HEDGE APPROXIMATORS AS PROFESSIONAL TOOLS OF GERMAN MASS MEDIA DISCOURSE

The purpose of this paper is the analysis of German mass media texts to investigate into hedge approximators. Synonymous analytical constructions eine Art … (a kind of); so etwas wie …; (so) etwas Ähnliches wie … are used to achieve certain pragmatic purposes the discourse of mass media. The most frequent word combination is eine Art... . The structural organization of such combinations is regulated by specific rules. The majorities of nominal groups of the eine Art N type without an attribute preceding the main component (eine Art Glück) do not allow to determine the case of the second noun in modern German. Nouns of all three genders, including noun of the weak type of declination, do not have inflexions. The case form of the main word in the phrase is revealed by expanding the cluster with an attribute. The basic types of such constructions are constructions with the genitive case (eine Art gemeinsamen Traums), construction with the preposition von and a noun in the dative case (eine Art von gemeinsamem Traum) and constructions with the case agreement between the two parts of the nominal group (in einer Art gemeinsamem Traum). The distribution of these types of constructions in the contemporary German language is determined in essence by grammatical factors, namely by the oblique form of the “auxiliary” noun and also by the number and by the semantic class of the second noun. All three synonymous clusters are used both with concrete and abstract nouns. These hedge markers make possible for authors of articles to limit the degree of confidence or doubt about the authenticity of the described fact, since sometimes there is no information about the nominated object, the risks of an erroneous statement being significantly minimized. Hedge markers show that the author is detached, careful, diplomatic and aims at avoiding conflictual situations.