Modality of Volition in the Supertext of the Russian Coronavirus Social Poster

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the subfield of volition of the tonality category realized in the supertext of the Russian social poster about the coronavirus. The study is based on the analysis of 1500 advertising posters created in Russia during the coronavirus pandemic (2020–2023). The material was selected based on the official websites of the Internet resources: Stopcoronavirus. rf, Myvmestе 2020. rf, as well as other Internet sources such as VKontakte, Google and Yandex. The aim of the study is to identify the specificity of the willed tone in the discourse of the supertext of the coronavirus social poster, to characterize the linguistic means for its realization. The tasks of the article include the allocation of various microsubfields of the volition of tonality in the advertising material. Procedures of functional-semantic, contextological and lexico-grammatical analysis allowed the author to characterize the volitional tonality of social advertising presented as a supertext, i. e. as a set of statements limited in time and space, united by a common content and having a common tonality. The understanding of tonality as an expression of emotional and volitional orientation of the addressee, his attitude to the topic of speech, the addressee and the context of communication is formulated. The textual category of tonality is interpreted as a field in its structure, including three subfields: volition, intensity and emotionality. The dominant component of advertising tonality is the subfield of volition. The invariant modal attitude of the supertext of the social advertisement about the coronavirus is the informative-directive tone, realized through a combination of directive and informative microsubfields (call-order, prohibition, appeal, warning, recommendation/ advice, reminder, request, wish, inform), which are of an educational nature and are aimed at educating and directing the addressee’s actions. The highlighted microsubfields are arranged according to the scale of categorical volition.

Keywords:

social advertising, coronavirus pandemic, supertext, textual modality, tone, volition, means of expressing modality