Speech genre of consumer reviews and its transformation in the digital age (based on reviews of doctors)

Abstract

We analyze the influence of new technologies of communicative interaction on the transformation of the speech genre of consumer reviews on the Internet. The research is based on reviews of doctors and medical services taken from the websites of specialized online publications and forums. The author compares modern Internet-reviews of the consumer with the genre-prototype – reviews in the Book of Complaints and Suggestions. The research determines the main direction of the genre transformation, connected with the communication channel and the change in the position of the addressee: the Internet review acquires all the properties of a public media genre, since its addressee becomes a mass one. The changes also affect the image of the author: access to an unlimited audience determines the transformation of the text towards the mass media and advertising discourses with their basic functions of influencing and regulating the behavior and way of thinking of the mass addressee. The communicative-pragmatic study of the review is based on one of the essential genre-forming features – the intention of the addressee, which is expressed, first of all, in a positive or negative assessment of the medical service. The study reveals structural-semantic models of two types of reviews and analyses evaluation tactics in the texts of reviews. It is indicated that there exist communicative and legal risks due to the public nature of the negative feedback distributed on the network. The author notes pragmatic characteristics of a positive consumer feedback, which bring it closer to the advertising text. 

Keywords

• speech genre
• internet genre
• internet review
• consumer review
• reviews of doctors
• genre transformation
• medical review
• medical discourse
• consumer discourse