Precedent Phenomena in French Publicistic Discourse of Religious Character

Abstract

The article analyzes the functioning of precedent phenomena in French religion-focused publicistic discourse. The paper investigates the role of precedent phenomena in discursive context, identifies their most frequent types and establishes the specifics of their cultural markedness. The authors used discourse units of up-to-date religious publications on French Internet websites. The main methods of analysis are continuous sampling, description, historical-cultural and contextual analysis, as well as certain statistical methods. All types of precedent phenomena, such as allusive names, utterances and texts, as well as situations and events, are used in French religion-focused publicistic discourse. The most frequently used phenomena are precedent texts, due to the nature of Christian culture based on scriptures and constant reference to sacred texts. Another notably frequent phenomena are precedent events; this might be owing to the specific character of publicistic discourse, the main function of which is to inform about events. Precedent names, utterances and situations are less frequent. Precedent phenomena add meanings to discourse, thus making an utterance deeper and more expressive. They can help to convey an opinion or add sentiment to a phrase. Precedent phenomena in a religion-focused publicistic discourse can express opinions implicitly, through allusions, thus influencing the recipient’s perception of the whole statement. To sum up, precedent phenomena in this type of discourse serve the most important function of publicistic discourse – the function of impact. The vast majority of precedent phenomena used in French religion-focused publicistic discourse are not culturally marked. This proves that religious French people consider themselves to be a part of the global Catholic community.