Comment on Social Networking Sites as a Result of Dialogization (Based on the Material of Internet Comments on Vaccination Against COVID-19)
This article regards a comment as one of the possible results of the dialogization process, along with writing a personal message, saving a post message, and “like” / “dislike” and “share” reactions. Since the process of dialogization in the form of a comment on social networks is usually not regulated in terms of number of characters (length) and does not have a rigid structure, and the rules of using language correspond to the universal good manners, it can be assumed that the translation of thoughts into text is carried out almost instantly. The described features of the process of comment dialogization on social networks allow them to be considered as a representation of everyday consciousness and make it possible to study them in the sociolinguistic aspect as well. This aspect suggests that it is possible to make predictions about the development of public events on the basis of a qualitative and quantitative analysis of comments. To illustrate the sociolinguistic aspect of exploration of Internet comments, the authors have chosen practical material from the RIA Novosti group on the Instagram social network, which includes an appeal to the Russian citizens of President Vladimir Putin about vaccination against the coronavirus infection (April 2021). The analysis of the comments has led to the conclusion that there is no clearly dominant response strategy. Along with the user comments about their successful vaccination and the recommendations to follow their example, one can often come across comments demonstrating the fear of the citizens associated with vaccination, as well as comments indicating disbelief in the president's words about the need for vaccination. The results obtained via the linguistic analysis carried out allow the author to make a prediction about the low rates of vaccination in the country, which is confirmed at the present time (autumn 2021).