ECOLINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING YOUTH DISCOURSE

Abstract

Summary. The article deals with ecolinguistic features of ways and means of establishing, maintaining and closing communicative contact in the English-speaking youth environment. The discourse of the young belongs to the personality-oriented type of discourse, and has not only common but also some specific features. Using the functional-communicative method, phaticity and informativeness in the phases of establishing, maintaining and closing contact in the youth communication have been investigated. The unison and dissonant functions of utterances in the youth discourse have been considered. The key features of English-speaking youth discourse, which are characterized by communicative activity, dominance of emotionality, usage of a large number of exclamations, slang, jargonisms, neologisms, jokes, etc., have been studied. Nonverbal and paraverbal means of communication have been analyzed: their task is to regulate the communicative process, enhance the expressiveness of the verbal component, express feelings as well as personal selfexpression of young people, and also to create a special atmosphere of the youth communication. It has been found that ecological prosodic, proxemic, and kinesic components of communication acquire a certain significance, emphasizing ecological friendliness in the youth communication, contributing to strengthening mutual understanding and creating warm relationships between young people. The principles of ecological friendliness of communication of English-speaking young people have been identified, they include: addressing by a special name or nickname, using interrogative sentences in the function of requesting personal information, exclamatory sentences in the function of gratitude, apology, complement, approval, emotionally colored sentences, small talks, slang, jokes, etc. It has been proven that unison contact as a harmonious and tactful communication of speakers for the sake of conflict-free and coordinated interaction manifests the ecological nature of communicative contacts of English-speaking young people. The youth discourse demonstrates special ecolinguistic and stylistic features, reflecting in speech and non-speech behavior values and preferences specific to youth, a worldview different from other speakers.