Celebrity gossip in English-language mass media: a stylistic component of the genre-discursive “portrait”

The article is devoted to the stylistic aspect of the English-language mass media genre of celebrity gossip. The investigation of the textotype is carried out in terms of the intentional approach in the framework of the discursive paradigm. Its specific character is determined by the polyintensionality expressed by a set of intentions (informative, recreational, hedonistic, manipulative, axiological ones) supported by various linguostylistic means. The intention of informing stipulates the genre hybridization by combining deictics of evidentiality and epistemic modality characteristic of informative media genres with the evidential markers of rumors being the conductors of the modality of uncertainty. When implementing the recreational and hedonistic functions noted as leading ones, there is a convergence of styles expressed in the stylistic heterogeneity of linguistic resources, ranging from written speech elements to colloquial units including taboo vocabulary belonging to everyday discourse. The main communicative feature of the text representants studied is dialogueness determined by the mentioned textual functions alongside with the manipulative and axiological ones, and it is reflected in the active introduction of the personalized author's principle. Oral person-centred communication features often marked by hypertrophic emotivity are integrated into the journalistic discursive practices under study. This effect is achieved by the abundant use of a wide range of persuasive stylistic resources at all levels of the language system. Among the stylistic devices and expressive means of language involved, the most frequent ones are tropes, emotional-expressive-evaluative lexis, and numerous elements of affective syntax having huge suggestive-manipulative potential. The features observed indicate the important type-forming role of the functional-stylistic aspect in a discursive «portrait» of the celebrity gossip genre existing within the English-language mass media discourse continuum.