Linguopragmatics of the speech act of accusation in American English (using the example of the film "Green Book")

The subject of the study is the presentation of speech acts of accusation in cinematography, taking into account the discursive situation presented in the film . The object of the study is the linguopragmatics of the speech act of accusation in the American version of the English language. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as the expression of the act of accusation through a direct or implicit representation of a tort (crime, misconduct), the consequences of a tort, opposition to a pattern or alternative model of behavior. Special attention is paid to the issues of contextual antithesis, which runs through the entire text of the analyzed film, since the antithesis becomes the leading way of formulating an accusation and an appropriate reaction to it – a communicative act of self-defense, expressed in the denial of a tort, eliminating its seriousness and consequences. The film text emphasizes the juxtaposition of the two main characters, and the communicative antithesis accompanies their dialogues throughout the film.  The 2018 film "Green Book", which contains a large number of speech acts of accusation, was chosen as the research material. To achieve the goals of the study, all speech acts containing an accusation were isolated in the dialogues of the characters of the film using a continuous sampling method, and then the ways of its expression were analyzed. The main conclusions of the study are the revealed similarities in the communicative tactics of the two main characters: despite the significant social difference and significant differences in the lexical and syntactic content of phrases, the main characters of the film choose similar tactics to express accusations. A special contribution of the author to the study of the topic is the identification of two leading means of formulating accusations in the film discourse: the juxtaposition of "I" – "they", "you – they", "we – they" and the culminating juxtaposition in the dialogue of the two main characters "I – you", which is resolved by the happy ending of the film. The novelty of the research lies in the identification of accusation tactics in the film discourse. Previously, these speech acts were studied using the example of fiction, in which dialogues are widely amplified in the absence of visual support characteristic of the film discourse.

speech act, linguopragmatics, pragmatics, discourse, cinema discourse, accusation, implicit information, antithesis, speech tactics, dialogue