The interpretation of the term «polylogue» in modern linguistics.

Abstract

The article deals with a brief history of the appearance of the term «polylogue» in comparison with the terms «monologue» and «dialogue». The author presents various approaches to the study of polylogue as a special form of interaction of foreign and domestic scholars from the perspectives of literary studies, phonetics, semantics, pragmatics, and psycholinguistics. The author stresses the ambiguity in the interpretation of the notion of polylogue despite its widespread lately and points out common and differential features of polylogue and dialogue giving examples of polylogue and dialogue research by different scholars and linguists. Polylogue is a multilateral form of verbal communication, the distinctive features of which are considered to be a wide range of communicative roles of its participants, unpredictability of conversational turns. Moreover, extra linguistic factors should be considered in the study of polylogue.