MEMETICS AS ONE OF THE FORMS OF INTERNET TEXT PRECEDENCE

Introduction

Precedence is one of the characteristics not only of the text, but also of the linguistic personality, who turns to precedent phenomena when generating their own message. The precedent text refers to the "facts of culture" and is associated with cultural values of a certain period of the historical development of society. Therefore, a thorough study of the precedent text is relevant at any time and in any field of linguistics.

The sources of the precedent phenomenon may indicate the belonging of a linguistic personality to a certain type of speech culture, the use of precedent texts is one of the characteristic features of a linguistic personality, reflecting education, social status, professional affiliation, level of culture, etc. [6].

V.P. Belyanin speaks of precedence as the presence in the text of references to other texts [1]. N.V. Nemirova believes that precedence is manifested in how it is customary in national culture to perceive and evaluate certain historical events and personalities, myths, art monuments, characters of literature and cinema [5].

V.V. Krasnykh considers the object of studying the phenomenon of precedent to be "speech, spontaneous, improvisational" texts [3, P. 224]. According to the author, the speech does not use the precedent text itself since it belongs to the cognitive base of the recipient. Such a text is stored as an invariant of perception in the mind of an individual belonging to a certain national-linguocultural community, and, accordingly, is not linguistic, but cognitive in nature. In speech, obviously, other phenomena are used, such as precedent names and statements that act "as symbols of precedent texts." [3, P. 225].

Yu. N. Karaulov, who was the first to introduce the term "precedent text", emphasizes its importance for a person in emotional or cognitive terms. Such a text is well known not only to the person himself, but also to the people around him, his predecessors and contemporaries. The precedent text is repeatedly referred to "in the discourse of a given linguistic personality" [2, P. 215].

The author also speaks of "typicality" as one of the basic characteristics that distinguish the precedent text: "the speakers know about it in one way or another" [2, P. 216].

Due to the well-known and typical character of the precedent text, such a feature as "reinterpretability" is also manifested, due to which the precedent text goes beyond the limits of verbal creativity, where it was originally born, and is embodied in other types of arts.

So, the precedent texts, being widespread and typical, are cognitively and emotionally valuable; such texts are reinterpreted. The result of the combination of these characteristics is the fact that the precedent texts are a "fact of culture" [2, P. 217].

Describing the characteristic features of the precedent text, many researchers talk about such traits as deicticity, auto-semantics and reinterpretability (i.e., "multiple repetition in the intertextual series"). It is believed that it is possible to extract the precedent text from the source text without losing its aesthetic and cognitive value, and to use the extracted text further as an independent statement in the form of a separate mini-text or in other texts.

The characterization of precedence is used by the authors of the texts of modern print [3] and electronic [9] editions; this phenomenon is especially clearly traced in computer-mediated communication (on the Internet). At the same time, multimedia as a distinctive feature of the Internet communication makes it possible to use not only the verbal text, but also its non-verbal, pictorial component as a precedent.

If we consider the precedent text within the framework of the semiotic approach, then this concept can be interpreted quite broadly. V.V. Krasnykh believes that the system of precedent texts includes both verbal and non-verbal precedents (works of art: sculpture, painting, music, architecture, etc.) [3].

A number of researchers (G.G. Slyshkin and M.A. Efremova among them) see a precedent text as any arbitrary sequence of sign units, which is distinguished by coherence and integrity and has "value significance for a certain cultural group" [7, P. 53]. Thus, texts containing video or images can also be classified as precedent texts. Such texts are usually called creolized, or polycode, precedent texts.

An example of such a polycode precedent text are the posts (texts posted on the Internet) which contain not only a verbal text, but also a precedent pictorial component: for example, the image of the now former US representative to the UN, Colin Powell, showing his colleagues a test tube with powder, ostensibly evidence of the production of chemical weapons by Iraq, has become synonymous with groundless accusations. This image is accompanied by all sorts of verbal text: "Looks impressive, but hard to believe", "The most expensive washing powder", "You want proof? We have some!"

Speaking about the precedent text in the verbal part of the text of the post itself or users’ comments to it, the most common here are the quotes from works of art and films. For example [8], “Based on the 'testimony' of a talking parrot, an American woman was found guilty of murder. Long live the American court, the most humane court in the world! " – the interpretation of the phrase from the famous film by Leonid Gaidai "Prisoner of the Caucasus", which in the original sounds like "Long live our court, the most humane court in the world!"

"All Quiet on the Western Front: shelling of the outskirts of Donetsk continues" – the text of the post uses the title of the work of Erich Maria Remarque.

One of the most interesting phenomena that has become widespread on the Internet and is characteristic mainly for network communication is the Internet meme.

It is customary to consider a meme as a kind of replicator, an imitation that conveys certain ideas and images. In a broad sense, it is an object of culture (often intangible), a unit of cultural information that is widely disseminated, popular, transmitted and stored in society. In turn, the Internet meme is a unit of information that has become widespread in the Internet-mediated environment.

Undoubtedly, not any information is subject to such dissemination on the network, but only that which is emotionally attractive to the reader. In this case, the evoked emotions may not necessarily be positive: sometimes indignation and anger in the reactions of the recipients of information are so strong that the phrase that caused such a violent reaction turns into a meme. However, in most cases, after the emotions have subsided, the phrase takes on a humorous / mocking meaning and produces a comic effect.

One of the relatively recent memes that have received incredibly wide distribution on the Internet, and especially in the microblogging service Twitter, and have become one of the most popular hashtags, was the phrase of the Prime Minister of Great Britain Theresa May “highly likely ”). In the original, the words of the politician sounded as follows: “‘Highly likely’ Russia is responsible for spy’s poisoning by nerve agent”.

The first reaction to such an unsubstantiated accusation was indignation. Users left the following comments under the news: “Most likely? What a clown!”, “Yeah, good ol’ Brits, kind of low", "Close the British embassy in Russia!", " It's time to put the Brits in their place!", " Highly likely?! The Anglo-Saxons have completely lost their fear!", “What a level of evidence. Gosh. Highly likely".

With the development of events and the appearance of even more strange versions of poisoning (for example, with buckwheat), users began to invest irony, mockery and sarcasm in the meme. The examples of subsequent reactions are the comments: "Yeah, Boris 'poodle' Johnson and Teresa 'highly likely' May”, “We bet that they have also found a poisoned balalaika and earflaps?”, “Yes, Teresa is not Margaret at all ... Not Thatcher, highly likely".

It is interesting that the meme is also used in correspondence completely abstracted from politics: “Today are very highly likely having a barbecue”, “I’ll buy these sneakers. Veeeeery highly likely".

Conclusion

It is difficult to say how long the described meme will last in the Internet communication. Some memes "wander" around the network for years and do not lose their relevance. Others are forgotten as soon as the event or character with which they were associated becomes uninteresting. In any case, the study of the "life" of such phenomena has its own prospects in the study of linguistic, as well as psycho- and sociolinguistic fields.