Internet comments as a network genre: General characteristics, diological potency, classification problems

Abstract

The article deals with current problems of modern communicative linguistics and network genre studies. The author presents general characteristics of such a relatively new network genre as Internet commentary. The research emphasizes dialogical orientation of this genre, which meets the urgent need of Internet users for feedback and represents a media embodiment of the addressee factor that is in demand and meets the spirit of the times. Internet commentary is characterized as a reactive (responsive) Internet genre, the texts of which are thematically, structurally, semantically and pragmatically closely related to the original (root)  message (post) and form a kind of dialogic unity with it. The author offers a multi-level classification of Internet comments, taking into account the following characteristics: 1) attribution to the Internet resource; 2) discursive affiliation; 3) the nature of the stimulus that caused the reaction (text or polycode stimulus, video content with verbal accompaniment, video content without verbal accompaniment, etc.); 4) place in the information and commentary block; 5) structural characteristics (linear length; mono-code / poly-code); 6) content and thematic features; 7) the degree of dependence on the original (root) message. 

Keywords

• internet communication
• network genres
• dialogicity
• dialogic genres
• internet commentary
• information and commentary block
• classification of internet commentaries