The Category of Tonality in Peripheral Genres of Business Communication

This article analyses peripheral genres of business communication in terms of the category of tonality. The aim of the study is to describe the characteristics of the expression of tonality in the messages of the executive authorities in the mass communication media. The article refers to the posts published in three official accounts of public administration bodies in the social network “VKontakte” (Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Health of Perm Krai, Ministry of Health of Sverdlovsk Region) between 1 June and 31 August 2023; in total, about 1000 poly-code communication products. The novelty of the study lies in the application of the categorical-textual approach to the analysis of stylistically hybrid (located at the intersection of official-business, journalistic and colloquial functional styles) poly-code speech products. The author determines the field composition and communicative content of the tonality category in peripheral genres of business communication. In particular, it is shown that 1) the subfield of expression of will is represented by micro-subfields of recommendation, desire and information; 2) the subfield of emotional evaluation is formed by micro-subfields of implicit evaluation and explicit evaluation; 3) the subfield of intensity is not segmented and is realised by linguistic markers of other subfields and semantically expresses a low degree of categorical expression of will in publications of executive bodies and a high level of emotionality of these texts. Taking into account the results of the automatic analysis of the messages by the functionality of the Popsters.ru service, the article reveals the preferred and undesirable tonal variants of certain language products for the users (on the one hand, tonal meanings in the messages that received the greatest response from the subscribers, and on the other – in the messages that did not cause a reaction of the addressee). A high coefficient of user engagement is observed for posts that implement an individual approach to subscribers and express the concern of representatives of the Ministry of Health for the health of citizens. User engagement is low for posts in the form of press releases, which are characterised by a high degree of officialism. In conclusion, the author emphasises the need to abandon the formalised official style of communication in favour of a personalised and relaxed form, which corresponds to the nature of communication in social networks.