HASHTAG AS A UNIT OF INTERNET DISCOURSE: COGNITIVE AND PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Internet discourse is a multifaceted phenomenon studied by a number of sciences from different perspectives. In any type of discourse, the choice of syntactical structure and lexical units is determined by pragmatics of communication and is dependent on the speaker’s intention. The same is true for blogs. This paper undertakes to look into cognitive mechanisms underlying the creation or choice of hashtags in Instagram blogs. The analysis was based on collected corpus of 2000 hashtags including those in English and Russian. Instagram accounts under study included those with the number of followers ranging from 5000 to 200 million. Among them were accounts of celebrities (who are famous due to their profession and take blog as a way of communication with their fans) and “proper” bloggers (whose blogs are their job and main activity). The study resulted in a classification of hashtags distinguished with regard to their form, communicative intention of the author and cognitive mechanisms employed in choosing them. Thus 1) prototype hashtags aim to express involvement or belonging and may be based on the cognitive mechanism of implication; 2) performative hashtags are based on profiling and show intention of highlighting one component of a blogger’s image; 3) imperative hashtags are based on profiling as well and aim to encourage some action on the part of followers; 4) metaphoric hashtags are based on cognitive metaphors and usually serve self-representation; 5) topical hashtags include a number of subtypes and may be based on generalization, perspectivization, focusing or elaboration and serve as topical markers or means of consolidation with other topically related accounts; 6) category hashtags are based on concretization and serve to navigate within one blog; 7) summarizing hashtags are based on inference and aim to provide a summary or a conclusion; 8) metatext hashtags are based on composition and seek to link with already known hashtags adding new characteristics, knowledge or meaning to the precedent message. The choice of hashtags by each blog author appears to be dependent on the number of followers and the type of blog.