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The Pragmatic Approach in Eastern Europe
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The Pragmatic Approach in Eastern Europe
Annotation
PII
S294939000028972-8-1
DOI
10.18254/S294939000028972-8
Publication type
Article
Status
Published
Authors
Elena Borisova 
ORCID: 0000-0003-3878-5344
Affiliation:
The State Academic University for the Humanites
Moscow City University
Address: Moscow, Russia
Irina M. Kobozeva
Affiliation:
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Institute of Linguistics RAS
Address: Moscow, Russia
Pavel Parshin
Affiliation:
MGIMO University
Moscow State Linguistic University
Address: Moscow, Russia
Edition
Issue 2 (2)
Abstract

The paper is an attempt to briefly outline the history and the present state of the pragmatic approach to language in Eastern Europe, namely Slavic regions of theformer Soviet Union (Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia) as well as Bulgaria and Serbia. Pragmatic studies in Poland and former Czechoslovakia are not reviewed as better known by scholars who are interested in linguistic pragmatics. It is our point that some results from Eastern Europe are relevant not only for the study of Slavic languagesbut also for the general linguistic pragmatics and therefore may be of interest for those who do not have reading knowledge of Slavic languages. The authors present a general view of the studies belonging to the pragmatic domain: the behavior and interaction of the participants of communicative events, its reflection in linguistic units, the analysis of specific aspects of communication, such as emotions, humor, implicite information etc. In Section 1 and 2 the predecessors of pragmatic approach are mentioned: Stylistics, Rhetoric, studies of funtional sentence perspective and verbal etiquette. In Section 3 the development and the state of the art of Pragmatics proper in USSR is outlined followed by Section 4 devoted to the studies based on the Conceptual Metaphor theory and Section 5 devoted to the  studies bordering Pragmatics: studies of the speech influence, language of Internet, affectiveness in language, humor and irony and some other topics. In Section 6 the specifics of the EastEuropean pragmatic studies is discussed. The paper was conceived as an introduction to the collection of articles  presented in this volume and those that shall appear in the next volumes of the journal “Fundamental Linguistics”. 

 

Keywords
Speaker-Hearer interaction, implicit information in communication, social linguistics, cognitive studies, emotions, speech strategies, sarcasm
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08.12.2023
Date of publication
08.12.2023
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1

1. Linguistics of language use
2 Linguistic pragmatics, according to J. Verschueren [Verschueren, 1999], can be straightforwardly defined as ‘the study of language use’. The view of language as a dynamic (not static) phenomenon dates back at least to the activity of the Prague Linguistic Circle. (In fact, some observations concerning peculiarities of pragmatically governed usage of words, morphemes etc. was included into many earlier descriptions, but they had not been paid proper attention to.
3 The topics that are close to the agenda of pragmatics are functional styles (or registers) and Functional Sentence Perspective (topic-comment structures).
4 The stylistic paradigm of Russian and other Slavic languages has been worked out mostly in 1970s and formed a separate branch of Slavic linguistics called ‘functional stylistics’ that did not merged the pragmatics, at least in the Soviet linguistics.
5 As far as Functional Sentence Perspective is concerned, the investigations were held in different research domains and scientific schools. Sometimes there were intersections with pragmatic research held later.
6 The other schools of linguistics in the Soviet Union and some other Slavic countries in the 1950s to 1980s were also influenced by the Prague Circle and their intentions to take the speech activity into consideration One should mention the “’Meaning-Text’ Model” [Mel’chuk, 1974] and the Functional Grammar School in Leningrad (numerous works by A.V. Bondarko, see for example [Bondarko, 1984]). These descriptions did not take into account such important pragmatic aspects of speech activity as the characteristics of the Speaker and the Hearer, their interaction and many others.
7 Nevertheless, many investigations in various branches of linguistics touched upon the problems of pragmatics.
8

2. Pragmatics before Pragmatics
9 In process of time, the speech activity became an object of study necessary for applied purposes: for describing foreign languages, teaching speech communication etc. One should mention the tendencies in theoretical linguistics that lead to highlighting such problems.
10 Originally, the study of verbal etiquette was inspired by the interest to the culture of communication that was important in the post-revolution Soviet society. When teaching Russian as the second language became widespread, the cliches used in correct and polite speech became an object of describing. The important step in this direction was made by the PhD Thesis of Natalya Formanovskaya focused on formulae of e Russian speech etiquette. The principles of politeness were formulated there. Later on, the explorations in this topic were carried out in N. Formanovskaya and her disciples who were the first in Russia to pay attention to pragmatics of speech communication [Formanovskaya, 2007].
11 As to the interest in communication and its participants, the attempts are to be mentioned to formulate the distinctions between lexis and grammar in various speech situations: informal relations between communicators, official texts, scientific articles, and monographs. The choice of language units according to typical situations was associated with functional styles (in other tradition they are called registers). The studies and discussions about the number of styles lead to formulating the system of functional styles (registers). The idea of communicative organization of utterances (Functional Sentence Perspective, Information Structure) was being developed in the framework of different linguistic theories, e. g. in Generative Grammar. In Slavic tradition, mostly Russian and Czechoslovak, the investigations were held in syntax, as the word order was the main means of expressing the theme — rheme distinction. Later other means were also taken into consideration These are intonation patterns and particles that can mark deviations from the standard linear order of constituents.
12 Also worth mentioning are studies in rhetoric that were revived in the 1970s by Yu. V. Rozhdestvenski in his Moscow State University lecture courses after decades of oblivion. His innovative conception of rhetoric summarized in [Rozhdestvenski, 2003], although it was based on ancient tradition, significantly expanded the boundaries of this discipline subsuming the study of all modern practices of communication in politics, business, education etc. This line of research was followed by his former students, and the works of other representatives of «Moscow Rhetoric School of Yu. V. Rozhdestvenski» [Men’shenina, 2013]. Outside Moscow, the substantial contributions to the revitalizing of rhetoric were made by I.A. Sternin who founded the school of practical rhetoric in Voronezh.
13 These schools continue their investigations without considerable attempts of co-ordination with the mainstream linguistic pragmatics.
14

3. Linguistic pragmatics in the USSR
15 The first events and papers using the word “pragmatics” in its modern linguistic sense date back to the late 1970s – early 1980s. The first course of the Speech Act Theory in the USSR was first offered as optional in 1976 to the students of the Department of Structural and Applied Linguistics at Moscow State University (taught by I.M. Kobozeva, the post-graduate student of the same department on behalf of its head, V.A. Zvegintsev)1. The first conference on pragmatics was held in 1983 in Kalinin (now Tver’) State University initiated by I.P. Susov, the head of the chair of general linguistics, whose disciples now promote the ideas of pragmatics in East-European countries, e.g. Liliya Bezugla (V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University).
1. Two collections of seminal papers on linguistic pragmatics translated into Russian appeared later [Linguistic pragmatics, 1985; Speech act theory, 1986].
16 The major interest in this period was aroused by the following topics: presupposition, speech acts, politeness, discourse markers (particles, adverbials). The notion of presupposition was at first defined in logical terms and understood as a meaningfulness condition of an utterance. Following R. Stalnaker [Stalnaker, 1972] the Soviet linguists N.D. Arutyunova [Pragmatics and Problems of Intension, 1988] and Elena V. Paducheva developed his notion of pragmatic presupposition as ‘the common knowledge of the Speaker and the Hearer’ [Paducheva, 1981]. This notion was called ‘pragmatic presupposition’ to differ it from semantic presupposition that denotes the sense that was independent from the Speaker and the Hearer.
17 The theory of speech acts was welcome by Russian linguists as it occurred to make it possible to describe some peculiarities of grammar. The usage of the notions Speech act ‘asking’ and Speech act ‘offer’ helps to describe the specifics of Verbal Aspect in imperative: Perfect is polite for asking and Imperfect is good for offer. There were two profound investigations in that problem that made PhD thesis of A. Doroshenko and I. Sharonov.
18 The studies of principles of politeness were held mostly in Pushkin Russian Language Institute by the disciples of N. Formanovskaya as the continuation of her studies in the Speech Etiquette.
19 The researches in the discourse markers and other function words were inspired by the necessity of more complete description of language (mostly Russian) that was supported by the problems of applied linguistics. The investigations in Russian emphasizing particles (the term is still not firmly established) and discourse words were held taking into consideration the pragmatic aspects (that was declared by R. Rathmayr [Rathmayr, 1985]). One should mention investigations or at least remarks the first attempts focused on ‘even’ (dazhe) [Kreydlin, 1975; Parshin, 1984] and ‘yet’ (eschio). Afterwards there were works on other discourse particles that payed attention to pragmatical characteristics: information known to the Hearer (zhe, -taki), presuppositions (-taki), specifics of communicative organization (-to, i) and some others.
20 The interest to implicit information arouses in the 1990s, though some works on that phenomenon appeared earlier. The research was reflected in [Borisova, 1999] and [Covert senses in language and communication, 2008].
21 Since late 80s the investigations in language of gender have been held in East Europe supported by various foundations [Kirillina, 2004].
22

4. Pragmatical background of Linguistic studies

23 The late 1990s and 2000s were known for many studies that concerned the pragmatic problems though not declared pragmatic. Some researches were implemented into cognitive science.
24 The metaphor theory used in various investigations [Baranov, 2014] also became part of cognitive tradition in pragmatic studies.
25 Another sphere of knowledge that implements the investigations concerning speech activity and interaction is discourse analysis. It was based mostly on the ideas declared in numerous works by Teun van Dijk. In Russian tradition since 1990s this branch of language researches has absorbed textology, some sociolinguistic aspects (language of some professional groups), the theory of genres. The critical discourse analysis played little role still it became important for studying political discourse.
26 In that same period investigations in some types of discourse gave birth to new linguistic disciplines: political linguistics, media linguistics, marketing linguistics, juridical (forensic) linguistics.
27 One should also mention explorations in the theory of dialogue [Baranov, 1992]
28 The interest to nonverbal means of communication also arouses in this period.
29 In that period first Russian handbooks of pragmatics appeared in Russia [Susov, 2006] and in Belorussia [Norman, 2009]. The handbook of Pragmatics in Ukrainian appeared later [Batsevich, 2011].
30

5. The Nowadays Studies bordering Pragmatics

31 The 2010s are interesting due to studies that are more or less based on pragmatic results but still do not declare it openly.
32

5.1. Speech Influence (Perlocutive Linguistics)

33 The attention towards a possibility of influence on the psychic state and world view of a person using various peculiarities of linguistic units and structures have been demonstrated by a group of psycholinguists headed by A.A. Leont’yev in the early 1960s. Then these problems formed a part of research in the language of policy (political linguistics developed by A. Baranov, V. Bazylev, A. Chudinov P. Parshin, Ju. Sorokin, I. Sternin and others) and the language of advertising [Advertising Text: Semiotics and Linguistics, 2000; Kaftandjiev, 1995]. Besides the investigations on speech strategies were held [Issers, 2008] and their results were also used for revealing some aspects of verbal persuasion.
34

5.2. Language of Internet

35 The development of communications using Internet gave rise to various researches undertakings in this sphere. Most of them paid special attention to the activity of the Speaker, on their interaction and thus should be added to pragmatic approach (N.I. Klushina). The explorations in the language of Internet were held in Moscow (O. Dedova, M. Kronhaus), in Kharkov (Ukraine) O. Goroshko. A monograph Internet Stylistics written in Russian by Branko Tošovic (Sarajevo-Graz) [Tošovic, 2015] and the investigations are still held in all regions of East Europe.
36

5.3. Affects in language

37 One of the less investigated topics up to the 2000s was the emotiveness though some attention was paid to the problem long ago. One should mention the studies by N. Dobrushina, I. Sharonov and some others in describing interjections [Sharonov, 2008]. An interesting branch of Artificial Intelligence connected with studying of emotions was enriched by investigations of Artemii Kotov who showed the methods of automatic revealing of emotions according to elements of speech [Kotov, 2017].
38 The aspects of expressing emotions have much to do with studying the gestures and mimics, the so called non-verbal communication that is specific for each language and that is being studied in various countries [Kreidlin, 2002; Osipova, 2014].
39

5.4. Humor and Irony
40 The interest in the problems of interpreting humor also arouses in the 2010s. Though surely there were interesting research results obtained earlier that influenced the investigations of irony, this field has been studied taking into consideration the pragmatic principle including the principle of Relevance. The same takes place in exploring English language pragmatics. The investigations in Irony and Sarcasm in Russian held in 2010s were also based on the possibility of understanding ‘inverted sense’ due to the presuppositions of the relevance of the Speaker’s utterance [Ermakova, 2005; Shilikhina, 2011].
41 Understanding Humor also depends on common background and mutual attempts of the participants of communication. That is why the progress in this sphere has been achieved due to the pragmatic and intercultural approach. The investigations on Canned Jokes in Russian tradition should be mentioned [Shmeleva, 2001].
42

5.5. Grammar in Interaction.

43 The grammatic problems attract less attenuation in the last decades. Still, there are some language categories whose description presupposes taking pragmatic characteristics into consideration: evidentiality, definiteness, tense and some others. The studies in Slavic languages are concentrated primarily at Aspect. Though the most important characteristics of this category are semantic, there are some peculiarities that can be explained with the help of pragmatic principles of interaction [Borisova, 2021].
44 The investigations in grammar do not only reflect the Speaker’s point of view (active grammar) but also that of the Hearer (grammar of the Addressee). The influence of pragmatic implicatures, choosing preferences according to the Relevance Principle and microdiachrony (co-existence of two difference rules of grammar) - are all implemented in investigations on this topic.
45

5.6. Social Aspects in Pragmatic Studies

46 Besides studies in Gender from different points of view some other social characteristics became topics of pragmatic studies. The Age can be analyzed from the point of view of generations The interaction on bilingual territories was studied by V.Terkulov [Terkulov, 2018], some idiosyncratic features of professional languages etc. are also being investigated.
47

6. The Specifics of the East-European Pragmatic Studies
48 The pragmatic explorations in the East-European Studies mostly follow the mainstream formed by the USA and the West-European (Belgian, Britain, German) tradition. Still the researches of Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian linguists have some peculiarities that make their results interesting for the specialists of Pragmatics and that can be explained by two factors.
49 First there exists the Russian tradition of linguistic study that influenced other national linguistic traditions. It includes some morphological and syntactic models, special interest for using language (first in fiction then in other spheres), taking into consideration historic and cultural facts etc. The methods of the structural linguistics and then of Generative Grammar did not eliminate completely this specificity, so it influenced the further development of linguistics in the USSR and then in the East-European countries including functional approach, cognitive linguistics and other nowadays trends. Many pragmatic problems are being investigated with these tools.
50 The second cause of the specificity of the East-European pragmatic studies are some peculiarities of Slavic languages themselves, first of all Russian. Such specific feature as great amount of discourse particles and interjections, mapping and some cultural oddities of lexis and phraseology, grammar categories – Aspect, Evidentiality (in Bulgarian) and many others – attract attention of linguists and provoke working out some theories that can help to describe these phenomena.
51 These facts make the investigations of the linguists in Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine rather interesting for the Pragmatic Community. In contrary to Polish Croatian and some other countries these authors rarely publish their works in English. So, it is worth making acquaintance with the results of their researches of the Slavic languages phenomena based on methods and principles of the Pragmatics.

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