Lara Ryazanova-Clarke

Elements of Persuasion in the Language of Russian Television Advertising

The language of television has been defined as a mass communicational variant of speech, whose constructive principle is characterised by the triple determination: image-sound-linguistic elements.1 It has been observed that in television, despite an apparent dependence on the visual image, linguistic elements are more informative than in other media, where a large proportion of the items are used to provide the description of a situation.2 If the media are normally considered to be a manifestation of the development of language, then the observations mentioned above justify the particular relevance and value of the focusing of research on television language.

Developments in the Russian Language in the Post-Soviet Period

Ten years is a short period to observe significant language changes. However, the post-Soviet period offers a unique opportunity to study socially incurred linguistic transformations on a large scale. The developments in the Russian language have occurred within two dimensions: the systemic and the functional. One of the major characteristics of language change is the transition of elements from the periphery to the centre of the system and of usage. This is connected with such processes in society as liberalization and transformation in political, economic and social areas.