Speech Etiquette in Network Communication: Semantics and Pragmatics of Users’ Nominations
Authors:   Saint Petersburg State University (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation), Konyaeva Yulia M. , Prokofeva Natalia A. ,   Saint Petersburg State University (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation), Shcheglova Ekaterina A. ,   Saint Petersburg State University (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation)
Published: March 2021

The article is devoted to the research of one of the most relevant aspects of etiquette in network communication–nominations participants of communication use to refer to each other. Based on a broad understanding of speech etiquette in social networks–as a means of harmonization of speech activity in various communication situations, the authors consider users’ nominations in social networks as markers of constructive or destructive verbal behavior in online communities. The research is based on linguistic and stylistic analysis, which allows: (1) describing the linguistic characteristics of nominations as lexical units in terms of word formation, grammar, and semantics; (2) revealing the peculiarities of the pragmatics of using the nominations in network communication taking into account the linguistic parameters of these nominations; (3) characterizing their stylistic properties that correlate with the goals of communication (common interests, problem solving, tips, causticity) and the selected manner of verbal behavior (solidarity, outrageous behavior, verbal aggression). To guarantee representativeness, the authors took the material for the research from resources created for groups with different principles of formation: gender (“Strana mam”), age (“4chan”) and territorial ones (“Yubileyniy Kvartal i Shuvalovsky”). The analysis shows that the users’ nominations in online communities demonstrate the participants’ solidarity within the relatively closed we-communities as the dominant setting of communication. Within each community, there is a focus on live communication, which activates the use of the phatic speech genres of everyday communication: appeal (generalized or personal), request, advice, comment, call, offer, insult, and so on. The variety of nominations from the point of view of the addressee (generalizing and personal), as well as in terms of communicative orientation (contactestablishing and contact-destroying), is determined by the set of situations of communication, frequent in different communities, and by communicants’ value orientations. In “Strana mam”, a women’s forum focused on the preservation of family values, solidarity is manifested in the desire for a more intimate communication; this activates the use of diminutives, language play, and vocabulary with a positive connotation. In the territorial “Yubileyniy Kvartal i Shuvalovsky” group, the value of community is cultivated, and solidarity is manifested in the imitation of respectful, often close to business, communication, which entails frequent generalizing nominations with a positive attributive component and the use of interlocutors’ full names as personal nominations. In the teenage “4chan” community, solidarity is manifested in the intentional outrageous communication (by using nominations with obscene words), which demonstrates an open violation of family, moral, spiritual, and other values.