Silence in the Structure of Aggressive Speech Behavior (Case Study of Day-To-Day Communication)

Abstract

Modern linguistics pays more than ever attention to the study of verbal aggression in various types of discourse. Day-to-day discourse is of special interest: on the one hand, communicants disclose their individual features in it; on the other hand, it most fully reflects the cultural and national specificity of communication. Speech aggression in day-to-day communication has a number of differences. So, both verbalized voiced elements and unvoiced ones - zero communication sign ‘silence’ - serve as a marker of this type of speech behavior. Silence is polyfunctional. This research studies silence as a speech act, as an elementary unit of speech interaction in an everyday life. The method of linguistic observation recorded dialogues where silence was included in the structure of speech behavior of participants. The analysis of functioning of this zero marker made it possible to identify the specifics of verbal aggression in day-to-day communication.