Linguocultural codes: development and functioning of the French military honorific system

Abstract

The article deals with the historical development and modern functioning of the French military honorific system and military honorifics as components of this system. It reveals the features of their formation and evolution in the context of sociocultural and historical factors, clarifies the forms of the main abbreviations, and describes typical cases of their use. The aim of the article is to generalise the rules of using correct military honorifics in French linguistic culture in situations of official communication. The research material included texts of business letters, documents from official governmental military websites in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Canada, and fragments of French media texts containing military honorifics. The main method of the study was the structural method, which led to the use of distributional and component analyses. The use of military honorifics is mandatory in the military sphere, since the military honorific reflects official relations and ensures hierarchy and subordination in professional communication. The research reveals that the communicative purpose determines the use of the corresponding honorifics and their abbreviated forms. The emphasis is placed on the importance of military ranks as an important element of the linguistic worldview of French society and their role in maintaining military ethics and discipline. Besides, particular attention is paid to the formation and functioning of feminine forms for military ranks and positions. Prospects for further research are outlined in the field of socially marked vocabulary, particularly the functioning of professional French honorific system in cross-cultural communication.