Issers O.S., Gerasimova A.S. “New Sincerity” Interview Strategies: Million Dollar Questions and Smaller Conversational Exchanges
Oxana S. Issers
Doctor of Sciences (Philology), Professor, Chief Researcher, Laboratory of Philological Studies, Pushkin State Russian Language Institute
Akademika Volgina St, 6, 117485 Moscow, Russia
Head of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Dostoevsky Omsk State University
Prosp. Mira, 55a, 644077 Omsk, Russia
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4027-6346
Anastasia S. Gerasimova
Candidate of Sciences (Philology), Associate Professor, Senior Researcher, Laboratory of Philological Studies, Pushkin State Russian Language Institute
Akademika Volgina St, 6, 117485 Moscow, Russia
Researcher, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Dostoevsky Omsk State University, Prosp. Mira, 55a, 644077 Omsk, Russia
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Linguistics and Pedagogy, Peter the Great Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University
Polytekhnicheskaya St, 29, 195251 Saint Petersburg, Russia
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0857-4151
Abstract. The article deals with the techniques of building a dialogue in the interview genre that encourage the interlocutor to be sincere. The intrusion of a journalist into the addressee's private space, as well as the interviewee's expression of their own identity through answers to "uncomfortable" questions can be considered as the discursive indicators for determining whether a text belongs to the tendency of "new sincerity" described in the present paper. The material of the study includes text fragments from the interviews of the Russian journalists with famous cultural figures and politicians published in the media or posted on the Internet platforms within the period of 2018–2023. It has been established that in order to determine the markers of "new sincerity" in the genre of a journalistic interview, one should consider the following essential discursive characteristics: thematic variety, methods of requesting (finding out) information by a journalist, the interlocutor's reaction to a question that is on the borderline between public and private communication, techniques of euphemization and implication/explication of taboo meanings. "New sincerity" is found, first of all, in the expanded zone of thematic freedom acceptable in public communication. The main topics discussed in journalistic interviews, which reveal this trend (finances, health, appearance, etc.) are described in the article. The subject of the study is various methods of stimulating the "confessional" statement of the interlocutor and their latter's reaction to violations of the acceptable boundaries of sincerity in public communication. The study also reveals metalinguistic markers of "new sincerity" that represent the strategies of speech behavior of both the journalist and their interlocutor. The results of the study show that "new sincerity" is becoming a technology that is used in mass media as a tool to influence the audience; thereby it shapes the communicative culture of the society in the public space.
Key words: media discourse, media text, interview, new sincerity, public communication, taboo topic, dialogic strategy, euphemization.
Citation. Issers O.S., Gerasimova A.S. "New Sincerity" Interview Strategies: Million Dollar Questions and Smaller Conversational Exchanges. Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 2. Yazykoznanie [Science Journal of Volgograd State University. Linguistics], 2024, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 29-45. (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu2.2024.2.3
“New Sincerity” Interview Strategies: Million Dollar Questions and Smaller Conversational Exchanges by Issers O.S., Gerasimova A.S. is licensed under CC BY 4.0
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