Записки з романо-германської філології (Apr 2015)
Topological features of chatroom communication (anthroponymical aspect)
Abstract
The article deals with the study of the topological features of chatroom discourse, and namely its anthroponymical aspect. The word-building process that underlies computer-mediated communication neologisms is analysed from an onomasiological perspective. Our investigation starts with the premise that time and place of chat room communication together with its functional peculiarities influence dramatically the specific nature of communication via chat rooms. The point where time axis and place axis meet, as well as the intersection of cognitive and communicative activities is always a human being, thus the figure of communicator is defined as anthropocenter of the coordinate grid determining the nature of chat room communication. The paradigmatic formula “WHO? WHERE? WHEN?” when realized in chat room discourse is transformed into “ME-NOW-HERE”. We believe that chat room communication as a whole and its topological characteristics in particular should be considered from the point of view of three aspects: ontologically, virtually and textually. Anthropocenter in this topological triangle in the figure of a communicator, i.e. of a person who entered chat room communication and is functioning as an addressee and an addressor. Our analysis of word building models that underlie the appearance of neologisms demonstrates that from the onomasiological perspective they are all based on the conceptual metaphor of space within which the world wide web is seen as a territory, and a user of internet is seen as a dweller. Lexical semantics of citizen is made of two components: a dweller and a locality, see: citizen – a native or inhabitant of a particular place. The imagery of the nominative phrase digital citizen is based on two metaphors and a metonymy. One metaphor is seen in the replacement of semanteme doer to that of inhabitant, dweller: user→citizen (of internet). The other metaphor is genetically first, it is read as [internet = vast territory]. Entering the neologism as a semanteme “place” (citizen = inhabitant + place), this metaphor is read as [place, a territory which somebody inhabits = internet]. Both images [user = dweller (of internet)] and [internet = territory], verbalized by the word citizen (inhabitant of internet), are brought together by a single classifier digital, initially characterizing the internet only as a means of communication. Transferring to the internet as a territory this characteristic is ultimately metonymically shifted to identify an inhabitant of this territory.
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