Linguistic Modelling of Possible Worlds in English Netspeak Discussions

Abstract

The authors of the article use the semantics of possible worlds as a theoretical basis for the research into English-speaking linguistic creative activity of Netspeak participants, who develop and verbalize mutually stipulated and interdependent mental constructs. The teaser-trailers of The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Peter Pan and Wendy trigger spectators’ discussion and creativity. Having watched the videos Internet users write comments in which they use linguistic and extra linguistic means to express their opinion. Thus, they embody two types of axiologically opposed possible worlds (PW) that fit in the general assessment dichotomy “good – bad”. A PW gets the positive assessment if it meets the addressee’s expectations and the pre-established genre canon. A PW gets the negative assessment if it differs in some aspects from what the spectator hoped to see. The article deals exclusively with the linguistic aspect of the comments. The results of the research show that the above- mentioned PWs are embodied either by universal assessment utterances whose pattern suits both PWs or special assessment utterances whose pattern suits only one of the PWs. Participants of the discussion use both explicit and implicit linguistic means to express their opinion. However, they use more varied expressive means to embody the negatively assessed mental construct. The utterances with the content that contradicts “the encyclopedia of the real world” (counter fact utterances) are of special interest because their authors resort to a strict structural and semantic pattern to express the disagreement with the political correctness and censorship.

Keywords

• possible world
• netspeak discussion
• universal assessment utterance
• special assessment utterance
• counter fact utterance
• explicit linguistic means
• implicit linguistic means
• cancel culture