A professional blog as a special structural hypertext unit in the space of Internet communications

Poddubnaya Nataliya Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0003-1315-9910 PhD in Philology Associate Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages, Stavropol State Agrarian University 355035, Russia, Stavropol Territory, Stavropol, lane. Zootechnical, 12 nov.avtor@mail.ru Chudnova Ol'ga Alekseevna ORCID: 0000-0003-4888-7694 PhD in Psychology Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages, Stavropol State Agrarian University 355035, Russia, Stavropol, lane Zootechnical, 12 chudnova08@mail.ru

Mikhienko Svetlana Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0000-0002-7562-3718 PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages, Stavropol State Agrarian University 355035, Russia, Stavropol Territory, Stavropol, lane Zootechnical, 12 sam777sam@yandex.ru

Introduction.

The defining linguistic feature of the Internet environment has become the formation of an adaptive basis for the linear structure of the text to the nonlinear associative connections of ideas in the human brain. On this basis, a new structural unit of text linguistics arose - hypertext.

The term “hypertext” was introduced by Ted Nelson in 1965 and is the object of study of most modern theories of language that analyze Internet communication and its genres. The main issues of hypertext communication were considered in the works of M.M. Subbotin (1988, 1994), T. Nelson (1993), O.V. Dedova (2003), G.N. Trofimova (2004), R.K. Potapova (2005), in line with the theory of speech genres - P.V. Moroslin (2010), V.A. Shulginov (2014) and others. However, despite the large number of works devoted to the study of hypertext and its organization, there is currently no single and generally accepted typology of hypertext in the context of the professional variety of blogs.

The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that a professional blog as a type of blog is generally characterized by a hypertext organization of material, because сarries attributes of hypertext as a structural unit of Internet communication.

The purpose of the study is to identify the hypertext features of a professional type of blog in the Internet space.

The object of the study is a corporate blog as a structural unit of hypertext.

Description and continuous sampling methods were chosen as specific research methods. The research material for identifying hypertext features was the text units of 3 corporate blogs of large foreign companies, maintained in English: General Electric blog, Google blog, REI co-op blog.

Results.

The main structural feature of hypertext is the ability to maintain its network form while simultaneously taking on a semantically ordered form of text. It is worth pointing out that the key principle of the existence of language in Internet communication is the principle of stepwise development of text. Schematically, the unfolding of the text can be depicted in this way: a post title with a link - a title with a brief annotation - part of a text fragment (several parts of the text can be opened sequentially) - the full text of the post ^{[1, p. 37]}.

A hyperlink is the main element of the hypertext structure that links text between its fragments. The definition of a hypertext link is significant for understanding the coherence and integrity of hypertext in the Internet environment.

A professional type of blog in the Internet space is a special form of hypertext organization, which is characterized by a set of structural, content and linguistic features. The structural and content features of a professional blog are based on the functional parameters of hypertext as a structural unit of Internet communication. The variety of hypertexts determines the structure, goals, content and functions of Internet communication genres ^{[3, p. 25]}.

The main characteristic of hypertext is the ability, while maintaining its network character, to transform into the form of a sequence of statements ordered by meaning, into the form of text. Text formation in a professional blog is based on settings of the collective professional community, i.e. by the companies themselves in the field of professional communications, which directly create texts posted on blogs. Hypertext is always a non-linearly structured text, the key elements of which are consistant texts or its fragments. Non-linearity implies that after reading each snippet, the text is branching out, that gives to a reader different possible ways of choosing further move through the text ^{[2, p. 28]}. A professional blog is characterized by a nonlinear structure, openness, branching, has many inputs and outputs, reading options, and is a relatively endless and voluminous form of hypertext organization ^{[10, p. 202]}.

The hypertext structure of modern professional blogs is characterized by dynamism and variability, includes a wide range of hypertext elements and widgets, but in general is presented in the form of a post title, post author information, post date, author (post) notes, links to social networks to share this article, as well as links to add comments to the post (which most often can only be left by registered users):

Fig. 1 The professional blog structure

Рис. 1. Структура профессионального блога

Comments on blog posts most often have the following structure:

Fig. 2. The structure of a professional blog comment

Рис. 2. Структура профессионального комментария в блоге

Comments in blog communications can have a tree structure. This type of comment allows you to respond not only to the post itself, but also to engage in polemics between the commentators themselves, for which you need to use the "Reply" link. As a result, the replier’s comment appears directly next to the previous comment. The presence of a tree structure stimulates controversy between users, for example, in the professional blog of General Electric:

Fig. 3. Tree structure of a professional blog comment

Рис. 3. Древовидная структура комментария профессионального блога

An important element of the hypertext information organization in a professional blog is the peculiarities of the post title wording. The blogs title accomplishes the specific functions. “In a fragmentary hypertext due to the specifics of the generation and perception of the text, data retrieval, the title role is updated. Unlike traditional book titles, an electronic title is multifaceted. It has new forms and very significant functions, the main of which is to provide comfortable and successful navigation” ^{[4, p. 38]}.

The key function of the title is to attract readers' attention to the author's article and it is organised as an independent sentence with the excerpt from the article on the first page and a link of hypertext to full version:

Fig. 4. Fragment of the REI co-op company blog (https://www.rei.com/blog)

Рис. 4. Фрагмент блога компании REIco-op (https://www.rei.com/blog)

The post text is a very important starting point in a particular segment of blog communication because sets its tone, provokes readers to comment. Professional blogs visitors get acquainted with the information presented on them about a new service or company's products, follow the links provided and optionally leave their comments about what they have read. Also, the texts of posts can contain various photographs, diagrams, advertisements and even attached audio and video files that perform an expressive function, forming a visual, structural, semantic and functional whole, aimed at a complex impact on the addressee. The informational and pragmatic "capacity" of non-verbal means in the blog texts structure is often even higher than that of verbal ones. Take one example, an author’s post of the REI co-op blog has an attached audio file that you can listen to:

Fig. 5. Fragment of the REI co-op company blog (https://www.rei.com/blog/)

Рис. 5. Фрагмент блога компании REIco-op (https://www.rei.com/blog/)

The author and users on the company blog are in an asymmetric relation of exchange, i.e. the author creates a post and viewers leave their comments, in addition, posts and comments can be kept for an long period of time, which specifies the scope of professional blog. Blog updates every time there is a new comment or entries. The professional blog author administrates the design and content of the post.

A significant blog feature is the violation of text cohesion, which can occur in properties as eclecticism, compliance with the principles of collage and non-selection, which are peculiar to all nonclassical texts. Eclecticism is the unification of disparate, often opposite views, principles, phenomena, elements, etc., into something that is unacknowledged as a unity. Non-selection is marked by a lack of a hierarchy, the rejection of choosing specific linguistic resources, and breaking of traditional cohesion and antinomy ^{[8, p. 87]}. The collage principle specifies the non-transformation of the content features of the blog hypertext.

A professional type of blog is marked by a syntactic articulation, discrete structure, a large number of multimedia, graphic tools and hyperlinks.

The blog hypertext structure suggests the possibility of free entry into the text in any place and random movement through the snippets of text. You can get into the text blog by typing needed email address in the browser from the site page ^{[5, p. 32]}. In a professional type of blog, the diary text content and structure changes considerably, the author’s figure looks different, the distance between the reader and author decreases, the attention is shifted from the work to the creative process.

A professional type of blog is a hypertext which along with the features of openness, non-linearity, branching, dynamism, has a framework that includes a superstructure – an organised blog scheme; macrostructure – posts arranged in reverse chronological order and separated from each other by a date; microstructure - a single post and comments to it.

A hyperlinkis the key structural snippet of a hypertext, a medium of communication between its parts. The concept of hyperlink is an essential element of the hypertext cohesion and integrity in a professional type of blog. Hyperlinks help to make text more interactive. Following the links leads us to our own resources and to web-pages of different resources. The blog is always a non-linearly structured text, constantly updated with new author hyperlinks, comments, gives users full freedom of textual navigation, allows you to select any reading sequence. The hyperlink sets in a professional type of blog also сonstitute a means of hypertext self-regulation, combines separate texts into a structure of hypertext.

Professional types of blog use different methods to organize links of hypertext:

- in proper names (names of training programs, firms, institutes, products, etc.), for example:

«A final year student at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), 19-year-old Ng Jia Xuan discovered Google Career Certificates (GCC), a flexible online training program that equipped her with the fundamentals of Data Analytics. The professional certification helped her to land a 10-week internship with Altanium, a technology consultancy firm, as a Data Analytics intern. Jia Xuan felt a great sense of accomplishment when she earned recognition from her internship supervisors for her abilities that she picked up through the program, from Structured Query Language (SQL) to data applications and business operations» ^[12].

– to the names of famous people or brand names, for example on the REI co-op professional blog:

● «Manzella mittens: I love my thin, fleece-lined mittens to the moon and back. They block the wind, but the material also breathes so you don’t get too sweaty.

● Hestra leather mittens with wool liner: Also known as “choppers” in the Midwest. These are nice and warm! A perk is that the liner can come out so that you can use the leather mitten as a shell layer or just a wind-protective layer.

● Helly Hansen mittens: Ultra warm, no liner, good for a really, really cold day.

● Black Diamond shell mitten. These are good with a thin layer beneath to keep the wind off, or as an extra heat-trapping layer with thicker mittens. Don’t let the thin design deceive you» ^[13].

- verbal, nominal and adverbial phrases, as well as whole sentences that cover a particular event, for example, on the Google blog:

«Phone Hub in ChromeOS makes it easy to view and respond to your Android phone’s notifications from messaging apps directly from your laptop. In addition to staying in touch, Chromebooks are packed with productivity features that help you get more done with your Android phone like grabbing the latest photos from your phone's camera roll, sending files with Nearby Share or sharing and connecting to saved Wi-Fi networks » ^[12].

The specific character of hyperlinks in a professional type of blog is that they serve not only as an integrative element that builds up the hypertext structure, but also create the content, thereby accomplishing an informative function. Besides that, hypertext links have an influence function since the frequency of their using impacts on the involving in the professional blogging common format and the level of communicants’ knowledge.

Links of hypertext are the crucial components of the blog framework and added into the text by the site authors and commentators of a professional type of blog. A lot of hyperlinks compromise the integrity, semantic sequence, semantic unity, forming a multi-way blog hypertext. Hyperlinks are both an elements that build the content and structural block, for example:

«Many of these improvements are possible thanks to our invention of Transformer in 2017. Considered the grandparent of modern language models, we’re now able to build AI language models (like BERT, PALM, MUM, and LaMDA) on top of this architecture that can do everything from solve complex math word problems, answer questions in new languages, and express their reasoning through words using chain of thought prompting» ^[12].

The hyperlinks quantity in the texts of blogs, the methods of highlighting them largely depend on the editors or authors. However, there is a tendency - the more informative article is, the more often hyperlinks are appeared in the text.

The author of blog attracts interest among correspondents to his project which is why links of hypertext become a main development factor in the posts topic and affect their content. The text hyperlinks set is a network structured according to associative-semantic connection and including all comments, entries, additional graphic, verbal and multimedia texts.

Text comments on posts of the blog, like the posts themselves, may include hyperlinks to additional information sources: «For more information on Google products check out support at findfoodsupport.withgoogle.com». Commentators participate actively in creating a text of the blog, complementing the theme, including new hyperlinks, establishing transitions between texts, which means, they are full co-authors.

Analyzing the texts of professional blogs, it can be noted that there are various semantic relationships between the hyperlink and the text associated with it.

The objects for creating hyperlinks can be various elements, but the most common are text and graphic elements. You can convert both the whole figure and its part into a hyperlink, as a single word in the page text, as well as entire sentences and paragraphs.

Discussion.

MM. Subbotin, the first Russian researcher dealing with hypertext issues, describes hypertext as “a combination of a semantic structure, the structure of internal connections of some content, and a technical environment, technical means that enable a person to master the structure of semantic connections, to make transitions between interconnected elements” ^{[4, p.42]}.

T.I. Ryazantseva considers hypertext in Internet communication as “a special type of written communication, a special form of organization of written text, mediated by a computer environment and characterized by the process of nonlinear writing and reading” ^{[3, p. 12]}.

P.V. Moroslin characterizes hypertext as a structural unit that covers and connects various types of information on the Internet; he calls a hypertext document a set of pages connected by hyperlinks, the peculiarity of which is that this set can be viewed in a certain order, moving along hyperlinks ^{[2, p. 130]}.

V.A. Shulginov determines the genre of electronic hypertext, determining the specifics of the functioning of its structural units, in particular, such a basic unit as a hyperlink. In his opinion, “a link, being the main means of genre stratification of electronic hypertext, becomes the key to describing a specific genre, as well as the entire genre diversity of computer-mediated communication” ^{[5, p. 18]}.

Despite the large number of works devoted to the study of hypertext, its organization and genre, there is currently no single and generally accepted typology of hypertext in the context of the professional variety of blogs; its creation is one of the priority tasks of modern researchers due to the rapid development of blog technologies.

Conclusion.

Thus, a professional blog is a special form of hypertext organization built on a framework and regularly updated with new author comments and hyperlinks. A professional type of blog is specifically designed for communicative user’s interaction, during which the author of posts and users have equal communicative rights. A lot of author's blogs form a polylogue cycle, in which the totality of reactions, appeals, comments and replies to comments form a hypertext space.

The prospect for further research on hypertext may be a more thorough study of its structural characteristics, as well as an analysis of electronic hypertext in the context of the professional variety of blogs.