Linguocultural evaluation specifics in German and Russian reviews on sociology

Abstract

The article raises the issue of linguocultural specifics of evaluation strategies in scientific expert practices of Russia and Germany. The relevance of the work is explained by its inclusion in the modern context of interdisciplinary studies and its focus on linguistic, sociolinguistic and linguoculturological aspects of examination of evaluative linguistic means. It is revealed that the communicative practice of scientific expertise is pivotal for verification and axiomatisation of scientific knowledge. The material for the study are German and Russian corpora of scientific sociology reviews, with the evaluation predication being chosen as the main analysis unit. The analysis of predications is carried out using qualitative and quantitative methods, including both statistical analysis of quantitative corpus data and their interpretation based on context, authorial intention and the type of specific evaluative meanings within the frame-work of real communicative practices. The novelty of the study consists in the identification of sociolinguistic features of rational and emotional evaluation procedures in scientific sociological discourse in Russia and Germany. It is found that German- and Russian-speaking reviewers use different specific evaluation strategies. Whereas in German-language sociological reviews, the focus is on rational evaluation by validity, clarity and completeness criteria for an objectively detached work examination, Russian reviewers widely use emotional evaluation to express their attitude and personal interest. German-language reviews are generally characterised by a significantly higher degree of evaluative saturation, with evaluations roughly equally distributed into the positive and negative groups, in contrast to Russian-language reviews, where negative evaluations are scarcely found.