Dialogizing discourse words: corpus data evidence

Abstract

This study examines the usage features of discourse words across different registers and styles. Discourse words are defined as units grouped by functional characteristics. Research relevance stems from the high frequency of discourse words in modern speech, yet their semantics remain inadequately described. The research material comprises data from the Russian National Corpus. The analysis focused on discourse words expressing certainty or uncertainty regarding the communicated message: konechno (“certainly”), bezuslovno (“undoubtedly”), ochevidno (“obviously”), navernoe (“probably”), veroyatno (“likely”), skoree vsego (“most likely”), etc. The research hypothesis posits that in modern texts, discourse words primarily perform dialogizing functions, making them more frequent in texts presupposing dialogicity. Results indicate that discourse words are maximally frequent in spoken language, and sufficiently frequent in social media texts, newspaper genres, and classic Russian literature. Discourse words exhibit low frequency in poetic speech. Their active use relates to their role in direct interaction between communicative situation participants. Discourse words become a text dialogization tool, performing pragmatic functions such as establishing contact between communication participants, shifting topics, and creating irony. In poetic texts, discourse words predominantly perform their primary function: expressing certainty or uncertainty regarding the communicated message. The most frequent units across all registers within this discourse word group are konechno (“certainly”), mozhet byt' (“perhaps”), navernoe (“probably”), and veroyatno (“likely”). The study also discusses the problem of grammatical homonymy in discourse words and the complexities of determining part-of-speech classification.