Intertextuality of practical English discourse: its specificity and basic principles

Abstract

The research is based on Julia Kristeva's theory of intertext and the method of intertextual analysis. The focus is on the components of intertextuality in everyday speech, business and academic language. Intertextuality is widely explored in philosophy, literature, art and media, but less so in practical English discourse, which is important for ESL students. This approach explains the novelty of the research dedicated to the technique and practical tools of intertextual communication, its grammar and lexical means. Three main types of intertextual messages with gradual dynamics of intertexts are analyzed. The first, elementary type of message presents the author's voice and quoted words parallel to each other without obvious dialogic interaction. The second type involves personal interpretation of the emotional background and the entire text of the events and conditions that gave rise to the quoted words. In the third type of intertextual message we see increased dynamics of intertexts due to the combination of the author’s interpretation of the reported speech with reactions, conclusions, and evaluations of the quoted words. This article, from the intertextuality perspective, broadly analyzes the actual instrumental part of grammar – Reported Speech, reporting verbs, key nouns and key adjectives – that we need for learning ESL and using intertextual messages. It contributes the student’s ability to represent emotional and intellectual power of language. The principle of the simultaneous synchronization of various chronological intertexts is shown in specific interaction between reported speech as a fact of the past, current facts and positions of the present and their projections for the future. Different chronological parts of intertextual message exist at the same moment in time, here and now. The possibility of combining not only homogeneous but also opposing, incomparable, polemical points of view due to the principles of alogism and nonlinearity proves the convenience and functionality of intertextual message for practical discourse. This type of intertextual message corresponds to the pluralism worldview of the speaker, his democratic principles of openness, freedom of speech, non-engagement and fairness.