Antropologicheskij forum, 2021, no. 50

“COMPLEX AND SILLY” VS “PROFESSIONAL” AND “POLITE”: RUSSIAN SPEAKERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS BUREAUCRATESE IN ADVERTISEMENTS

Victoria Gulida

St Petersburg State University
11 Universitetskaya Emb., St Petersburg, Russia
Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
9 Tuchkov Lane, St Petetrsburg, Russia
v.gulida()spbu.ru

Ekaterina Rudneva

Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
9 Tuchkov Lane, St Petetrsburg, Russia
St Petersburg State University
11 Universitetskaya Emb., St Petersburg, Russia
katja1985mt()yandex.ru

Abstract: The term bureaucratese refers to a kind of official style used regularly in official and less official contexts. The article considers reactions of ordinary Russian speakers to features of the bureaucratic style in administrative advertisements placed in transport or institutions, as well as in those broadcasted in public places. The research focuses on the category of language attitudes. The data combine interviews, results of the online survey, and publications on the internet. In the interviews and online survey people were asked to evaluate and discuss advertisements (4 photos and 2 cited oral advertisements). Respondents expressed the strongest disapproval of long phrases and syntactic complexity. Shorter texts, written in a less formal, but still marked style, received both positive and negative evaluations, criticised for being “ponderous” and “intricate”, but were sometimes called “more polite”, “proper”, and “professional”. Moreover, people have turned out to evaluate advertisements as a communication and social event of higher or lower status, with power relations behind it. As happens with functionally important and complex language varieties, the discussed code is differently evaluated by its users (who pay attention to various aspects including style, meaning, and social context).

Keywords: bureaucratese, language attitude, administrative advertisements, official style, interview.

Acknowledgements: The study has been supported by the RSF grant no. 19-18-00525 “Understanding official Russian: the legal and linguistic issues”.

To cite: Gulida V., Rudneva E., ‘“Slozhno i glupo” vs “professionalno” i “vezhlivo”: otnoshenie nositeley russkogo yazyka k kantselyaritu v obyavleniyakh’ [“Complex and Silly” vs “Professional” and “Polite”: Russian Speakers’ Attitudes towards Bureaucratese in Advertisements], Antropologicheskij forum, 2021, no. 50, pp. 200–224.

doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2021-17-50-200-224

URL: https://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/050/gulida_rudneva.pdf