Models of rhetorical relations in Russian blogging as an indicator of interlocutors’ information behavior

• Main Authors: Victor M. Shaklein, Inna V. Kovtunenko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2021-12-01
• Series: Russian Language Studies
• Subjects: context of russian computer-mediated communication; russian blog text; rhetorical relations; interlocutor’s point of view; discursive step; interactivity
• Online Access: http://journals.rudn.ru/russian-language-studies/article/viewFile/26850/19538
• ISSN: 2618-8163; 2618-8171

Russian blog texts are characterized by the fact that the respondent expresses opinions in order to convince the author of the effectiveness of certain ideas that cover his/her private life and professional activities. The respondent presents arguments in favor of his/her opinion, introduces the rationale for it, and at the same time indicates that the point of view previously expressed by the blogger is also relevant in the contextual situation under discussion. Rhetorical relations project conflict-free development of easy communication. As a result, the points of view put forward by the blogger and the respondent complement each other. It turns out that the same situation potentially generates both positive and negative emotions, and this is emphasized in the virtual communication based on the implementation of the phatic function of language. Rhetorical relations within the blog text help to combine different epistemic positions expressed by the interlocutors. In this regard, an urgent problem of linguistic research of Russian blog texts is to determine whether the interlocutors who exchange opinions and assessments form integral models of dialogic communication, based on which means of linking the stimulating and reacting messages are connected. This problem has not yet received proper empirical analysis in Russian studies and general language theory, although its solution, as we believe, contains significant implications for detailing the pragmatic specifics of blog communication. The aim of the study is to implement a structural and pragmatic analysis of rhetorical relations in blog texts, which involves identifying the dominant markers of these relations, their basic model and its variants. The goal stated in the article is realized through the following research methods: (1) the method of observation and interpretation of blogging while analyzing the peculiarities of the linguistic means of implementing connectivity; (2) descriptive-analytical (contextual) method-direct analysis of blog text fragments as a linear sequence; (3) a method for modeling rhetorical cause-and-effect relationships between segments of a single replica and at the level of integral dialogic unity in the blog text. It is concluded that rhetorical relations fix national and cultural stereotypes, which, in turn, determine the material and ideal scope of the degree of relevance of the addressees evaluation activity. When implementing such speech actions, the interlocutors take into rigid consideration not only the frequent and dominant cultural scripts of dialogic axiological performance, but also the relevant stereotypes of such activities that are set by the language system. The rhetorical relations between stimulating and reacting messages in the context of computer-mediated communication generate facilitate the processes of decoding the informative and emotional content of the jointly generated text and its implications.