Pseudo-interrogative constructions of evaluative semantics in the analytical review genre: functional-pragmatic aspect (based on the “Argumenty nedeli” newspaper)

The aim of the research is to determine the specific characteristics of the axiological component of the semantics of pseudo-interrogative constructions in the review genre using the material of the “Argumenty nedeli” newspaper. The specificity of this genre of mass media culture, which requires the author to express an evaluation of the analyzed object, determines the necessity of using a wide spectrum of expressive-evaluative resources of the language, to the number of which also belong various interrogative-rhetorical forms. In the article, the structural-semantic types of pseudo-interrogative constructions are examined, which, having a conditionally interrogative form, not only attract the attention of a wide audience, but also implicitly transmit the true, often ambivalent attitude of the author to the object, varying from approval to ironic rejection or sarcasm. The study is novel in that it is the first one to describe the role of pseudo-interrogative constructions in the expression of evaluative judgments and the transmission of value orientations by the author of a review of newspaper discourse of the 21st century. As a result of the research, it was found that the expressive potential of the analyzed constructions not only attracts the attention of a wide audience, but also becomes the basis for the expression of the review’s leitmotif.