Criticism of media language as a vector of development of media linguistics

Abstract

The article is devoted to one of the key directions in the development of modern media linguistics — criticism of the media language. The author’s goal is to systematize already established ideas about this area of scientific knowledge (understanding of the object, subject of media criticism, and the criteria for evaluating media speech and media text). The speech situation in the modern Russian media space is steadily becoming more complex. One of the most obvious manifestations of this complication is a change in the perception of the subject of media criticism. Today, the criticism of the media language is developing in several directions: internal (journalists evaluate the media language in various types of publications); “civil” (ordinary readers and representatives of state authorities try to regulate the speech behavior of media people in accordance with their own vision); finally, as philological (linguistic). The dominance of linguists in this segment of scientific discourse can only be associated with a productive dialogue with the creators and consumers of media texts. The objective basis for this dialogue is the development of a system of linguistic and praxiological normalization. The task of scientists is to capture productive trends in the development of media speech, identify them, and use them in the modernization of praxiological norms regulating the use of language in the media. For this purpose, the criticism of media speech should be regarded as a scientific discipline, which is possible only when updating the baggage of linguistic knowledge that has already been accumulated in the system of subdisciplines that precede its appearance: rhetoric and speech culture, literary editing, and linguistic expertise. Each of these subdisciplines already has its own way of evaluating speech behavior and speech activity in the media. Based on the achievements of these subdisciplines, the author formulates four main criteria for evaluating the media speech: effectiveness, correctness, aesthetics, and ethics. The author connects the research perspective with the systematization of the revealed trends and the conceptual understanding of the results.