LANGUAGE SPECIFICITY OF SCREENWRITING ON MEDICAL SUBJECT: A CORPORA-BASED APPROACH

Abstract

This article explores lexical, semantic, syntactic and functional aspects of screenwriting on medical subject. There are considered the genre features of screenwriting, functioning of medical terminology in them. A corpora-based approach, quantitative and statistical methods have been applied to confirm the hypotheses regarding the linguistic and genre specificity of screenwriting on medical subject.
As a text, screenwriting is written in the form of dialogue and tends to compression and economy. Screenwriting and its dialogue is an illusion of everyday speech, but with a clear direction and purpose.
In the course of the study, we hypothesized that language characteristics of screenwriting on medical subject are similar to informal conversational style ones. To confirm the hypotheses, a corpora of screenwriting on medical subject (SOMS) was created. Corpus SOMS consists of 101episode scripts of 5 popular american TV series on medical subject, the amount of tokens 1 155 735. Corpora-based research included using of statistical, quantitative methods; applied corpora methods, such as: keyword list, concordance, collocates, clusters/N-grams, regular expressions and the obtained results, practically confirmed previously suggested hypotheses.
Medical terminology, while functioning in screenwriting undergoes the process of determination, leaves the professional vocabulary and enters the common one. Vocabulary of screenwriting appeared to be informal, conversational. Moreover, syntax is simplified. Short simple, elipsis or complex sentences, short and universal grammatical forms, such as ‘gonna, ain’t’, are used. The foregoing points testify such characteristics of medical screenwriting such as informality and closeness to conversational style.
The results of the study are the basis for further investigation of specificity of screenwriting genre and functioning peculiarities of medical subject within this genre. Using a comparative method, other subjects, presented in the genre of screenwriting, can be explored; common and different features can be distinguished; language specificity can be discovered.