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Internet stylistics. Pragmatic aspect
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Internet stylistics. Pragmatic aspect
Annotation
PII
S294939000028976-2-1
DOI
10.18254/S294939000028976-2
Publication type
Article
Status
Published
Authors
Natalya Klushina 
Affiliation: Lomonosov Moscow State University
Address: Moscow, Russian Federation
Anastasija Nikolaeva
Affiliation: Lomonosov Moscow State University
Address: Russia
Maria Vasilchenko
Affiliation:
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Pushkin State Institute of Russian Language
Address: Moscow, Russian Federation
Edition
Issue 2 (2)
Abstract

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the patterns of formation and qualities of a modern linear text and an Internet text. The article is the result of the study of Internet text stylistics, based mainly on Russian-language texts from Russia and Ukraine. The paper considers the process of formation of a new type of text - the Internet text. Being essentially different from the classical linear text, the Internet text does not lend itself well to the description based on the classical text theory. Thus, the Internet text is not complete, vectorial, not united by the completeness of thought expression. An important characteristic of the Internet text is its interactivity, which means that the roles of addressee and addressee are constantly changing. In addition, it is difficult, or even impossible, to define the boundaries of the Internet text due to its hypertextuality, which has become habitual intertextuality. All the above-mentioned aspects make up the pragmatics of the Internet text as a subspecies of the media text.

Another crucial problem addressed in the paper is the study of the regularities of Internet communication in general and the stylistics of the Internet text. In the course of the research it became obvious that speech aggression and violation of norms of speech culture are stylistic dominants of online communication. This influenced the formation of other stylistic dominants such as, hate speech, fake, hype, clickbait, etc. Internet style is clearly characterized by being provocative, aggressive, hostile. The problems of bullying, humiliation of human dignity, invective and obscenity are actively studied from the standpoint of linguoecology, because, according to most researchers, the constant neglect of communicative and linguistic norms leads to the degradation of the national language style and literary norms. Despite the fact that there is still a division between public and interpersonal online communication, i.e. formal and informal, the problems of speech behavior of Internet users are becoming increasingly relevant.

Keywords
Internet communications, Internet stylistics, clickbait, hype, language of hate
Received
08.12.2023
Date of publication
08.12.2023
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166
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1

Background
2 With the arrival of the Internet and the development of digital technologies new opportunities and new ways of mass, group and interpersonal communication became possible. The phenomenon of Internet communication attracts attention of researchers from different fields of humanities. There are philosophical, sociological, political and other studies on the Internet and virtual networks society (see [Bell, 1999; Castells, 2004; Rashkoff, 2003; Webster, 2004; Silverstone, 2006; Deleuze, 2007; Machleder, 2011] etc.). These and other studies analyze the impact of the internet on modern society, on the psychology, which provides a basis for their further exploration by the social sciences.
3

In linguistics and stylistics the phenomenon of the Internet is far from being fully examined, although there is a massive amount of studies done both by foreign (D. Crystal, B. Tošović, E. I. Goroshko, etc.) and Russian researchers (S. F. Barysheva, E. V. Gorina, M.V. Ivanova, L.T. Kasperova, N.I. Klushina, T.I. Kolokoltseva, M.A. Krongauz, A.V. Nikolaeva, L.N. Sinelnikova, N.V. Smirnova, etc.), who are actively engaged in this area.
4 Various Internet genres are described in detail in modern linguistics (M.V. Ivanova, L.T. Kasperova, N.I. Klushina, N.V. Smirnova, etc.), although so far there’s still no complete typology of genres. The scholars thoroughly study word-formative neologisms evolving in Internet communication (S.V. Ilyasova, L.V. Ratsiburskaya, E.V. Shchennikova, etc.). Special attention is paid to the problems of ecolinguistics which directly relates to the development of digital technologies. These include such issues as verbal aggression, trolling, cyber-bullying and others (A. Negryshev, A. Nikolaeva, L. Sinelnikova, etc.). The detailed in-depth studies analyze language trends in Internet communication, such as: word-formation innovations, the nature of oral and written communication, dialogue, colloquialization of communication, expressiveness, coarsening and rudeness of speech on the Internet (see [Internet Communication as a New Speech Formation, 2012]) and several other works. Defended Ph.D. and doctoral theses on the Internet (see [Patrusheva, 2015; Kushakova, 2016; Gorina, 2016] and some other works).
5 Thus, we can highlight three periods in modern scientific coverage of the Internet, which have influenced the formation and development of Internet linguistics. The first period is a philosophical PERCEPTION of the Internet phenomenon as a new form of social life, which eventually forms a new digital society and a new digital public mentality. The second period is the accumulation of knowledge about changes in mass, group and interpersonal communication influenced by Internet technologies. Finally, the third period is a description of the contemporary state of language on the Internet.
6 Complex research based on methodology derived from various sciences is necessary, because the problem of defining Internet communication is that it is fragmented and not unified. For example, only separate layers of Internet communication are studied by the systemic approach. The most fully researched and described layers are word-formation and vocabulary, in particular, words derived from foreign languages and neologisms. The phraseological layer (Internet phraseology / network phraseology) hasn’t yet been studied. Moreover, the research into the phonetic, syntactic and even textual layers is still not sufficient. In addition, a typology of network genres has not been formed yet [Barysheva, 2015]. It is necessary to study the Internet language based on the insights of cognitive linguistics and using its scientific tools and approaches. A comparative method, in which classical linear texts and hypertext can be compared, can yield interesting results. In other words, it is time to move from collecting random data to complex descriptions and building consistent linguistic concepts [Dobrosklonskaya, 2008].
7 Factually, stylistics is the most developed and advanced discipline for this purpose. It has developed an established research area – Internet stylistics, which focuses on internet texts.
8

We associate the start of Internet stylistics with the publication of the monograph “Internet stylistics” by an Austrian researcher Branko Tošović, who is a member of the Stylistic Commission of the International Committee of Slavists (under the auspices of UNESCO) [Tošović, 2015]. He is also the author of a conceptual study “The structure of Internet stylistics” [Tošović, 2018a].
9 Internet-stylistics is presented as a systemic description of functional styles on the Internet and the changes caused by features of online communication in each layer of those styles.
10 Internet-stylistics is presented as a development of functional styles in a new extra-linguistic environment, recording changes in language and style of the new form of communication. However, functional Internet style as a special style is still debatable in modern functional stylistics.
11 Functional Internet stylistics is just one direction of stylistic research on Internet communication. Today, multimedia stylistics is being formed. It’s a separate branch of Internet stylistics, which aims to study and describe the stylistic nature and functions of various code signs, which are intertwined in Internet communication and create a special multimedia language. A collective monograph edited by D. Deutschinovich, G. Milashin has been published [Multimedia stylistics, 2018].
12

Another contemporary, promising and fast-developing area of internet stylistics is generative stylistics, which is a study of the style of texts produced by robots. This area is actively developing: there are Yandex news generators, generators of poems and other texts. This problem is considered in the monograph by Branco Tošović [Tošović, 2018b].
13 Researchers are working on a new area of Internet stylistics called Internet text stylistics, which assesses the text and its categories in new digital conditions, identifies innovations in producing and perceiving Internet texts, reveals and describes style dominants which form texts and discourse of Internet communication. The stylistics of Internet texts is examined in detail in the university textbook by N.I. Klushina and A.V. Nikolaeva [Klushina, 2019], which establishes the stylistics of Internet text as a special scientific branch of Internet stylistics and as an academic discipline.
14 As we can see, stylistic research outlines the perspective of a complex approach to studying a new form of communication, its linguistic features, genre structure, format characteristics, on the basis of methods and approaches developed in stylistic science in correlation with scientific tradition.
15

Pragmatic aspect of Internet stylistics and the formation of a new type of text
16 Internet stylistics has special pragmatic determinants, which can be external, such as technological conditions of Internet communication, e. g. unlimited amount of information, modularity, interactivity, convergence, hyper textuality, multimedia, online communication mode, etc. The external extra-linguistic technological conditions have an impact on the interlinguistic conditions of Internet communication, which are constantly changing and transform the roles of information-sender and addressee and their intentions. Those conditions also make communication models more complicated (from linear models of C. Shannon-W. Shannon's, Weever and G. Lasswell work and P. Lazarsfeld's two-stage model, linguistically interpreted by R. Jacobson, - up to the modern understanding of communication as a multi-stage process). For example, new pragmatic functions and new strategies for their implementation are developed, the perlocutive effect becomes difficult to predict and hard to control etc.
17 Such “double” direction of pragmatics leads to the evolution of a very special type of communication on the Internet, which is realized through Internet texts, characterized by a completely different structure as compared to classical linear texts.
18 Let us explain what we mean by the term “Internet text”. Internet text is a sub-type of modern media text, which stands above it in text typology. In its turn, media text is a text that functions in mass communication and has stylistic features, such as the author’s intention to inform, persuade and / or entertain the mass audience (interlinguistic features), and technological features of the media platform it exists on (extra-linguistic features). The term media text in modern stylistics is an “umbrella term” as it covers all media text types. Media text can be newspaper, radio, TV or Internet text (types vary according to the channel). Media text can also be publicistic (didactic/moralistic), informative, entertaining (subtypes of publicistic style) [Kazak, 2011; Klushina, 2018a; Klushina, 2018b; Klushina, 2018c]. Media texts can be oral and written, monologues and dialogues, etc.
19

Figure 1
20 Thus, Internet text is the text that exists on the Internet. This is a type of media text that is distributed over the Internet according to the technological capabilities of the channel.
21 Internet text is a special type of media text that differs from other types of media texts in its hyper textuality, interactivity, non-linearity and incompleteness. With the rapid development of the Internet, this type of text is becoming dominant in the media. It differs significantly from the classic text.
22 Classic text is linear, whereas Internet text is hypertext. The integrity of the classical text and stability of its boundaries are breached by the new technology of Internet communication: the boundaries of hypertext are fluid: the author can extend them infinitely by means of hyperlinks. The boundaries of the Internet text can also be expanded by comments from readers.
23 Authorship of classic text becomes co-authorship in Internet when readers, along with the author, can change the topic, content and composition of a text by means of hyperlinks and comments.
24 The static nature of the classic text is due to the unidirectionality of communication from the author to the reader, while the interactivity of the Internet text leads to the alternation, and sometimes inversion of the roles of author and reader.
25 The mainly monocode (verbal) nature of the classical text with elements of other codes (for example, visual) and multimedia and polycode of the Internet text (equality of verbal and non-verbal communication codes and creation of special multimodal code) [Brett, 2019].
26 The intertextuality of classical text is manifested in its semantic connection with other texts – in Internet text intertextuality is not only semantic, internal but also external, technical (due to hyperlinks there is a mechanical inclusion of one Internet text in another).
27 Thus, Internet text is a fundamentally new type of text, with specific textual parameters that distinguish it from the classic linear text of the pre-Internet era.
28 The new pragmatic framework of Internet communication forms a special type of text and special stylistic dominants which are characteristic of this type of communication [Nikolaeva, 2016].
29 Scheme 1
30
CLASSICAL TEXT INTERNET-TEXT
completeness incompleteness
linearity non-linearity
limited scope motility
directionality interactivity
verbal code multimedia
31

Style dominants and their discursive functions
32 New style dominants appear are being formed in internet communication, which they define its specificity against in comparison with the pre-internet era media communication. Among the leading features are clickbait, holy-war, trolling, hype and other dominants, which structure the internet discourse primarily in such a way as to attract the maximum attention of more readers to the author's text [Yakobson, 1975].
33 These dominants are also shaped by extralinguistic and interlinguistic factors, the most important of which are technological processes, a competitive environment, overflowing with offers of various media products, and the authors' attitude towards creativity, individualization and self-representation.
34 To highlight stylistic dominants only the phenomena generated by the Internet were studied, and that is why they became widespread in society and gave rise to a fashion for a certain type of speech behaviour.
35 A more detailed view on these stylistic dominants revealed that all of them have a negative connotation and demonstrate the asymmetry of internet communication: authors in most cases try to use pragmatic potential of a text just for the sake of hype at any cost.
36

Clickbait
37 The word “clickbait” is derived from the English word “click” and the word “bait”, a – together – a “screaming headline”. Clickbait is a sensational or intriguing headline that deliberately conceals some information to get the reader to follow a hyperlink to the desired article [Nikolaeva, 2018].
38 The most detailed explanation of this phenomenon is given by Facebook. Facebook defines a clickbait as a header that deliberately hides important or clarifying information the post, or misleads the user and forces him to go to the target site to find the answer. Typical clickable headlines in the Facebook:
39
  • “When She Looked Under Her Couch Cushions And Saw THIS… I Was SHOCKED!”
  • “He Put Garlic In His Shoes Before Going To Bed And What Happens Next Is Hard To Believe”
40 The ubiquity of clickbait in Internet communications is forcing leading Internet platforms to fight this phenomenon. Thus, Facebook recommends all writers to give clear headings to their material, so that the user immediately understands the subject of the publication [Goroshko, 2012]. Channel “Yandex.Zen” devoted a big article to this warning the authors that click-bait would lead to sanctions and “Yandex.Zen” will not allow such material on its platform: “Clickbait is not a fair way to design an article to make the reader open it”1. By doing this the author omits the most important information in the title or deliberately overrates the event, or unnecessarily hitches up the tone of the statement to manipulate the reader's feelings. There are many types of clickbait, but the result is the same: users click to learn more, and don’t find what they expected. Consequently, they feel annoyed and hurry to close the publication react by ‘dislike’ or block the entire source. The Zen algorithm takes these signals into account. And if the clickbait is confirmed, the publication is limited in the search results. In Zen clickbait is forbidden because users cannot be disappointed. The Yandex.Zen editor focuses on the following click-bait features: “Click-bait is a headline with these elements:
1. Clickbait: what Zen authors should know about it. URL: >>>> doljny-znat-avtory-dzena-5be93bd4c5937400aa07c818/ (Accessed 22.08.2019).
41 - using demonstrative pronouns (“this”, “that”, “these”) to create a sense of dialogue with the reader; - addressing the reader as “you” (2nd person singular); - the contradiction between what is ordinary and what is unusual or extraordinary; - excessive use of ellipsis (e.g. “...”), question marks “?” and exclamation points “!”; - an abundance of vivid epithets; - hyperonization, exaggeration of the significance of the contents; - idioms or everyday phrases in the title; - incomplete sentences, usually conveying surprise or delight; - use of imperatives; - the construction of the title in such a way as to intrigue the reader, but not to reveal the essence of the message.
42 But click-baits are not just loud, disorienting headlines, we can talk about the clickbait nature of the Internet environment as a whole, because it has already developed certain speech cliches to attract attention, before our eyes there is a kind of “model” / “pattern” of aggressive and self-advertising egocentric speech behaviour of the modern digital generation, which is easy to navigate in the clickbait representation of information and which itself can create click-baits. Thus, the linguistic experiment conducted with post-graduate students of the Faculty of Journalism at Lomonosov Moscow State University revealed the ability of modern digital youth to convert any neutral information into clickable one, for example: “Eugene Onegin” - a manual on how to marry a dandy and move from a village to the capital”.
43 Clickbait is a vivid example of the new pragmatism of Internet communication, when the most important attitude is not the quality of the offered content (content), but its loudly intriguing presentation with confusing headlines, pictures, photos, etc.
44 The interactivity of Internet communication, which prompted instant feedback and active involvement in the discussion of authors' texts, has led to a decrease in communication culture, tact and harmony. in fact, users suppress other people's opinions, impose their own position, aggressively promote themselves. As a result, it gives rise to such destructive types of Internet communication as holy-war, trolling, hate-speech and hype.
45 Let's take a quick look at them.
46 Holy war, is an internet term for uncompromising polemics on blogs, forums and other virtual platforms.
47 Holy war is a socio-cultural phenomenon that manifests itself as a mass network dispute between people with opposite views on an issue. Often communication in such discussions takes a rough form, the participants switch to personal attacks and exchange mutual insults. Sometimes holy war, remains within the scope of a given content topic and participants try to communicate politely. Here, everything depends on the moderation, style and tasks of the forum where the communication takes place.
48 The ideal topic for holy war, is one which everyone is familiar with. These are, for example, education (to punish or not to punish children, whether or not to vaccinate), gender relations (who is the “boss” in the family), pets (walking dogs with or without a leash, animal testing), money issues (whether it is possible to live on 10 thousand rubbles a month), politics (do we need protest actions), a healthy lifestyle (whether GMO-products are dangerous for health).
49 Holy war can be caused not only by the subject, but also by a single comment, the popularity of the content creator in ratings, the personality of the author. To create a potential holy war, the author usually uses some categorical but unproven statement. For example: “A woman's brain is much less adapted to comprehension than a man's brain”. In this case, an insurmountable conflict of opinion breaks out in the comments.
50 Holy war, may remain within the scope of the topic proposed by the creator of the content, or may go off-topic, to discuss other subjects and personalities. Then it is possible to talk about “flaming” as an unplanned communicative effect of holy war.
51 Flame – “dispute for the sake of the dispute”, which is a verbal war on the Internet, most often no longer relevant to the original cause of the dispute. Flame messages may contain personal insults and often extend the dispute. The flame is usually suppressed by the moderators of the site: if the holy war promotes interest in the content and its creator, flaming scares off potential readers/viewers, convincing them that they too can become a victim of aggression on this chat or forum. In addition, flaming makes communication uninteresting, the subject of discussion is lost, and the commentator's desire to replace the author's topic with his own comes to the foreground. The reasons for flaming are:
52 - insults; - belittling the image of the interlocutor by downgrading his level of education (did you attend school?), brushing off the young age, and fishing out other contextualized negative characteristics; - loose interpretation of the opponent's previous statements; - unjustified generalizations and extrapolations; - the use of such stylistic features as swear words, animal-metaphors, jargon, labels, etc.
53 The audience should pay attention to the author's content and be interested in it – this encourages communication, but it should be restricted by certain norms of Internet etiquette. Therefore, flaming is inappropriate in the discussion.
54 Unlike flames, there are both pluses and minuses in holy war. The main advantage of such disputes is an increase of the content rating, an opportunity for (discussion) participants to learn something new on the topic, to speak out, to learn to defend their own opinion, and to correctly evaluate the position of interlocutors. Disadvantages of such disputes include aggressiveness of discussion, which often turns into verbal aggression, as well as the impossibility of finding the truth in the provocative statements written by the author.
55 Holy war is often implemented through specific Internet strategies, the most famous of which is trolling.
56 Trolling is the publication of deliberately provocative messages.
57 Trolling, like click baits, can be considered as a separate communication strategy, which the author resorts to for a certain goal. The purpose of trolling is to counteract (others) on the Internet by deliberately posting inflammatory, inappropriate or offensive comments or other destructive content. People who produce such content are called trolls. Trolls are very visible, they are distinguished by their unjustified aggression, in their statements we can see obscene vocabulary, rude comments to their interlocutor, criticism of the internal and external qualities of the opponent.
58 Trolling can be also an independent phenomenon that forms the style of Internet communication in certain spheres, i.e. trolling is the style dominating the Internet discourse.
59 The most important opportunity for trolling is anonymity. Many users communicate in virtual space anonymously, they simply think up a fake name – a nickname. The Internet provides ample opportunity to experiment with their own identity and forms of self-presentation. Anonymity to some extent implies impunity. Uncompromising judgments and socially aggressive behaviour are supported by the fact that one can live several lives on the Internet, have several names (nicknames) and start fake accounts [Nikolaeva, 2019; Sinelnikova, 2016].
60 From the point of view of pragmatic stylistics, it is possible to distinguish:
61 -troll title
62 Such headlines contain directly or indirectly offensive language, such as: People of poor quality; Childless crap gives out tips; Dreadful women in the gloss; Fat in the top, etc. (author - Lena Miro, the top blogger on the LG site).
63 - troll text
64 It is a text that contains statements that humiliate a group of people or a certain person.
65 - troll comment
66 Comment - the main purpose of which is to humiliate and insult the interlocutor or the author of the post, for example: “Hmm. You know, your idiocy is on a cosmic scale, it sucks up all participants of discussion”.
67 - troll picture
68 Very often the user-troll chooses a picture (avatar), which is an image of evil mythical creatures, words related to the obscene vocabulary. Sometimes the troll is masked with the help of so-called glamorous, attractive pictures. Thus, the ava troll under the nickname “historian”, who “works” on the platform of the X, is a picture of a little red kitten. Very often the interlocutor pays attention to the avatar of the interlocutor, unwittingly identifying his opponent with the picture he sees. Therefore, the special surprise is that the “kitten” suddenly switches to swearing and insulting the discussion participants.
69 Trolling is closely connected with the manifestation of hate-speech as a kind of verbal aggression.
70 Hate-Speech
71 Hate-Speech is a communication based on discrimination against a social group. The English term “hate speech” is used to discriminate against a social group by labelling and insulting them on the basis of nationality, gender, or social background. Demonstration of a certain social group, its positioning in the media space mainly in negative contexts, is the implementation of “hate speech”. “Hate speech” is a multidimensional phenomenon that includes both psychological and socio-political components.
72 It should be noted that the notion of “hate speech” is not identical to the notion of “speech aggression”, when a writer/speaker shows sharply negative reactions towards a concrete addressee. When defining “hate speech”, it is the expressions which imply negative assessment of all representatives of a certain social group united by gender, race, language, ethnic origin, religious affiliation, etc. Users try to insult other users’ honour and dignity highlighting their ethnic, sexual or gender identity (sexism, misogyny, misandry), age (ageism) or religious beliefs etc [Dawkins, 1993].
73 The basis for classifying a group as oppressed is based on stereotypes that exist in society and are fixed through certain speech formulas in the media (labels). Social stereotypes appear in the process of socialization, often in childhood, but media can strengthen some of them and form new ones, because media texts not only reflect but also change our reality. “Hostile language” manifests itself with words and expressions with a negative meaning, which creates a polarised picture of the world based on the antinomies “we/they” and “our/their own”. These are, for example, categories such as: “Chink”, “Moskal”, “Yellow / Yellowman”, “Coloured”. Such words are commonly called ethnophaulisms (the term ethnophaulism is formed by the roots of two Greek words - ἔθνος 'people, tribe' φαῦλος 'evil, insignificant') – negatively connotated names of representatives of various ethnic groups in slang speech. In literary language ethnophaulisms are practically non-existent [Dubrovsky, 2003].
74 At the heart of hate speech is the speaker’s desire to present some group of people as inferior. On the level of social relations, the spread of hate speech has its consequences in the growing number of hate crimes and polarization of society. The absence of a ban on hate speech in the media encourages violence against discriminated groups. Therefore, everyone present in the media space must adhere to communicative ethical norms that do not allow the use of words and expressions that we can refer to as “hate speech” [Verkhovsky, 2002].
75 The most dangerous are direct calls for violence and discrimination. For example, in 2016, blogger and well-known media manager Anton Nosik was charged with extremism for his post in LiveJournal called “Erase Syria off the Face of the Earth”. Nosik compared Syria to Nazi Germany and called for fighting in that country. The journalist was charged under Part 1 of Article 282 (“Incitement to hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity”), which provides for a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison. According to the prosecution, Anton Nosik deliberately stirred up hatred and enmity towards the Syrians “on the basis of nationality and territory”. As a result of the trial, Nosik was found guilty and fined 500 thousand rubles. The blog post was removed. But just from the title of the material it is clear that the call to “destroy” the whole country is not just an author’s opinion, but can certainly be categorised as “hate speech”.
76 The problem is that denigration of some social group doesn’t always take place by means of words expressing negative assessment. For example, materials in the media about pensioners most often contain sympathetic reports that retirement benefits are far from enough nobody wants to employ them and also, they are refused treatment in hospitals. As a result, a stereotypical image of a pensioner as a social outsider is created, which also indirectly corresponds to “hate speech”.
77 Inclusive society, which most developed countries today are trying to promote, is intended to overcome hate-speech as a social phenomenon. Nevertheless, such society, in which every person of any age, physical health, nationality, profession, gender and other social characteristics is respected, is built also by means of reasonable adjustment of internet communication, which is an important socially and pragmatically.
78 Another important stylistic dominant of Internet communication is hype. Regarding the media field, the use of the hype concept is first assessed by D. Rashkoff in his book “Mediavirus” [Rashkoff, 2003]. Hype – exaggeration around the Internet message, which is instantly replicated in the Internet for the mass audience, performs primarily marketing functions. It is a media performance, which is reproduced by many media sources and which draws a large reader/viewer audience. From the point of view of pragmatism, hyping is a speech genre of self-representation, glorification of oneself, self-promoting. It is no coincidence that the first meaning of the word “hype” was a highly profitable and high-risk investment project [Efanov, 2018].
79 The video of the popular video blogger Sergey Druzhko called “hype” gained 2 million views in less than a day. In addition, the video blogger has set a record in the Russian segment of YouTube in terms of the number of new subscribes joining in - in one day more than 262 000 people subscribed to the channel. The blogger tries to identify in the video the key points for creating a hype. Often “fake” or any other provocative information triggers active feedback from the user networks: “I do not understand!”.
80 The reason for hype can be a topic related to: - socially important events (e.g. elections, competitions, reforms); - international politics; - ...the statements of officials/celebrities/famous people.
81 Also, any provocative content, such as the Artemiy Lebedev material that all women need a hijab. Here is a quote from this material: “The veil that covers the face is the most brilliant invention. On the one hand, a man is calm about his woman - no one stares at her. On the other hand, a burka is an invisibility-hat for a woman. You can go anywhere in a shawl and nobody knows where you've been. You can move around town stealthily. Oriental women have no need to “sell” themselves with their looks. They don't have to be liked by strangers, they have families. And those families protect them when they are in a dangerous environment – in the street. At home a woman does not wear a veil, but does everything she likes and dresses as she wants. Europeans cannot comprehend a simple fact: in the East, a woman feels completely safe from birth to death. Nowhere else do women experience such a comfortable feeling of safety”. “Woman in Islam”, was published in Live Journal and received 553 comments.
82 Many authors are trying to “catch the hype” to attract subscribers' attention and find themselves “in the trend”. To do this, you need to follow the “trendsetting topics” and be able to quickly connect to them.
83 As we can see, the leading dominants are structuring the web-discourse in such a way as to attract the maximum attention of readers to the author's text. In the era of media products, competition and oversupply on the information market, the author seeks to use any means of fascination without thinking about the norms and consequences of the Internet.
84

Pragmatic effects of Internet communication

85 The study of Internet communication from the point of view of pragmatism allows us to identify pain points of this type of communication and to predict its possible negative effects.
86 The most noticeable changes occurred in the roles of the addresser / addressee. In case of linear, vectorial, unidirectional communication (from the addresser to the addressee), an addresser creates a text to achieve a purpose, relying on a certain perlocutionary effect. Internet communication is not linear, but multistage and interactive. Interactivity of communication encourages “engagement” by a lot of addressees with a (hyper)-text created by the addresser. Addressees can comment and change the author's message, producing an inversion of roles (from addressee to addresser). Constant change of addresser/addressee roles in the communication, in its turn, leads to correction, complication and transformation of the original author's intention by other communicators who entered an interactive dialogue with the author and with each other. Thus, the author in Internet communication ceases to be completely in control of his statement, and the statement itself can lead to unplanned communicative effects [Klushina, 2016; Klushina, 2017].
87 In addition to the equal communicative roles of the addresser and the addressee in Internet communication, generated by the interactivity of real-time communication, the anonymity of the author and the reader, which is often quite helpful in Internet communication, has special practical consequences. The nicknames hiding real communicators, lead to gender-neutral mentality, disregard for communicative norms and, in many ways, encourages aggressive style of dialogue. Nicknames allow Internet users to create virtual identities of trolls, haters, flamers, etc., who irresponsibly and with impunity use provocative and destructive speech strategies to suppress someone else's opinion and self-image at no cost to themselves. The anonymity of network communication, not limited by the ability to identify the author, often generates negative effects that destroy the dialogue.
88 A pragmatic attitude towards self-representation, self-affirmation, dominance in the information flow, competition and commercialisation leads to the accentuation of style dominants, which form discourse (click-baits, hypes, trolling, etc.) that we have identified and described above, which contribute to the “promotion” of the author in the highly competitive information environment – the Internet. This allows us to talk about the rise of the self-promoting, advertising / marketing and creative functions of the language in the digital environment.
89 The Internet is the most influential sphere of social communication, since it impacts strongly on the transformation of traditional norms and rules of speech behaviour - both public, group and interpersonal.
90 The new model of communication formed before our eyes in the Internet environment, is today, in our opinion, an example of negativization of speech behavior and the imposition of a new type of speech culture and speech behaviour in society. Attraction of attention by any means (clickbait), retention of attention with the help of destructive strategies of trolling and hate-speech, the desire to become famous at any cost (through holy-war and hype). All this leads to an increase in aggression on the Internet.
91 In principle, speech aggression has long been under the scrutiny of linguists, but the Internet environment has formed entire zones of speech aggression on various Internet sites (forums, social networks, comments), and counterstrategies have not yet been developed.
92 The style dominants of Internet communication demonstrate the asymmetry of public and interpersonal Internet communication, in which negative speech dominates. It becomes increasingly urgent to develop constructive strategies for conducting dialogues on the Internet and PR primarily setting the appropriate speech behaviour. It is extremely important to include “media-literacy” and ecolinguistics in media-education of “positive pragmatics”, based on ideas and concepts by P. Grace and D. Leech. The development of constructive dialogue strategies on the Internet will lead to correct speech behaviour of communicators.

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