Melezhik K. Sociolinguistic Variability of the English "Real" Television Discourse (based on the reality show "Big Brother")

The thesis focuses on the study of language peculiarities of "real" television sociolect on the basis of the TV series "Big Brother". It has been shown that the language of "real" television can be regarded as a sociolect combining certain morphosyntactic, lexical and phonetic characteristics of Cockney and the Estuary dialect, a new English socioterritorial dialect which came into existence in the area of Big London. The analysis of morphosyntactic and lexico-semantic variables in the sociolect in question has made it possible to distinguish 28 types of non-standard morphosyntactic forms falling into 6 groups in accordance with registered deviations from the norm. Variability of non-standard lexical units in the invariable patterns of the reality show participants' communicative behavior conditioned by the system of their socio-cultural value dominants has been traced. A number of pronunciation parameters of the sociolect under analysis in accordance with 7 sociophonetic variables have been described. The conclusion has been made that the sociolect of reality show is a non-codified norm of language communication used in diverse communicative situations by a group of speakers united by common social characteristics.