Slang Toponyms and Newsmakers’ Nicknames as a Communicative Contact and Indicator of Comic Culture in the Modern Russian Journalism

Abstract

The article deals with the study of phatic communication in political mass media discourse. It was made clear, that the use of slang words is one of the means to implement phatics, as such units actualize the background knowledge and act as the speech signal to form the inner communication circle. The descriptions of situations are presented, and the structures of toponyms and politicians' nicknames in modern Russia are analyzed; the semantic shifts are explained; they result in reconsideration of reality in ironic form - one of the leading in mass media comic culture. Less active ways of Russian word formation are shown; they result in appearance of extraordinary, sometimes exotic naming units. At that, the stylistic (evaluative) meaning of slang words turns out to be primary in relation to the word lexical meaning. The events and facts from the political life, causing the audience's mistrust or discontent with the authorities, become ironically reconsidered in the slang words.

Keywords

• phatic communication, the language of the mass media, the mass media political slang, irony, comic culture.