FORMALITY OF SPEECH IN COMMUNICATIVE BEHAVIOR (BASED ON THE FIRST BILINGUAL PHRASEBOOKS)

Abstract

In the article based on the first Low German-Russian phrasebook (Tönnies Fenne’s Low German Manual of Spoken Russian. Pskov, 1607), recorded by the merchant from Lubeck Tony Fenne for the implementation of elementary business and everyday communicative interaction during the period of trade relations between Russia and the Hanseatic League, the formulaic statements are considered, i. e. repetitive, standardized replicas consisting of one or several words, selected and used by native speakers to a large extent automatically based on their life and communicative experience, depending on the communication situation and on the basis of associative connections developed by practice. The main attention in the article is focused on formulaic statements that contribute to the establishment of contact and its maintenance. Contact-establishing formulas include greeting formulas, also associated with wishes and thanks, dating formulas and appeals. Among the formulas used to maintain a conversation, the article highlights requests and wishes characteristic of everyday and business communication. A special place among the contact-supporting formulas is occupied by metacommunicative statements that direct the dialogue in the right direction from the speaker’s point of view. Formulaic utterances with the lexeme God are defined in the article as multifunctional, which can be used both in situations of establishing contact, and its maintenance and termination and combine greetings, wishes of health, success, good luck, gratitude, assurances of God’s help, etc. An important place in the phrasebook is given to paremia — various maxims, proverbs and sayings that are also multifunctional and are used in various communicative situations as generalizing instructive statements. Refs 24.