Precedent phenomena in online blog posts

The article presents the analysis of different types of precedent phenomena in the genre of online blog posts. The author defines a network blog as a macrogenre of Internet communication and a post as its microgenre. The author describes the main characteristics of online posts peculiar to other Internet genres and establishes the consistency of their genre features with the use of precedent units in online posts. Precedent units, possessing the features of recognition, evaluativeness, expressivity, hypertextuality, expand and deepen the semantic content of the genre under study, contribute to the realization of the main task of the online post – attracting and retaining the attention of the audience – and serve as one of the important means of textual organization of this genre. In the genre of the network post different types of precedent units are used: for example, precedent statements, precedent names, appeals to precedent situations and precedent texts. The predominant type of precedent units in online posts are precedent statements, the sources of which, as a rule, are phraseology and paremiology, which are units of the national cultural fund (national precedent phenomena). These features are determined by the peculiarities of the Internet communication, as well as the orientation of the studied posts in online blogs to Russian users. It is hypothesized that the predominance of precedent statements – the most explicit forms of precedence – is related to the remote nature, the mass audience and the written form of the online post. The author compares precedent phenomena in the genre of online post and the use of precedent units in other spheres of communication (Russian dialect and literary-spoken discourse) and reveals a number of similarities and differences due to the discursive features of communication, as well as the socio-cultural differentiation of Russian-speaking society.