On the issue of “(not) decent” linguistic form in the public information space

The article justifies the advantages of using the additional criterion of “respectable precedence” for an objective assessment of the linguistic form used in the media discourse, according to the parameter “decent / indecent”. The authors, referring to the data of modern research, notice the lack of a common understanding and unambiguous definition of indecent vocabulary, highlight the objective and subjective factors that complicate the solution of this problem, emphasize those features of the media text that make the concept of “(not) decent” linguistic form very relative. The criterion proposed by the authors takes into account the practice of using a controversial linguistic unit in respectable public communication and relies on representative data of electronic text corpora, which makes it possible to verify the results of linguistic analysis. The article presents the outcomes of expert assessment of vocabulary with negative connotation using the above-mentioned criterion.