Cultural scenarios of thinking and internet genre of etiquette (on the online greetings in four cultures)
This article analyses online greetings in the Russian, Polish, Lithuanian and German languages. The author treats greetings as a speech act which helps the addresser to remind the addressee of his/her good attitude towards him/her on the basis of a particular occasion - the addressee's birthday. The author analyses this speech act in relation to the specific communicative and mental scenarios of the culture to which the speaker belongs. The entirety of standard speech acts and the combination of intentions of the speakers form a genre. The genre of modern online greetings seems contiguous to folklore genres, because most of the texts do not have authors. Moreover, these texts move from one Internet site to another, resulting in a wide circle of “implementers” - users. The author distinguishes some typical characteristics of online greetings among the four cultures and relates the detected specific features of online greetings to the ideas of philosophers and historians on the unique means of expressing one's national character.