Reference and its Cohesive Potential in the Blog Text

Abstract

Reference as a logical-semantic category is implemented in the blog text based on a variety of lexical and grammatical means (personal, demonstrative and possessive pronouns, definite article, nominative phrases). At the same time, we consistently differentiate the functional and formal level of analysis (connectivity relations – means of expressing connectivity). The conceptual difference between the functional category and the formal implementation of this category reveals some implications that are important for our study. First, the noun or nominative phrase that acts as a segment of the propositional stimulus message is repeatedly replaced by a certain range of formal (and contextual) anaphoric means. Responding to this message, the interlocutor constructs a mental representation of the relationship of formal or contextual connectivity between the antecedent and the substitute. At the same time, the connectivity tool performs a specific referential function in the mental map of blog communication participants. If the referential interdependence between the antecedent and the substitute becomes contextual, the blogger and respondents identify the similarity of the concepts manifested by these components of the stimulus and reaction, establish not only formal equivalence, but also semantic and pragmatic similarity of the conceptual meanings of the associated language units. In the developed blog, there is a contextual relationship between the indicators of connectivity of thematically correlated constituents and the pragmatic consistency of messages of participants in computermediated communication. In the blogosphere, lexical and grammatical tools that function in an anaphoric or cataphoric function are endowed with such semantics that acquire relevant meaning for the interlocutors only taking into account the previous or subsequent messages. These messages, in turn, turn out to be the context against which these units are identified and interpreted by the blogger and respondents. The relationship of connectedness is manifested not so much in the blog text, but at the moment of perception by the interlocutors of each other’s discursive works. The category of connectedness is a value proportional to the communicative ability of the interlocutors to compare and coordinate the semantics of discursive elements, taking into account the referential schemes activated in their minds.

Keywords

• blog text
• linking tools
• reference
• background knowledge
• context