On the Role and Functions of Media Speech and Its Orthoepic Aspect in the Modern Linguistic Situation

The author discusses a range of issues concerning orthoepic culture
in the current language situation. The article considers not only the scope
and content of different kinds of norms — the literary orthoepic norm and
the media orthoepic norm, but also similarities and differences of various
kinds of orthoepic dictionaries — academic and specialized dictionaries.
The research indicates that relations between the literary norm and the media
norm have varied throughout history. The sign of the current language
situation is the expansion of TV and radio discourse as a sphere of modern
literary Russian language. Its predominance has two main reasons — transition
of the culture from “literature centrism” to “mediacentrism” and restructuring
of the media system. The analysis of linguistic, scientifi c and
orthological situation shows that the witnessed transformations mainly
concern three points. Firstly, nowadays orthoepy of media texts is explored
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in terms of real modality. Secondly, the oral media has become one of the
overall standard-setting sources. Thirdly, in recent decades the ways of orthoepic
infl uence have change dramatically. According to our research, TV
media practice has the greatest impact on both literary norm and language
consciousness of native speakers. This fact obliges people who participate
in socially signifi cant communication and teach Russian language to different
kinds of students to take care of their education and to raise their level
of the orthoepic culture.