Peter the Great Era “Vedomosti” newspaper modality: communicative-pragmatic aspect

Abstract

Drawing on diachronic material from the first domestic printed newspaper Vedomosti during the Peter the Great era, this article examines the main characteristics of the modality category within functional-semantic and communicative-pragmatic frameworks. A brief historical characterization of the first printed periodical as a sociocultural phenomenon is presented. The primary communicative parameters of the first newspaper are qualified: its purpose, communicative tasks, features of communication subjects (addresser and addressee), information sources, and news reporting under the conditions of emerging domestic journalism and periodical press. The significance of the modality category and its expression means for realizing the main tasks of newspaper texts during the formative period of domestic periodicals is determined. The interaction of content-structural components of the linguistic modality category in newspaper discourse, such as objective and subjective modality, is characterized. The importance of subjective modality for newspaper texts is emphasized, along with the non-linear, multidimensional nature of relationships between different modal layers and expression means. The communicative position of the newspaper text author and the modal means of its representation are defined, specifically the means of expressing subjective-modal meanings of certainty/uncertainty, reliability, and additional nuances (benefit, necessity, importance, etc.). Based on linguistic fact analysis, typical communicative situations are identified and described where the permeability of modal frameworks and the interaction of multi-level modal means ensuring communicative task realization are most evident. The evident resolution of two main journalism tasks in the texts of the first domestic printed newspaper is emphasized: informing about the “state of affairs” and shaping a worldview and attitude towards reality.