Variability of colon and dash usage in English and Russian internet business discourse contexts

The article analyzes features of such punctuation signs as colon and dash in English and Russian contexts of Internet business discourse. The relevance of the study is explained by the growth of punctuation marks variability. The colon and the dash can implement a wide range of functional tasks, the presence of which depends on the context of discourse and language segment of Internet. The object of the analysis under study is the features of colon and dash in the communicative situations of formal and informal contexts of Internet business discourse with a various structural organization: conjuntionless, simple, complex and compound sentences. A wide variation of colon and dash in contexts of Internet business discourse is connected not so much with violations of normative rules and regulations of punctuation marks usage, as with the introduction of an individual approach of communicants towards their written messages and can be regarded as the result of their personal preference. In the course of the study typological and specific linguistic features of colon and dash variability were revealed. In the Russian Internet segment of formal and informal contexts of Internet business discourse the recurrence of colon and dash had a similar character. In the English context of Internet business discourse the recurrence of the analyzed punctuation marks showed dependence on the functional and stylistic formats of implementation. It was proved that the usage of colon and dash varies in recurrence, volume and range of functional tasks, and also has a functional-stylistic dependence on the structural organization of sentences. Union-free complexes got a leading position in the variety and volume of the functional load that colon and dash can have: a total number of functional tasks performed and fixed in the English and Russian contexts of Internet business discourse was 17. Communicative situations of simple sentences, as well as complex and compound ones, reflected similarity in the compared languages in respect of the number of functions realized by colon and dash, but showed variation in quality. In conclusion it was stressed that a) the usage of colon and dash has functional and stylistic dependence and varies in the contexts of Internet business discourse of formal and informal contexts both in Russian and English; b) the number and range of functional tasks expressed by colon and dash also vary in each language system; c) the actualization of functional meanings, both grammatical and semantic, can be differentiated by the degree of recurrence and is influenced by a concrete communicative situation.

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