Cancel Culture - the Speech Behavior of Modern Society

Abstract

The research paradigm of 21st century linguistics links the study of discourse with the use of language as a public practice. The subject of the study is linguistic features of different levels, characterizing the phenomenon of cancel culture. The new discourse practice or speech reality functions thanks to the media and the Internet in various areas of modern speech — in political and business communication, in professional and everyday life. The purpose of the study is to consider cancel culture as a linguistic object that reflects the speech life of modern society. The relevance of the study is determined by a modern request for regulation and control of speech behavior in the public sphere within the framework of constructive criticism. The article implements the following research tasks: to describe the linguistic essence of the cancel culture and characterize the latter as a phenomenon characteristic of the communicative behavior of representatives of the linguocultural community. The linguistic method of discourse analysis is used as the main tool for analyzing texts with functioning examples of lexical units representing the cancellation action, which makes it possible to identify features of the communication and evaluation activities of speakers. As a result, new language facts in the system of linguistic coordinates are localized and a possible vector for the study of aggressive communication in the language-environment category is determined. It allows for an expansion of the field of scientific understanding of the modern speech environment. The author concludes that the cancel culture as a new discourse practice has a thematic and semiotic dominant in the form of destructive criticism. Research of new discourse practice on the identified attractors of criticism and aggressive communication is set as a research perspective.