Kokoza H. Discursive and Pragmatic Aspects of Clothes' Descriptions (on the Basis of Modern English Periodicals)

This dissertation presents an integrated approach to the study of discursive and pragmatic aspects of clothes' descriptions of people who are written about in modern English periodicals. The non-verbal component of communication "clothes" is viewed as a non-verbal sign of appearance which functions in the discourse space of English periodicals as a unity of informative, pragmatic and emotive modi. This thesis singles out a body of nominative units designatiing clothes, establishes the principle of their lexical and sematic arrangement, analyses discursive descriptors of clothes, as well as defines the syntactical constructions of clothes' descriptions and mechanisms that enrich their structure via precedent phenomena. Analyses of strategies and tactics of a person representation via the language means in descriptions of clothes has led to the conclusion about their pragmatic significance. The discursive specificity of these descriptions has been revealed with regard to their role in the reproduction of gender stereotypes.