Strategy of partnership in the English parental discourse

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Strategy of partnership in the English parental discourse

Kozlova V.V.,

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of the English Philology and Liguistic Didactics Department Sumy A.S. Makarenko State Pedagogical University

Bagatska O.V.,

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor,

Summary

The article examines the features of verbal and nonverbal representation of the partnership strategy in English-language parenteral discourse. The interpretation and correlation of the concepts of speech strategy and tactics in the aspect of discursive research are specified. The specificity of the partnership strategy development are characterized and the tactics of its implementation in the English prenatal discourse are singled out. The analysis of lexical-semantic and syntactic means of realization of the tactic of inquiry, instructional tactic, tactic of informing, tactic of praise and encouragement, tactic of calming, as well as tactic of apology in the English parental discourse is carried out. It was found out that the choice of tactics within the partnership strategy is determined by the parental intention to build harmonious interaction, focus on reducing emotional distance and conscious abandonment of dominance in order to effectively implement the educational goals of the English parental discourse.

It was revealed that the main structural and semantic types of statements used for the implementation of these tactics are affirmative, motivational, integrative constructions of generalizing and qualifying nature; lexical and semantic level of partnership strategy is represented by verbal means of explicit semantics. Among the stylistic means of verbal representation of the partnership strategy, we single out metaphors and comparisons. Analysis of the nonverbal component of utterances that implement tactics within the partnership strategy displayed that kinesic, proxemic and prosodic nonverbal means identify the speaker's intentions, intensify the linguistic aspect of the utterance and identify the level of emotional experience. The role of such forms of addressing as the child's name, kinship nomination, evaluation and occasional forms used by parents in implementing the partnership strategy in the English parental discourse is analyzed. The article is intended to ensure the continuation of the scientific development of the linguopragmatic aspect of discursive practices of the interactants of the English parental discourse.

Key words: partnership strategy, the tactic of inquiry, instructional tactic, tactic of informing, tactic of praise and encouragement, tactic of calming, tactic of apology, lexical means, syntactic means, nonverbal means, English parental discourse.

Анотація

english language parental discourse

Козлова В., Багацька О. Стратегія партнерства в англомовному парентальному дискурсі

У статті досліджуються особливості вербальної та невербальної репрезентації стратегії партнерства в англомовному парентальному дискурсі. Уточнено трактування та кореляцію понять мовленнєва стратегія й тактика в аспекті дискурсивних досліджень. Схарактеризовано специфіку розгортання стратегії партнерства та виокремлено тактики її реалізації в англомовному пренатальному дискурсі. Проведено аналіз лексико-семантичних та синтаксичних засобів реалізації тактики розпитування, тактики інструктування, тактики інформування, тактики схвалення та заохочення, тактики заспокоєння, а також тактики висловлювання вибачення в англомовно- му парентальному дискурсі. З'ясовано, що вибір тактик в межах стратегії партнерства зумовлений батьківською інтенцією побудови гармонійної взаємодії, спрямованістю на зменшення емоційної дистанції та свідомою відмовою від домінуючого положення задля ефективної реалізації виховних цілей англомовного парентального дискурсу.

Було виявлено, що основними структурно-семантич- ними типами висловлень при здійсненні зазначених тактик є стверджувальні, спонукальні, інтерогативні конструкції узагальнюючого й кваліфікативного характеру, а лексико-семантичний рівень реалізації стратегії партнерства представлено засобами єкспліцитної семантики. Серед стилістичних засобів вербальної репрезентації стратегії партнерства виокремлюємо метафори та порівняння. Ана- ліз невербальної складової висловлювань, що забезпечу- ють реалізацію тактик в межах стратегії партнерства пока- зав, що кінетичні, проксемічні та просодичні невербальні засоби забезпечують ідентифікацію намірів мовця, інтенсифікують мовний аспект висловлювання та ідентифікують рівень емоційного переживання. Проаналізовано роль таких форм звертання як ім'я дитини, номінація спорідненості, оцінні та оказіональні форми, що використовуються батьками при реалізації стратегії партнерства в англо- мовному парентальному дискурсі. Публікація покликана забезпечити продовження наукової розробки лінгвопрагматичного аспекту дискурсивних практик суб'єктів англомовного парентального дискурсу.

Ключові слова: стратегія партнерства, тактика розпитування, тактика інструктування, тактика інформування, тактики схвалення та заохочення, тактика заспокоєння, тактика висловлювання вибачення, лексичні засоби, синтаксичні засоби, невербальні засоби, англомовний парентальний дискурс.

Problem statement

With the dominance of the anthropocentric paradigm, the concept of discourse becomes the focus of linguistic sciences, while special attention is paid to the study of semantic, structural and pragmatic peculiarities of institutional and non- institutional types of discourse. The communicative approach to the discourse analysis presupposes the investigation of methods and tools that regulate human behavior in the process of implementing the interactants' intentions. The participants of the English parental discourse that is viewed as a personality-oriented interaction of parents and their children that realize their asymmetric status roles [1] resort to a number of various strategies and tactics. Since tools of strategy realization vary in different types of discourse, the specificity of strategy of partnership implementation is worth regarding in the framework of the English parental discourse.

Analysis of the recent research and investigations. Speech strategy covers the whole sphere of communication process, when aspeaker'sgoalistoachievecertainlong-termresults. Inabroadsense, the speech strategy covers the planning of the speech communication process depending on certain conditions of communication and personality of communicators, as well as the implementation of this plan” [2, c. 54]. The concept of strategy implies an activity approach and correlates with the concept of intention. “Intention is the focus of human consciousness on the objects and states of things of the outside world. It can be doubly manifested: as a representational intention - the focus of consciousness on a particular object - and communicative intention - the intention of the addresser to convey to the addressee his intention and influence him in such a way” [3, c. 101]. And “the strategy of speech communication is the optimal realization of the speaker's intentions to achieve a specific goal of communication, that is control and selection of effective communication steps and their flexible modification in a particular situation” [4], also strategy is treated as “a set of speech actions aimed at achieving communicative goals” [2], “a holistic system of operations performed by the speaker to select and implement the optimal implementation of communicative goals in a particular communication situation” [5]. Thus, the strategy is determined by the intention of the subject of influence, the choice of strategy is determined by the intention of the addresser to achieve a specific goal of communication. The implementation of speech strategies is ensured by speech tactics. Speech tactics - “is a homogeneous in intention and implementation line of behavior of the communicant” [6], “one or more actions that ensure the implementation of the strategy” [2], “way to implement the strategy” [3].

Recently researchers have shown an increased interest in developing approaches to strategy classification and characterization with regard to discourse type and context. Thus they develop strategy taxonomy of national political discourses [7; 8], investigate strategic perspective of social media discourse in the comparative and typological aspect [9; 10]. A significant place in their works is occupied by the comparative study of common and distinctive features of strategies and tactics implementation [11; 12]. Along with this, however, there is increasing concern over revealing the particular strategy type realization. The researchers explore linguistic representation of strategies of legitimization in political discourse [13; 14], analyze the communicative strategy of persuasion in the scientific discourse [14], study the peculiarities of the strategies of politeness in the diplomatic discourse [15], scrutinize lexico-semantic markers of preferable strategies and tactics of German parental discourse [16]. However, too little attention has been paid to the communicative and strategic potential of the English parental discourse. This indicates a need to carry out in-depth analysis of verbal means utilized in the realization of fundamental strategies of English parental discourse, the strategy of partnership in particular.

The objectives. The paper is aimed at determining a set of tactics that ensure the implementation of the partnership strategy in English parental discourse with emphases on verbal (lexical, syntactic) and nonverbal means of their realization.

The body of the paper

The strategy of partnership contributes to fruitful family communication, when parents follow a rational line, trying to take into account child's interests, basing their behavior on politeness, recognizing norms and conventions of communication, implementing educational directives in a softened way, which allows to choose between compliance with the principles, norms and conventions of communication and their deliberate violation. In English parental discourse the strategy of partnership is viewed as the search for a "common language" of interactants who are equal to each other and presupposes the development of harmonious communication, when relations become balanced and non-aggressive. Choosing this strategy parents deliberately reject their dominant social position and treat the child as an equal partner, fulfilling the intention of positive assessment, encouraging, supporting, creating a sense of security in the favorable family atmosphere. Verbal interaction between parents and children in the process of strategy realization is characterized by free operation of structural, lexical, grammatical and stylistic means of expression. The use of non-verbal communicative components enhances the emotional closeness between the participants of the interaction. The strategy of partnership is aimed at achieving the goals of parental discourse - education and socialization of children as members of society through the explanation of norms and rules of conduct, the formation of value orientation. The realization of these goals becomes possible due to the following set of tactics: the tactic of inquiry, instructional tactic, tactic of informing, tactic of praise and encouragement, tactic of calming, tactic of apology. The predominant structural and semantic types of statements are imperative, affirmative and interrogative constructions. While implementing this strategy, parents widely use as appeals: the name of the child; terms of kinship; evaluative and occasional forms of addressing.

For initiating communication parents resort to the tactic of inquiry, within which they touch on various topics: the health of children, their personal problems, school life, friends etc.:

"What's that?" he asks. "Is that the book your mother told me you've been keeping?" I nod, holding the book tightly on my lap. "Where did you find this?" he asks surprised. "Oh I can't remember," I lie. He doesn't believe me I can tell you. His dark eyes meet mine, questioningly (A. Eires).

The tactic of inquiry is implemented with the help of interrogative structures: general questions are used to clarify the details and special ones to immediately get a gist of the talk. The choice of syntactic constructions with subordinate clauses demonstrates speaker's rationality and emotional balance. Nonverbal means of prosodic type function as intensifiers of verbal content and indicators of emotional state, and kinesic components carry an informative load, functioning autonomously.

The tactic of inquiry is replaced by the instructional tactic. Analyzing the information obtained through interrogation, the speaker intends to influence the child and presents the reasons to carry out instructions, and the addressee signals about his agreement:

"Chocky's back ,is she?" I asked as he came up ."How did you know?" he inquired, with surprise. "I recognized the signs. Look, do me a favour, will you? Just keep her under cover if you can. We don't want to spoil Mummy's day" "Okay," he agreed (J. Wyndham). Syntactic means of tactic implementation are imperative and conditional sentence structures. A polite form of request that precedes the immediate expression of the desired action indicates

the cooperative intentions.

When implementing the tactic of informing that aims at the child's expansion of knowledge about the world and the social environment, parents use simple narrative sentences with demonstrative pronouns to identify mentioned object. The thematic specificity of the message determines the choice of lexical units (nouns, numerals, adjectives, adverbs):

'Yuk,' he said, examining an orange blob on the end of his spoon. 'What's that?'

'That's called a carrot, Pat. You must remember carrots. They're good for you. Come on. Eat it all up' (T. Parsons Man and Boy).

Parents use simile and metaphor to express the specific characteristics of a particular subject under discussion enhancing expressiveness of the utterance:

Honey, don't you think, he don't know, what it means to be a friend. He is like a cock, who things the sun rises to hear him crow (J. Grogan).

Parents also resort to this tactic to share with children their life experience and preventing making mistake. The second conditional is used to demonstrate possible results of the wrong choice:

He shrugged. 'That's the chance you have to take, isn't it? That's the chance you take every time. If we were always afraid of being hurt and humiliated, we would never love anyone'(T. Parsons The Family Life).

The tactic of praise and encouragement is based on the speaker's intention to express the positive attitude to the personality of the addressee. It concerns the appearance, character traits, intellectual abilities and behavior of children. This tactic is implemented through the use of lexical means of positive evaluation in the following types of structures: verb +adverb combination; the combination of an adjective with a noun; the combination of an adverb with an adjective that enhances the assessment:

“You are so special to me, little man,” my father said, clinging to him (A. Sebold).

The choice of this tactic is due to the emotional state of the parent and the desire to express positive assessment of the actions of the child, which turns into a positive assessment of their personality. At the verbal level, axiological language means are used - evaluative adjectives of a positive nature. Their repetition increases the parent's satisfaction with the child:

“It's beautiful,” I said, and my heart filled up with the pride and sorrow and joy only a mother can feel for her children.

“It's beautiful,” I said again, those the only words coming to me. (B. Lott).

Verbal representation of this tactic is also characterized by the use of various exclamations that emphasize the equality and closeness of parents and children:

“Yooh! My little businesswoman! I knew, you would do it!” (E. Waite).

Non-verbal components of the kinesic type play an important role as indicators of the parent's emotional state, indexing the intensity of the experiences. Kinetic components of contact type intensify the positive evaluative judgment, complementing the verbal content and regulate the relationship between communicators, helping to establish a positive tone of communication:

“Definitely an improvement,” she stated, eyes shining brightly. Going to Graham she kissed him on the cheek. “You're a bright boy. Thank you.” (E. Blair)

When realizing the tactic of calming, the speaker intends to provide the addressee with emotional support, which is not always unconditionally accepted by the child. This tactic is represented by syntactic imperative constructions of motivation, conditional affirmative sentences. When reassuring parents use addressing (name of the child and affectionate appeals) and nonverbal prosodic component in order to relieve tension of the addressee:

“Lindsey,” he said upon knocking. There was no answer. “Lindsey, can I come in?” “Go away”, came her resolute

answer.

“Come on now, honey”, he pleaded. “Go away! “Lindsey,” my father said, sucking in his breath, “why can't you

let me in?” He placed his forehead gently against the bedroom door.

In sock feet, Lindsey came silently to the door. She unlocked it as my father drew back and prepared a face that he hoped said “Don't run.”

“What?” she said. Her face was rigid, an affront. “What is it?” “I want to know how are you here,” he said.

I want to be alone”, Lindsey said. “Isn't that obvious?” “I'm here if you need me”, he said.

“Look, Dad,” my sister said, making her one concession for him, “I'm handling this alone” (A. Sebold).

Nonverbal kinesic means of contact type intensify emotional support and indicate a distance reduction between interactants:

Claire hugged her daughter last of all: a tight, comforting hug. “Phone me tomorrow if you need to chat”, was all she said, a coded message that meant: If you want to sob down the phone about Ray and Fliss (C. Kelly).

The purpose of the tactic of apology is to express regret for not being able to do something or for the action that offends. Also, realizing this tactic, the speaker seeks to relieve tensions between him and his partner in communication. The tactic of apology is represented by the use of affirmative, interrogative and negative constructions:

“I'm sorry, dear”, Annie-Marie smiled at her daughter, clumsily trying to close buttons on a clean dress and failing. “I was angry, wasn't I? I am sorry, I didn't mean to be. I don't know what came over me”.

“It's all right, Mum”, Emma said, gently taking over the buttoning (C. Kelly).

The speaker utilizes forms of addressing, which convey the respectful attitude to the addressee while repetitions of apology emphasize the sincerity of the excuse and demonstrate the emotional state of the addressee. Interrogative sentences and constructions with negation present speaker's explanations. Gestures, facial expressions and body movements that intensify the feeling of anxiety and reveal the mental suffering of the recipient, are used to relieve tension and express deep remorse.

Conclusion and research prospects

These findings suggest that the realization of the strategy of partnership in the English parental discourse is provided by the tactic of inquiry, instructional tactic, tactic of informing, tactic of praise and encouragement, tactic of calming, tactic of apology. Verbal and non-verbal means of communication are involved in tactics implementation. The syntactic aspect of tactics is represented by imperative, affirmative and interrogative constructions. The lexical-grammatical level is characterized by a general tendency to use lexical units of explicit semantics. Kinesic, proxemic and prosodic non-verbal means provide identification of speaker's intentions, intensify the verbal content of the message and mark the level of emotional experience.

Further research in the framework of the English parental discourse can be focused on the study of structural and semantic particularities of implementation of strategies and tactics of dominance with regard to extralinguistic factors and cross-cultural context.

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