THE INFORMATIVE STRATEGY AND ITS TACTICS IN SCIENTIFIC DIALOGUE

International independent scientific journal №79/2025 26 PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES THE INFORMATIVE STRATEGY AND ITS TACTICS IN SCIENTIFIC DIALOGUE Chalova O. PhD in Philology, associate Professor Francisk Skorina Gomel State University Doctoral Student, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguisticsa Belarusian State University of Foreign Languages https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17583049 Abstract The article is about describing the aspects of the implementation of the informative strategy as one of the leading communicative strategies in scientific dialogue treated as a special type of scientific discourse characterized by a spontaneous and expressive character. The informative strategy has been revealed to be expressed though two basic tactics: the tactics of providing fully-valid information, and the tactics of providing partial information that are accomplished by just a few techniques. Besides, the informative strategy has been found to be periodically violated by the ignoring tactics. Keywords: scientific discourse, scientific dialogue, communicative strategy, informative strategy, communicative tactics, the tactics of providing information, the ignoring tactics. INTRODUCTION Despite the relevance of scientific discourse as an object of analysis [1–10], its individual genres and varieties have not yet been described in linguistics, which makes us interested in one of its types – scientific dialogue viewed as a sort of public communication that is fundamentally different from the other genres of scientific discourse in many ways. These differences can by explained by the specific nature of scientific dialogue: its replicative nature, spontaneity, emotional and expressive properties, specific role of the category of evaluation, etc. These features of scientific dialogue make it similar to everyday / informal discourse. The elements of everyday communication greatly influence the communicative and pragmatic organization of scientific dialogue. The strategic structure of scientific dialogue is no exception: it is essentially affected by informal discourse penetrating into its “body”. Studying the aspects of the strategic organization of scientific dialogue could broaden linguists' understanding of the pragmatics of scientific discourse in general, which specifies the relevance of this study the main objective of which is to identify major peculiarities of the implementation of the informative strategy in scientific dialogue, to establish a set of tactics representing this strategy. The chief research method is pragmatic analysis. The research material is made up of response remarks where the informative strategy is implemented (1000 remarks). The source of the material is made up of transcripts of scientific discussions on various topics (the total volume being 500 thousand word entries). The informative strategy is one of the leading strategies of scientific discourse (the communicative strategy being the general line of verbal behavior aimed at achieving a certain communicative goal). The informative strategy focuses on making the scientific community familiar with the results of the professional activities of a particular scientist. As is known, any communicative strategy is represented by a set of speech tactics that are practical moves aimed at achieving specific goals, the number of which depends on a specific type of scientific discourse. This paper is about identifying a set of tactics that implement the informative strategy in scientific dialogue. MAIN PART One of the central communicative strategies of scientific discourse is the informative strategy aiming at introducing the results of the professional activities to the scientific community. In scientific dialogue, the informative strategy is usually used in response remarks and through applying two tactics: 1) the tactics of proving fully-valid information; 2) the tactics of proving partial information. The tactics of providing fully-valid information is carried out in data-intensive responses. The volume of the information they introduce entirely meets the addressee’s communicative needs. In other words, there is no direct correspondence between the length of the response and the degree of its information capacity. Though scientific dialogue is known as a highly informative type of communication for its participants’ responses being detailed and supported by arguments, the shortness and brevity of the response should not be considered as an indicator of the informative inconsistency of the reply, e. g.: <…> and it's also medical. I mean, one of the things we're going to talk about – the average person who comes in from the nursing home with Alzheimer's, and so forth – and our hospital has five to six different diseases that we deal with. So to say that it's not a medical problem is – Is beyond belief. <…> – No. I corrected myself in the middle, Dan. They have secondary medical problems. Just one quick technical question. In the unpublished experiment on the catalase activation and the expression other than it's normal expression, was that to move it into mitochondria for the electron transport? – Yes. International independent scientific journal №79/2025 27 As is clearly seen, responsive remarks in scientific dialogue can be quite short (much shorter than the question itself), even monosyllabic, but at the same time they can serve as a sufficient reply to the question that satisfies the interlocutor’s information needs completely. The formal verbal signals of information sufficiency usually sent by the addressee are as follows: - markers of satisfaction with the response (etiquette formulas and words like Wonderful. Thank you. I understand. I see. Thank you for answering the question. That was good, etc.); - the absence of additional questions and other signals of the addressee’s being dissatisfied with the answer. At the same time, the presence of complementary questions or remarks on the part of the interlocutor marks the incompleteness of the information provided, e. g.: I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about how these animals die, animals that have had their longevity extended. But I don't think you've answered my question. I am tempted to say that my question was: what were you guys going to say to each other? <…> The tactics of proving partial information is implemented through two main techniques: a) incomplete responding, i. e. fragmentary coverage of the problem or an answer to one of the questions posed: <...> I don't want to take too much time but I think part of the answer to that, Rebecca, is that you can empathize with people with Alzheimer's Disease <...>. Let me join in since I was on queue, and partly to address Michael's question <...>. <...> I think there's a lot more to say, and it's an incomplete answer to some really pointed questions, which I'm happy to follow up on. b) a compensating technique, i. e. providing an answer that does not meet the expectations of the interlocutor (discussing a related issue / shifting the subject of the discussion, speculative answer, etc.), an indication to the source of the information (instead of providing the information), etc.), cf.: So I can't answer your question, Carl, but I do think the most important aspect, the point you made, we should not rush anything into print <…>. What would the life expectancy of this population be? Now I don't know the answer to this question definitively, but I would assume that it would be significantly lower than it is today <…>. So, again, rather than spend time talking about these two essays, which you can read for yourself, I'm going to move on to what I think are the limitations of this kind of analysis and then on to some concluding thoughts, so that there will be some time for conversation. On the one hand, the compensating technique develops scientific dialogue to a certain extent, though not to the addressee's expectations, while on the other hand, it violates some of the maxims of the Cooperative Principle (relevance, manner, and / or quantity), which limits its use in the type of communication being studied. However, the tactic of providing partial information serves to balance the spheres of knowledge and ignorance in scientific dialogue, and is therefore considered more preferable than the tactic of refusing to answer / ignoring the question (avoiding providing any information at all) causing serious violations of the requirements to the degree of information capacity of scientific communication. The use of the ignoring tactics is explained by the ability of scientific dialogue to incorporate elements of conversational communication, markers of informal discourse, etc. In scientific dialogue, refusals to answer are usually motivated. The main reason / motivation for the refusal is ignorance / lack of knowledge. A reference to ignorance is often (though not always) accompanied by indications of its cause: a lack of time, the complexity of the question, the respondent’s incompetence in some sphere, a different object of the analysis, etc.: Well, I'm not a politician. And I don't know how to read this very complicated Congress that was just elected because it's not clear to me that it was elected for these purposes. <…> I can't answer your question. I haven't looked at the industry enough. References to ignorance that are used as a refusal to answer should not be confused with references to ignorance the pragmatic role of which is different. For instance, references to ignorance can function as a hesitation marker indicating the difficulties experienced by the speaker during the formulation of his / her answer, e. g.: I really don't know how to enter this conversation because I agree with almost all the sentiments that were expressed. <…> Well, I don't know how to – how to make the point. <…> Thus, ignorance is not always the reason to avoid the communicative initiative delegated by the interlocutor in scientific dialogue, though, in a number of situations, references to ignorance is the most effective way to escape from speaking (Was that because their intrinsic ability to fight off the disease, or their ability to control a particular tissue growth pattern? You know, in other words, something … – I don't know. I'm asking you what's the answer?). The other reasons for refusing to respond may be as follows in scientific dialogue, cf.: - misunderstanding the question, e. g.: The incoherence? I'm afraid I don't understand where it's incoherent; - the answer has already been formulated, e. g.: Yeah, I don't think I evaded the question, Michael. Did I? I mean, you got my answer, didn't you? - a specific character (irrelevant, complex, strange, incorrect, etc.) of the question, e. g.: Could I just follow up on that? This is a dumb question but I think it's a really good one, and I don't know the answer; - no need to respond immediately, e. g.: I'll come back later and talk about that. The list of reasons for refusing to answer is open for a great variety of different questions, epistemic states and other peculiarities of the respondents, and pragmatic situations. International independent scientific journal №79/2025 28 CONCLUSIONS To sum up, the informative structure of scientific dialogue is provided by the use of three main tactics: a) the tactics of providing fully-valid information, b) the tactics of providing partial information, and c) ignoring tactics. While the tactics of providing fully-valid information is widely used in scientific dialogue as it contributes to the implementation of its informative strategy due to its ability to develop the discussion, the ignoring tactics is quite a rare and undesirable phenomenon in scientific communication as it prevents the implementation of the informative strategy, destabilizes the information core of scientific dialogue. The use of the tactics of giving fully-valid information is provided by the necessity of scientific dialogue to match the principles of scientific discourse (objectiveness, informativeness, accuracy, efficiency, reasonable / rational character, etc.). 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