate it with a kind of unconditional position intolerant to other opinions. To explore its role in scientific discourse, we need to answer the following questions: How does categoricalness function in discourses? What language means are involved in its implementation? These aspects will be considered in the next chapter.

2. Categoricalness in Discourse

As we have already mentioned, categoricalness is one of the communicative categories that are directly oriented to the communication process and affect the nature of communicative interaction. Regarding its functioning, categoricalness performs communicative-organizing and regulatory functions. We believe that categoricalness can be detected in various discourses, both institutional and non-institu- tional, its evaluative perception being different. While in a status-oriented discourse, categoricalness is generally expected and justified, and, therefore, is not openly condemned, in personality-oriented communication, categorical communicative behaviour does not receive an unambiguous definition.

Categoricalness is not always assessed positively; it is commonly perceived negatively. Suffice it to observe the above-mentioned synonymous concepts through which categoricalness is interpreted. First of all, the negative perception is connected with the fact that a categorical person who practices “black- and-white” thinking has binary logic based on two-value options, unquestionably positive and unquestionably negative. Such unambiguity, intolerance to a different understanding, the “inflexibility” of the speaker cannot but cause protest, rejection of such behaviour by the communication partner. The categorical speech behaviour of a person is characterized by the absence of doubts about what has been said, and intemperance in assessments. The speaker's confidence in his/her knowledge, assessments, statements, etc. determines the direct connection of the category in question with another category of communicative interaction - reli- ability/credibility.

One cannot fail to notice that categoricalness is directly related to the category of emotionality, since in communicative behaviour it manifests itself as an open demonstration of disregard for the opinions of others, a manifestation of inflexibility, superiority or disrespect.

In communication, categoricalness is recognized through several verbal and non-verbal markers. First of all, it can be identified through the explicit means of expression:

Я категорически не согласен с теми,

кто утверждает.../с мнением, что

... (Istrongly disagree with those who state .../with the opinion that...);

Я категорически против, чтобы (I am strongly/categorically opposed to...);

Я категорически/категорично

заявляю/утверждаю, что. (I categorically affirm/state that.);

Я категорически возражаю/

отказываюсь обсуждать. (Istrong

ly object/refuse to discuss.).

Note that the predominant use of the `^''-construction strengthens the meaning of reliability, but fails to tune the interlocutor into constructive interaction.

Among the non-verbal markers that allow us to identify categoricalness, the prosodic components of communication dominate, with the authoritative tone being the most frequent one (категоричным тоном распорядилась/ констатировал/сказал (ordered/said/con- firmed in a categorical tone)):

И вот пришел новый начальник и сухим, категоричным тоном объявил, что никаких машин нет и не предвидится. (And so the new chief came and in a dry, categorical tone announced that there were no cars and not any was expected) (Yu. Trifonov. Quenching thirst. RNC) .

Categoricalness can also be recognized with the help of directive speech acts, discursive strategies and tactics of the speaker. Performing a regulatory function, categoricalness correlates with the speaker's choice of a particular strategy and tactics of communicative behaviour. It is no coincidence that some researchers pay attention to the influencing potential of categoricalness, defining it `as a tactical technique used by communication participants to achieve a specific impact goal' (Topka, Koneva, 2015).

Thus, being connected with the categories of persuasiveness and emotionality, categoricalness directly affects the nature of the communicative interaction; it can create a tense atmosphere of communication, and sometimes lead to an acute conflict situation, which means that categorical communicative behaviour may be considered a variety of destructive communication.

There is little doubt that categoricalness as an obligatory communicative category can be found in any type of discourse - personal (common) and institutional (political, mass media, pedagogical, medical, etc.) discourses.

In the next chapter, we will turn to the manifestation of categoricalness in scientific discourse, and try to answer the question of how common categoricalness is for this type of discourse and whether it is possible to talk about the destructive potential of categoricalness in relation to scientific communicative interaction.

3. The Analysis of Categoricalness in Scientific Discourse

Features of Scientific Discourse

First of all, we should remember that the main communicative canons of scientific discourse traditionally include accurate and logical presentation, reasoned validity or invalidity of certain provisions. The scientific style is distinguished by its purpose to objectively demonstrate the truth, empirical conclusiveness supported by confirmed relevant arguments. Since scientific discourse is considered a tool and a means of perceiving reality and storing scientific knowledge, it fulfills a number of functions, namely communicative, cognitive, and accumulative.

A scientific text is a product of a goal-oriented communicative activity: many scientists sometimes work on the same scientific problem, including researchers from different countries who often have opposite points of view. Among other things, scientific discourse aims to demonstrate the correctness or fallacy of theories, concepts, opinions, etc. The participants of the scientific communicative interaction who enter into a scientific polemic dialogue are scientists deemed equal in the communication process. This equality exists because “none of the researchers has a monopoly on truth, and the infiniteness of knowledge makes each scientist critical about both his/her own and others' research” (Karasik, 2000).

In other words, there are many parameters characteristic of scientific discourse. They include the academic style of speech, relevance and authoritativeness. While the scientific style categories (accuracy, abstractiveness, logic, objectivity) have been described in detail (see the papers by Ponomareva, 2004; Rakitina, 2006; Cherniavskaia, 2005; Banks and Di Martino, 2019), a few words should be said about authoritativeness as a communicative category of scientific discourse, since it directly correlates with the category of categoricalness.

It is widely recognized that authoritativeness belongs to the core characteristics of scientific discourse and is revealed in scientific texts through a number of discourse markers of direct and indirect authoritativeness, which include references to the authority of the work's author, public opinion, the viewpoint of recognized specialists in this field of science; impersonality of presentation in combination with focusing on the achievements of the author; the use of complex special terminology in this area of research; appeal to illustrative examples, etc. (Boldyreva, 2006: 4). Therefore, the hypothetical nature of scientific theories and principles should supposedly stimulate the non-categorical tonality of scientific interaction, and it is quite reasonable that the principles of scientific communication include the principles of cooperation and politeness with their main maxims (G.P. Grice, D. Leech) designed to neutralize possible conflict situations. However, the use of the above-mentioned discourse markers to prove and defend their point of view often requires imperative modality, which is one of the discourse manifestations of categoricalness. Categoricalness, therefore, comes into conflict with the norms of scientific communication, violating research ethics.

Interestingly, the survey of foreign research papers on scientific discourse did not reveal any mentioning of caterogicalness as its meaningful feature. In one respect, this might be the evidence of the low priority of this category for the western academic community; but this might also be because this category is inherently present in some mitigating/downton- ing techniques known as “hedging”.

The Specifics of Categoricalness in Scientific Discourse