Andekusmõistestik teadus- ja üldkeeles ning andekuse diskursuse diakrooniline konstrueerimine meediatekstides

The aim of the study is to describe the diachronic construction of the discourse of giftedness in print media and to show how the historical media discourse relates to the understanding of the essence of giftedness developing in parallel in science. The media analysis is based on a critical discourse analysis of the media texts from the 1890s–1990s stored in the corpus of written Estonian and the analysis model of Norman Fairclough (2001), one of the most central theoreticians of this approach.The results of the analysis indicate that the historical media discourse of giftedness was constructed in parallel with the understandings emerging in the studies of giftedness: there were similarities between the media and scientific discourse but some differences could also be outlined. The viewpoints which had first become natural through the notion of “genius”in scientific literature, according to which giftedness is hereditary, were also reflected in the historical media discourse. Atypically of the scientific discourse back then, the media also discussed the individual's physical assumptions in relation to giftedness, which was reflected in modern approaches to giftedness.The first linguistic form denoting giftedness in media was not genius,which occurred in scientific texts (see Galton, 1869), but talent (Wirmaline,1892), which was used in scientific language only a century later. The discourse analysis revealed that the talent discourse back then was similar to the modern scientific approach, relating to skills and abilities already a century ago (see Gagné, 2004). Almost at the same time as the term talent, the term gift richness (Walgus, 1895) occurred in media, creating the giftedness discourse, the dynamics of which were similar to the talent discourse. The discourse included texts which directly summarised the viewpoints of science – both the role of heredity in giftedness as well as eugenics – creating clear connections between the dominant ideological beliefs of that era. Similarly to the scientific discourse, the discourse of environment emerged in the texts,although giftedness was constructed either through the monetary or competition discourse. In examining the emotional tone of the texts, it was clear that, compared to the talent discourse, the emotional tone of the texts of the giftedness discourse was more positive, even under conditions of Soviet ideology.Based on the discourse analysis, it may be concluded that the discourse of genius was the m