Verbal Phatic Patterns in the Russian-, German- and English-Language Examination Discourse

Abstract

The central task of the presented research is to describe the consideration of actual patterns as culturally fixed communicative formulas implemented by senders in order to establish, maintain or interrupt/terminate a communicative contact and achieve the initial communicative intention. From the standpoint of the integrative-comparative approach being developed, combining the achievements of various scientific fields, an attempt is made to fill in some theoretical and methodological gaps in this subject area, including the definition of the phatic function of communication is clarified and a step is taken to develop a systematic representation of contact patterns as means of its verbal expression. The object of the study is the phatic function of communication, the subject is contact patterns. As the research material, the fragments of texts of the Russian-, German- and English-language examination discourse as a multidimensional broad-context education, the core of which is the communicative situation "exam", represented by a variable set of relevant event moments, are analyzed. Each of the highlighted event moments of this situation (greeting, introduction, ticket offer /selection, preparation of the answer, response, additional questions, evaluation of the answer, gratitude, farewell) is correlated with a conventional set of phatic patterns in Russian, German and English. The nomenclature of national factual patterns is illustrated by concrete examples from the corresponding national corpora. The actual patterns are classified taking into account the contextual environment, the initial communicative intention, convolution/unfoldment, the presence or absence of emotional and axiological coloring. There are actual patterns that are actualized mainly by the examiner or examinee, and patterns that can be implemented by all participants in this communicative situation. Prospects for further research are outlined, first of all, the hierarchical ordering of contact patterns and the accentuation of their performativity.