Linguistic and cultural characteristics of speech genres

The paper deals with linguistic and cultural approach to the study of speech genres. Speech genre as a complex communicative phenomenon can be characterized taking into account its conceptual, script, type, plot and culture-specific content. In terms of cultural specificity, it is possible to distinguish speech genres of two types: 1) lacunar, characteristic only for some linguistic and cultural community and absent in the communicative practice of other linguistic collectives, both ethno-cultural and socio-cultural, 2) alternative, similar in intentional content, but differing in theme and structure. Specific genres peculiar to one linguistic culture are usually historically connected with a certain epoch. The most important indicator of the ethnocultural specificity of a speech genre is its inconsistency with the cultural dominants of the behaviour of the community with which the subject of communication identifies himself. From the standpoint of linguistic and cultural modelling of reality, it is customary to distinguish between ethnospecific and sociospecific content of a genre; at the same time, they are interrelated and differentiated only for schematic explanation of people’s behaviour. The specific manifestation of a speech genre can also be taken into account as a deliberate or voluntary avoidance of it in a certain language and culture. Linguistic and cultural specificity of a speech genre is conditioned by socio-historical conditions of its existence and manifests itself both in personal and institutional communication.

speech genre, linguocultural approach, cultural dominant, genre lacuna, genre specificity, personal discourse, institutional discourse