Elimination of the author’s figure in modern Russian business media discourse: Forms and factors

The figure of the author and its representation in the text are the central problems of discourse theory, and therefore need a comprehensive study, including the material of specific discourses. The expression of representation of the author's figure directly depends on the action of many discursive factors, including the informative and exposing goals, genre and discursive tradition, institutional rules of a particular discourse. The article, based on data obtained from «Коммерсантъ», «РБК», «Эксперт», «Бизнес-журнал», «Forbes» for 2017-2019, analyzes the mechanisms of elimination of the author's representation of the text in the Russian business media discourse. Methods of observation, discursive analysis, lexical, grammatical and syntactic analysis, context analysis were used during the study. The study allows us to conclude that the representation of the author's figure in the media text is carried out with a complex system of means, which includes deictic elements, modality, lexical, syntactic, stylistic and compositional means; assessment and point of view are also involved in this system of means. When analyzing the representation of the author's figure in the media discourse, it is necessary to take into account not only the internal structure of the text and genre norms, but also the strategy that shapes the discourse of a particular publication, as well as its purpose (comp. advertising materials). In the representation of the author's figure, a paratextual relationship with the complementary components, both verbal (signature) and non-verbal(photograph) plays an important role; in assessing a signature, indicators such as its availability/absence are important, as well as its initial or final position. In the modern Russian business media discourse, there is a tendency towards the gradual elimination of the author's figure, which is motivated by the guidelines for informativeness and emphasis on the objective content of materials, the strengthening of collective authorship, as well as a hidden attitude to influence and the formation of public consciousness.