Media Linguistics XXI century

9 июля 2017

On July 3, 2017, Institute of Higher School of Journalism and Mass Communications at St. Petersburg State University inaugurated the II International Scientific Conference - Language in the Coordinates of Mass Media, organized by the Department of Speech Communication. The conference had a wide participation of scholars from forty-seven cities from fifteen countries around the world.

The plenary session was inaugurated by Prof. Lilia R. Duskaeva, Doctor of Philological Sciences, Head of the Department of Speech Communication, St. Petersburg State University, Chairman of the Media Linguistic Commission of the International Slavists Committee. Welcoming remarks were made by Prof. A. S. Puyu, the Director of the Institute, Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Head of Department of International Journalism, St. Petersburg State University. Prof. L. P. Gromova, Doctor of Philological Sciences, Head of Department of History of Journalism, St. Petersburg State University, wished success to the conference and following this awards were given to the students participating in the competition Russia in the World: People, Occasions, Opinions.

The Conference began with a plenary round table Culture of verbal communication in Media: content and scope of the concept. As the chair of the Session, Professor Lilia R. Duskaeva explained that the plenary had been specially designed to have dialogues that would allow not only highlighting a problems, but also discussing them. These problems are related to freedom of speech, development of technical means of communication, means related to negative disposition of literary phenomena, i.e. indifference to correctness of speech, style related to sensationalism, usage of slangs and jargons in speeches. Dangerous to the language can be usage of these terms in media and as such means have to be designed to overcome these problems.

The discussion was continued by the participation of senior and renowned scholars from different universities, namely M. A. Kormilitsina, O. B. Sirotinina, U. E. Prokhorov, K. A. Rogova, G. A. Kopinina, V. V. Slavkin, N. S. Cvetova and O. A. Ksenzenko. These scholars threw light on topical issues related to risk factors in media language, colloquial usage of terms in newspapers, the norms in media linguistics, criteria of professional journalists, aesthetics as part of Russian communicative nedia linguistics and role of advertisements in the newspapers today.

Summing up the results of the Roundtable, Professor Lilia R. Duskaeva stressed the fact that there should be unity in recognizing the national literary language as the basis for national cultural value. She emphasized the fact that the most important outcome of the discussion is the crystallization of several ideas - optimal mechanisms of cultural speech regulation, external and internal. There should be harmony between the usage of both external and internal factors and this inturn will result in effective speech behavior and add value to media studies in general.

The three day conference covered the various fields of media linguistics, ranging from linguistics of newspaper style, aesthetics of media speech, media text and its structure and composition to political mass media, topical questions of media linguistics, language of the advertisements and processes of contemporary media amongst others. The papers presented by about 45 scholars were divided into parallel sessions, each session being an important part of the Conference entitled Language in the Coordinates of Mass Media.

The concluding Plenary Session had interesting presentations by Prof. Irina Vasilevna Annenkova from Moscow State University and Prof. Andrei Vasilevich Polonski from Belgorod State University on Media Discourse of Russia. This was followed by a concluding get together of all the participants who wished each other good luck and departed with the hope of carrying forward the tasks placed before the Forum of Media linguistics to reach new heights and promising to make it a more stronger and forceful body in the years to come.