Emotional-expressive parentheses as a reflection of information assessment in Russian and Chinese publicism

The article presents the results of comparative analysis of the parentheses usage as a way to convey expressiveness and emotional evaluation in Russian and Chinese journalistic texts in linguocultural and cognitive aspects. The study was conducted based on the material of the bilingual journal Russia and China, providing all texts in two languages; the material was taken from the issues of 2009-2016. The attention is focused on considering the degree of manifestation of subjective beginnings, which can be seen in the usage of emotionally-expressive parentheses in original and translated texts, in the communication of information in texts of different genres, and also in identifying the reasons for the transfer of different units of information by means of parentheses. The analysis of texts of various journalistic genres revealed the following: firstly, the constructions in question are mainly used in texts that allow the manifestation of the subjective beginning (essays, interviews and analytical articles); secondly, based on the analysis of the usage context of emotionally expressive parentheses, we determined the specificity of their usage in relation to the features of the media in both countries and the ethno-psychological characteristics of the writers. The analysis showed a more frequent usage of emotionally expressive parentheses in Russian texts compared to Chinese. This fact reflects the different positions of authors and translators in connection with the different traditions of journalism and features of the national mentality: due to the democratization of Russian society, parentheses in Russian texts are common means to openly express evaluation of the facts, while Chinese texts are characterized by the reserved language behavior of the translator / author when conveying information in accordance with the strict control of the PRC government over the media and the strong influence of the Confucian idea of the ‘golden mean'.