On genre diversity of contemporary popular science texts about language

INTRODUCTION . Currently, popular science text has significantly expanded its sphere of distribution and demonstrates a wide variety of formats, means, and channels of information transmission. The system of genres of popular science has changed due to the technological development and now requires an empirical description and theoretical understanding. The aim of the study is to describe the genre diversity of contemporary popular science content (on the example of texts about language) and to identify the genre-distinctive characteristics of such texts. MATERIALS AND METHODS . The research has been conducted on materials of popular science texts about language published in 2015–2024 on social media (such as «Telegram», «VKontakte», «Zen»). Functional method, traditional descriptive method, methods of communicative-pragmatic, discursive, and functional-stylistic analysis of texts have been used in the research. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION . The study significantly supplies and specifies the genre system of contemporary popular science content, identifies, describes and classifies new genres. A valuable result of the study is the development of a methodology for analyzing the genres of popular science text, which is based on T.V. Shmeleva’s concept and at the same time goes beyond it. The algorithm of analysis includes the following parameters: communicative purpose of the text; communicative positions of the author and addressee; preceding and following contexts; volume and structure of the text (the general composition of the structure and the degree of its formalization); the degree of interactivity and creolization of the text; and linguistic and linguistic features. CONCLUSION . The application of the developed algorithm allows not only to characterize a number of genre realizations of modern popular science content, but also to present them in the form of a system. The materials and results of the work can be demanded in the process of studying functional and stylistic varieties of the Russian language, institutional types of discourse, as well as in the professional practice of creating popular science texts, which determines the practical significance of the study.