Three-vector model of the blogger’s communicative behavior (on the example of a German-speaking popular science YouTube-channel MAITHINK X)

Abstract

The following article is breaking down the multi-step analysis of the blogger’s communicative behavior. “Wissenschaftler irren” — the video from the YouTube-channel MAITHINK X served as a source of practical material for the research. The channel’s content can be defined by the MINT-abbreviation which refers to such fields of knowledge as mathematics, informatics, natural and technological sciences. The analysis is based on the theory formulated by V. I. Tyupa that suggests analyzing social interaction via 3 competences: referential, creative and receptive ones. These competences find its implementation in the sequences of speaker’s actions that are called strategies and tactics. They are aimed at achieving long-term communicative goals as well as speaker’s short-term intentions. In order to sort out and substantiate the means of their manifestation in the blogger’s verbal and nonverbal behavior such factors as communicative means of content generation, means of the narrator’s representation in blogger’s speech besides the means of the recipient factor inclusion should be taken into consideration. The results of the analysis enabled the following description: popular science YouTube discourse is a genre where scientific and social media discourses overlap. It has been ascertained that it tends towards the periphery of scientific discourse, as evidenced by the selection of scientific content, usage of intertextuality tactics, exploitation of argumentative pattern, compliance with the transparency principle of the knowledge acquisition; at the same time its central core belongs to the mass-media discourse which can be judged by the implementation of the self-presentation, dialogization, attraction and retention of attention strategies, usage of the emotionalization and intimization tactics, as well as by the persuasive nature of its content.