Features of Pragmatic Markers in Contemporary Russian Monologues: A Quantitative Analysis

Summary The study is devoted to identifying the features of the use of pragmatic markers in spontaneous monologue stories using the example of the Russian language. The study analyzed 52 monologue stories. The participants consisted of 52 students (26 females and 26 males) aged 18 to 24, including 23 extroverts, 15 introverts, and 14 ambiverts. Various types of pragmatic markers (PM) were identified in the studied materials, including hesitative, delimitative, metacommunicative markers, as well as self-correction markers, approximators, deictic markers, and reflexive markers. Hesitative markers have the highest frequency, followed by delimitative markers, while other types are less common. PMs are often used in combination to solve more complex communication tasks. When comparing by gender, the differences in the frequency of PM usage turned out to be statistically insignificant, in contrast to the pronounced influence of the psychotype, where introverts, extroverts and ambiverts show stable differences in PM density, which confirms the influence of psychological characteristics on oral utterances. The significance of the study lies in an in-depth understanding of the role of PMs in spontaneous monologue-storytelling, which allows for a more accurate analysis of the mechanisms of monologue and their dependence on the gender and psychotype of the participants.