The response to gratitude in Russian linguoculture: «you're welcome» (ne za chto) as a pragmatic variable

The article offers an analysis of the idiomatic speech formula «you're welcome» (ne za chto) as a fragment of the communicative scenario «response to gratitude». The ambiguity and contextual dependence of this formula allow us to consider it as a «pragmatic variable» that is used in speech to implement a number of different illocutionary attitudes. Perceived on a superficial level as a neutral formalized response to gratitude, the verbal formula «you're welcome» (ne za chto) can be perceived by communicants as a way of verbally devaluing the service rendered or establishing hidden hierarchical relationships between interlocutors. The research methodology includes a corpus analysis of examples from the National Corpus of the Russian language (NCRL), as well as the systematization of experimental data, the participants of which were asked to reflect their assessments of this speech formula in projection on various communicative situations. Based on the data of the NCRL, the main pragmatic scenarios of the verbal use of the formula «you're welcome» (ne za chto) are described, ranging from a neutral ritual response to gratitude to the expression of refusal of gratitude, deferred gratitude, exchange of communicative roles, etc. These scenarios outline a wide range of communicative attitudes, which confirms the concept of the «you're welcome» (ne za chto) formula as a «pragmatic variable». The results of the experiment show that many respondents are aware of the potential inappropriateness of the phrase depending on the social status of the interlocutors, in particular, the use of «you're welcome» (ne za chto) in asymmetric communication situations can be assessed as unethical or impolite. The authors conclude that the speech formula «you're welcome» (ne za chto) is a multi-valued and contextually dependent expression, taking into account the semantics and pragmatics of which requires native speakers to take a conscious approach to choosing speech formulas depending on the context and social status of the participants in communication.