Humanities & Social Sciences, Vol 8, No 8 (2015)

"TIME OF CULTURE": AN ESSENTIAL CATEGORY OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Uliana Smirnova

Abstract


Discourse studies have been developing well both in Russia and abroad. The area might be considered quite theoretically and practically developed but I would like to claim that a very important aspect has been neglected, namely the “Time of Culture” of a particular discourse. The questions raised in my article pertain to the practical necessity of this new category of discourse analysis and the serious philosophic and linguistic background to the problem when the concepts of Zeitgeist by Hegel, the context of culture by Malinowski and the field by Halliday are used as a framework for the introduction of the new term. This article explores the aftermath of a number of events – the Newtown carnage at the Sandy Hook Elementary school in the USA, the finical crisis of 2008, the arrest of the famous whistleblower Julian Assange and the search for April Jones in an attempt to analyse how the changing semiotic landscape alters the interpretants of signs and shifts values. The essay argues that a new Time of Culture paves the way for a new discourse model and key signs which reflect the new intentionality and mentality of the general public. The wide scope of the article should not only appeal to linguists interested in discourse studies and pragmatics, but also to scholars and students in other scientific disciplines – PR studies, sociology, economics, cultural studies. A discursive profile of the ‘Time of Culture’ is built through examination of American and British electronic media data.