European International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research
and Management Studies
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TYPE
Original Research
PAGE NO.
27-30
DOI
OPEN ACCESS
SUBMITED
08 January 2025
ACCEPTED
20 February 2025
PUBLISHED
13 March 2025
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue03 2025
COPYRIGHT
© 2025 Original content from this work may be used under the terms
of the creative commons attributes 4.0 License.
Functions of Precedent
Phenomena in The Media
Mamatkulova Kamola
Doctoral student of Termez State University Termez, Uzbekistan
Abstract:
The precedent phenomenon is estimated as a
productive source for creating the language game in the
headlines of political media discourse. Headlines based
on a language game draw the attention of the reader
more quickly. There are often used precedent
phenomena, understood as culturally loaded signs,
known to a major part of the representatives of the
same national community. That is a precedent
phenomenon that may serve multiple purposes. We
have focused on its effect applied in the headings. The
coincidence of the background knowledge of the author
and the reader contributes to the hidden influence on
the images of politicians formed in the mind of the
reader.
Keywords:
headline, language game, precedent
phenomenon, political media discourse.
Introduction:
In the modern world, throughout the
history of its existence, the media and political discourse
have always tended to converge and intersect. It
contributed to the formation of a new discursive space,
located at the interface of political and media
discourses. In this study, the author has represented his
understanding of political media discourse as a
discourse, combining the features of political and media
discourse, as a set of media texts under a common
political theme with the same goal
–
the struggle for
influence and power. The constant growth of
information flow within the existing online political
media discourse encourages the authors to look for new
and more effective ways to attract the attention of the
reader. The success of the publication often depends on
its correctly chosen and sufficiently expressive heading.
Historically, “the name of an article or other material in
which its main content is expressed very briefly” [1] (p.
32) was determined as the title. It is the headlines that
help us to navigate in various sites and articles,
predicting the answers to questions about the content
of the article, the author’s attitude to the story being
told and even the potential readers that the author is
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European International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Management Studies
counting on. N. A. Srebryanskaya underlines the fact
that the reader “labels” the entire text by the heading,
thereby rejecting the work or, on the contrary,
showing interest in it [2]. M. J. Zasorina describes the
title as “a compressed text with a special pragmatic
potential due to its suggestive and informational load”
[3] (p. 25). I. N. Sokolova understands the heading of
the media text as a “collection of information”, which
reflects the content of the text briefly and allows the
addressee to predict the approximate meaning of the
text before reading it [4]. When choosing the most
accurate, in our opinion, definition of the headline, we
will proceed from the fact that the pragmatic essence
of the headline as a unit of text is its effect on the
recipient. Thus, following A. Yu. Isayeva, we will
consider the newspaper headline as a communicative
message, and the pragmatic setting of which is the
adequate transmission of the author’s intention of the
article to encourage the readers to read the material
[5]. The term “word play” is known for centuries. There
are researches concerning the difference between
word play and verbal play. Delia Chiaro has
investigated the term verbal play. She argues that “the
term word play conjures up an array of conceits
ranging from puns and spoonerisms to wisecracks and
funny stories” [6]. It is
unnecessary to throw a doubt
upon this statement. The term “verbal play” is wider,
and analysis of relevant examples is of greater interest.
Russian tradition in analysing different types of
discourse
and
functioning
of
playful
word
combinations based on misunderstandings, changing
of a word or just a context, where it is used goes back
to Wittgenstein [7] as philosopher and to De Saussure
[8] as linguist, who used the term Sprachspiel, in
Russian it is «языковая игра» and in English it is
“language game”. This term “language game” was
introduced by Wittgenstein in the Philosophical
Studies of 1945 to describe the language as a system of
conventional rules in which the speaker is involved.
The concept of a language game implies pluralism of
meanings. In Russian linguistics, the term came into
widespread in scientific use after the publication of the
work of the same name by E. A. Zemskaya, M. V.
Kitaygorodskaya and N. N. Rozanova [9], although the
linguistic phenomena themselves, denoted by this
term, have a rather long history of the study. As
indicated in this work, these are “those phenomena
when the speaker ‘plays’ with the form of speech,
when a free attitude to the form of speech receives an
aesthetic task, even the most modest one. It can be a
simple joke, or more or less successful sharpness, and
a pun, and different types of paths (comparisons,
metaphors, periphrases, etc.)”. In this study, the
author adheres to the term “language game” that
combines philosophical and linguistic components.
Currently, questions of the study of language games in
the language of the media and political media discourse,
in particular, are the focus of the attention of many
researchers. A language game is a deviation from the
language norm, a change in the roles of a journalist and
a reader, the game in the text as a stylistic device
becomes the trend of development of modern media.
We share the definition given by M. V. Zakharova that a
language game is “a deliberate target violation of a
generally accepted norm committed by a native speaker
to accomplish certain tasks, i.e. we are talking about the
game in the broadest sense of the term: witty talks,
language jokes, parodies, intertexts, figures of speech,
puns, anecdotes, game texts (as a special type of wide
interaction between the author and the reader in the
game text field)” [10] (p. 168). There are various levels
of language game, such as phonetic, graphic,
morphological and derivational, and there is also a
separate type of language play based on precedent
phenomena. It is on this kind of language game
–
games
with precedent phenomena
–
we will dwell in more
detail.
This study is based on a set of methods, combining both
general methods of scientific research (observation,
synthesis, analysis and comparison) and linguistic, i.e.
semantic, contextual, stylistic and discursive analysis. In
the framework of “pragmatic turn” in linguistic, we
believe that the semiotic and the cultural aspects of
analyses and interpretation are interrelated closely.
Therefore, we apply the method of hermeneutic
interpretation for the description of the characteristics
of the precedent phenomena appearing in headlines of
political media discourse. We have analysed 100
headlines of political media discourse, united by a
common theme of creating vivid and memorable
images. The hermeneutic circle is considered as
understanding and mutual determination of parts
through the understanding of the general context and
the definition of the whole system through its parts [11,
12]. The hermeneutic circle was used as an effective
method to reveal the hidden meanings of images and
thereby show the cognitive aspects of the process of
creativity in the image (there is an image of the political
player in our research). The national and cultural
specifics of the precedent phenomena were also
analysed. When studying the semiotic culture codes
that are expressed through precedent texts, precedent
statements, precedent situations and precedent names,
we applied descriptive method, which included
observation,
generalization,
interpretation
and
classification of studied units (precedent phenomena),
and contextual method, which objective is to study the
semantics and pragmatics of the precedent phenomena
within a particular sociocultural situation. Using
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component analysis, we have identified the
connotative meaning of studied units. The emphasis in
this analysis is on political contexts for the production
and interpretation of language games based on
precedent phenomena.
However, not only texts can have a precedent
character. According to the theory of precedence, a
large contribution to the development of which was
made by D. B. Gudkov, V. V. Krasnykh, I. V. Zakharenko
and D. V. Bagaev, there are some linguistic phenomena
with a precedent character. According to D. B. Gudkov,
V. V. Krasnykh, I. V. Zakharenko and D. V. Bagaev, the
precedent phenomena include a precedent text, a
precedent situation, a precedent statement and a
precedent name. The scientists believe that the
precedent text and the precedent situation are
broader concepts, and they often cannot be used in
speech in its entirety. In this regard, they introduce
into circulation such a concept as a symbol of a
precedent text or a precedent situation, which can be
used as a precedent name and a precedent statement
[14]. Precedent phenomena take a definite place in the
structure of a linguistic personality. They are realized
in its discourse and are reflected in the features of not
only the individual but also the collective pictures of
the world. In this connection, the thesis that events
and facts reflecting the life of a certain linguistic
person, as well as a certain linguocultural community,
can be a source of precedent phenomena seems to be
legitimate [15]. The precedent phenomena are
understood as culturally loaded signs, known to a
significant part of the representatives of the national-
cultural community [16]. Zolotarev [17] defines
precedent phenomena as “culturally specific language
units, functioning in a text”. The use of precedent texts
is based, most often, on the transformation of the
component composition of “old” known phrases and
expressions, which undoubtedly enhances their
expressive capabilities [18]. This definition determines
precedent
phenomena
according
to
modern
tendencies in linguocultural
studies as “discourse units
that are regularly renewed in speech, known to all
members of the national-linguistic and cultural
community, and have a common minimized
connotatively colored perception invariant, the appeal
to which is understandable without additional
decoding” ([19], p. 52). One of the main criteria for the
selection of cases referring to precedent phenomena is
their comprehensibility and general knowledge. The
precedent phenomena should be easily recognizable
and decoded by the addressees even during complex
transformations. The objective of this study is to
determine the role of the precedent phenomenon in
creating a language game in the headlines of political
media discourse. In the course of the study, examples of
a language game found in the headings of political
media discourse, and particular examples of a language
game, based on an appeal to precedent phenomena,
were identified and analysed. This study was based on
the articles published by the German media in 2018
–
2019. The precedent phenomena include poetic and
prosaic quotations from literary works, the names of
literary and musical works, phrases from movies and
songs, slogans of advertising, jokes and biblical
expressions, names of literary heroes, historical
personalities and political figures. Various precedent
phenomena may change; some precedent texts or
names are forgotten and are not precedent any more,
and other texts, on the contrary, become precedent for
a long time. Currently, precedence as a linguistic-
cultural phenomenon is closely related to the media.
Precedent phenomena (texts, statements, names and
situations) often become the object of a language game.
They can be presented in the unchanged form and the
transformed form. The common ways to transform
precedent phenomena are as follows: adding
components, cutting components and changing
components. For example, the title “Angsthasen auf der
Regierungsbank” in the Internet version of the German
magazine Stern has an allusion to Aesop’s fable about
the lion and the cowardly bunny. And this is not about
bunnies, but about representatives of the German
parties CDU, CSU and SPD, as well as their indecision in
making decisions on some issues. The headline is
attractive and intriguing enough to make you want to
read the article and find out who these little cowards in
the headline are and what they are afraid of.
CONCLUSION
Since a language game is often used to form a certain
(often negative) attitude to a particular political event
or figure, this indicates its influencing and estimating
potential. In this case, the evaluation is formed not so
much due to the lexical meaning of the units, but rather
due to the associations and connotations that the
allusion to a particular work causes. The analyzed
material shows that the precedent phenomenon is a
productive source for creating the effect of a language
game in the headlines of political media discourse. This
kind of language game necessarily requires background
knowledge from the reader that would coincide with the
author’s
b
ackground
knowledge:
to
decipher
adequately and enjoy the game. That is why our
compilation is dominated by examples of the language
game in the headlines, where well-known literary works
appear as sources of precedent phenomena, as they are
most easily interpretable. The allusion to the line from
the song is undoubtedly a delicate way, but most likely
not very understandable. But the allusion to the
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fabulous heroes, Santa Claus is a hint understandable
to everyone.
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