Научная статья на тему 'Cohesion of American and British political hypertexts in web-format'

Cohesion of American and British political hypertexts in web-format Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
ГИПЕРТЕКCТЫ / ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИЙ ДИСКУРС / КОГЕЗИЯ / СРЕДСТВА КОГЕЗИИ / ТИПЫ КОГЕЗИИ / РЕЦИПИЕНТ / HYPERTEXTS / POLITICAL DISCOURSE / COHESION / MEANS OF COHESION / TYPES OF COHESION / RECIPIENT

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Pavlova Daria Andreevna, Kameneva Veronica Alexandrovna

This paper defines cohesion from the perspective of hypertext; it studies the means of cohesion in order to identify the most frequent ones in political discourse used for drawing and holding attention of a recipient; and it identifies the functions of cohesion. The paper defines the term “cohesion” and singles out the means of cohesion in hypertext political discourse. The material for this research is two British and three American websites: Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain, Republican Party of the USA, the web-sites of the UK Parliament, the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. The data were integrated and analyzed to identify predominant means of cohesion. As a result the functions of each cohesion kind in relation to recipient were identified. The methods of the research were general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis and comparison, as well as linguistic methods of vocabulary definition, discursive and interpretative analysis of hypertext characteristics

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Текст научной работы на тему «Cohesion of American and British political hypertexts in web-format»

РАЗДЕЛ 5. ЗАРУБЕЖНЫЙ ОПЫТ

УДК 811.111. '42

ББКШ143.21-51 ГСНТИ 16.21.27; 16.21.55 Код ВАК 10.02.19

Д. A. Павлова, В. A. Каменева

Кемерово, Россия

КОГЕЗИЯ АМЕРИКАНСКИХ И БРИТАНСКИХ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИХ ГИПЕРТЕКСТОВ

АННОТАЦИЯ. Данная статья раскрывает понятие когезии с точки зрения гипертекста, выявляет наиболее часто используемые средства когезии для привлечения и удержания внимания реципиента в рамках политического дискурса, а также определяет функции каждого вида когезии. В работе дано уточненное определение термину «когезия», выделены и проанализированы средства когезии политического дискурса гипертекстового формата. В качестве материала исследования были выбраны два британских и три американских веб-сайта: веб-сайт Республиканской партии США, Консервативной партии Великобритании, веб-сайт Парламента Великобритании, а также веб-сайты сената и палаты представителей США. Полученные сведения были синтезированы, что позволило выявить превалирующие средства когезии в американских и британских политических гипертекстах. Главными методами исследования были выбраны общенаучные методы анализа, синтеза и сравнения, так же как и лингвистические методы словарных дефиниций, дискурсивный и интерпретативный анализ гипертекстовых характеристик. КЛЮЧЕВЫЕ СЛОВА: гипертекcты; политический дискурс; когезия; средства когезии; типы когезии; реципиент.

СВЕДЕНИЯ ОБ АВТОРАХ: Павлова Дарья Андреевна, магистрант, Юридический институт, Кемеровский государственный университет; 650000, Россия, г. Кемерово, ул. Терешковой, 40; e-mail; pavlovadaria93@mail.ru.

Каменева Вероника Александровна, доктор филологических наук, профессор кафедры английской филологии, Кемеровский государственный университет; 650000, Россия, г. Кемерово, ул. Красная, 6, корп. 6, к 6409; e-mail; russia_science@mail.ru.

Current linguistics deals actively with communicative processes in different life spheres. Political communication isn't an exception. Internet-communication spread widely due to technological progress as well as special kind of text — hypertext. This term was first used by Ted Nelson, which he defined as a complete text being a system of texts arranged in a hierarchical fashion [Nelson 1965; 1983]. Hypertext is a document, which presents nonlinear structure of ideas contrary to standard linear structure of books, films and speech. Last decades large number of papers was devoted to the problem of hypertext and its characteristics within political discourse. Such authors should be mentioned J. Nielsen [Nielsen 1990], N. K. Radina [Radina 2016], A. A. Pushkov [Pushkov 2011], E. V. Zi-kova [Zikova 2010], O. N. Morozova [Morozova 2012], E. A. Popov [Popov 2015], A. R. Safina [Safina 2012] and others.

As hypertext is a block of hypotexts, the cohesion issue appears to be very important. Although not all scientists agree that hypertext is a text and can be analyzed from textuality point of view. Since cohesion is one of the most important characteristics, it was studied by such researchers as N. E. Enkvist [Enkvist 1985], M. A. K. Halliday, R. Hasan [Halliday 1976], L. Vo-borzhil [Voborzhil 1998], F. U. Zhabbarova [Zhab-barova 2011], I. A. Illyna [Illyna 2009], O. V. Kasa-chenko [Kasachenko 2009] and others.

Not a lot of scientists studied cohesion from the perspective of hypertext. E. A. Suhovalova researched cohesion and coherence from the perspective of English political discourse, but as a material for the study this scientist took text in its traditional form and characterized all possible means of cohesion [Suhovalova 2010].

Yu. V. Danushina studied macrostructure of discourse, its cohesion according to different definitions of several linguists. This author also analyzed realization ways of syntactic-semantic cohesion of American corporative discourse structure by studying hypertext of international oil and gas company ExxonMobil [Danushina 2009].

Since hypertext exists studying of cohesion becomes essential from the perspective of cohesion means and how these means draw and hold recipient's attention, how do they help him/her to follow the idea of a political hypertext. Recipient's ability to acquire information changes with communicative processes by the time and influence of technological progress. Natural, that almost every recipient of political hypertext is potential voter and since he changes, designers of political hypertexts are forced change the way of presenting the information. That's why it is rather important to study cohesion means to understand which and how help designers to draw and hold recipient's attention.

Cohesion is one of the main criteria of tex-tuality. Common definition of cohesion doesn't exist and every scientist defines it from his/her point of view. Term cohesion was firstly introduced in 1976 by English linguists M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan. According to them cohesion is a set of significant relations, which is common for all the texts, which separates a text from a non-text, which is means to reveal interdependence of different parts [Halliday 1976]. This definition is rather narrow. Russian scientist I. R. Galperin defines cohesion as special kinds of connections, which provides continuum i. e. logical sequence, interdependence of separate messages, facts, actions [Galperin 1981]. According to M. L. Makarov cohesion is a crite-

© Павлова Д. A., Каменева В. A., 2018

ria of textuality, which characterizes formal connection of a text [Makarov 1998]. In the study of L. R. Bezuglaya cohesion is defined as sequence and switching of words and fragments within the text with the help of lexical and grammatical connections [Bezuglaya 2009]. N. V. Lukashevich defines cohesion as a total of lexical and grammatical means used for demonstration the connection between fragments of texts [Lukashevich 2010]. Dijk understands cohesion as a local connection, which connects linear sequences and is expressed by syntactic and semantic means between some sentences [Dijk 1977].

M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan talk about next kind of cohesion: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, lexical cohesion. It allowed us to divide them into 3 groups: grammatical cohesion (reference, substitution, ellipsis), lexical cohesion and transitive cohesion (conjunction) [Halliday 1976]. I. R. Galperin also includes in term cohesion different kinds of text connections, but he had more extend list: grammatical, logical, associative, figurative, compositional-structured, stylistic, rhythmical-formed. According to this scientist traditional grammatical means are conjunctions and connective words (that's why, although, as, therefore, as well as), all deictic means and participial phrases. Logical means of cohesion include adverbs (soon, before long, when), recitation forms (first, second), words, which are spatial characteristics of information (next to, near, not far, opposite), graphical means and numbers. All above mentioned logical means are united because they fit in with logical-philosophic ideas of sequence, temporal, spatial and cause-and-effect relations. This division is rather questionable, because the same part of speech is divided into different kinds of cohesion. Rhythmical-formed means of cohesion are very important only in the texts where rhythm and intonation make a big difference. Associative means (in the same way that, it reminded him, came back to his memory) are based on imaginative closing gaps, i.e. on subjective-attitudinal modality, retrospection and connotation. Figurative cohesion includes extended metaphors, which make recipient's imagination work. Compositional-structured means (insertion, aside, description of event which is not related to the main idea) usually ruin the sequence of the text and its logical structure. Stylistic kind of cohesion is supposed to repeat style in some text fragments [Galperin 1981].

Czech linguist L. Voborzhil identifies formal and graphical means of cohesion. Formal means of cohesion help to divide text into separate fragments, place text on the page, mark paragraphs and abstracts and organise head-

ings and crossheadings. Graphic means of cohesion are punctuation marks, which also have function in simple sentences as well as in complex and compound sentences [Voborzhil 1998]. T. V. Milevskaya presents 5 main kinds of cohesion, which include big number of means. The first kind, lexical, is understood as a sequence of references of the same extra-linguistic situation, which forms a nominative line. The main means is reiteration, which is repetitive and cohesive element, which is used not only in different fragments, but also in one fragment, thereby it emphasises completeness of construction from semantic point of view. Synonymous cohesion is a way of linear cohesion, accomplished by synonyms for new information about afore-mentioned object. Next kind is grammatical cohesion, which uses conjunctions, articles and demonstrative pronouns as its means. Deictic cohesion possesses means of morphological level, pronouns, modal words and particles. T. V. Milevskaya defines this kind as the most important, because author's intentions play a key role by writing a text and they can be shown with the help of deictic means of cohesion [Milevskaya 2003]. Syntactic cohesion is used for forming the constructions and cooccurrence of separate fragments. Syntactic means appear as a result of components cooccurrence of initial phrase formal structure. From viewpoint of structure and semantics initial structure can be predicted, ellipsis and parallelism can be used. Which kinds and means of cohesion are common for political hypertexts, which can draw and hold attention of the recipient the best is possible to find out only in the process of analysis [ibid.].

For authentic results political hypertexts of two English-speaking countries, the USA and Great Britain were chosen. One dominant party of every country was chosen: Republican Party of the USA and Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain. Political hypertexts of legislative authorities were taken for countercheck as well: Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate. There was a possibility to analyze means of cohesion by examining political hypertexts of different political systems and of different political levels.

All websites were considered as cohesive political hypertexts, which contained significant number of hypotexts. First, hypertext of political party was examined. Republican Party of the USA contained 1250 hypotexts, which were connected to each other by different means of cohesion. The size of this hypertext didn't simplify search of cohesive means. While studying theoretical material, next kinds of cohesion

were identified: grammatical, logical, associative, lexical, figurative, compositional-structured, stylistic, rhythmical-formed, transitive, event-related, syntactic, deictic, cohesion on the level of similar units and sign forms, cohesion of text attributes. According to our examination this hypertext possessed grammatical, logical, associative, lexical, compositional-structured, syntactic, deictic kinds of cohesion. The most used kind of cohesion turned to be compositional-structured 34,5%. Compositional-structured cohesion contained such means which didn't always logically connect hypotexts, therefore hypertext's structure could be changed or disturbed. Compositional-structured means included insertion, aside, description of event which is not related to the main idea. In our opinion, this kind of cohesion was transformed as a part of political hypertext and political discourse. It didn't only connect hypotexts, it organised information in the way it was clear and convenient for recipient to move from one information unit to the other (Platform, Preamble; Blogs; Government Reform; Action Center: Petitions; Surveys; Merchandise; Postcard Project; National Security Survey; Women's History Month Highlight: Dr. Ada Fisher; Wisconsin Primary Straw Poll; Mainstream Media Accountability Survey; 2016 Sustaining Membership Questionnaire). As it was noticed, most means were presented as a noun or nominative phrase with attributes. Next kind of cohesion turned to be syntactic 16%. It functioned on the sentence level with the help of ellipsis and parallelism. Both cohesive means were presented equally in this hypertext, 8% each. Parallelism of political hypertext was rather specific and connected hypotexts of the same significance (Stand with President Trump's Supreme Court Nominee; Stand with Team Trump; Stand for life; preserve Scalia's Legacy; Obama's Women Woes; Obama's PR Stunt; Obama's Broken Promise to NALEO; ObamaCare Burdening Women; Obama's wrong on Syrian Refugee; Obama's biggest failure survey). Second means was ellipsis — fragmental omission of information. Within political discourse it was call for some actions without any instructions but the recipient could understand it using his background knowledge (America resurgent; Veterans for Trump; Rocky Rodriguez on why he is a republican; Correcting the Record; Engaging with Hispanics; Black republican activities; Asian Pacific Americans; Veterans and military families; Agriculture, Energy, and the Environment; Great American Families, Education, Healthcare, and Criminal Justice).The third kind of cohesion 14,5% in this political hypertext was grammatical one. Grammatical cohesion allowed connecting fragments of hypertext in

specific text environment with the help of repetition of grammatical forms. Grammatical means included reference, substitution, conjunction, connective words, participial phrase, articles and demonstrative pronouns. But this exact hypertext had only two means of grammatical cohesion, substitution and usage of articles. Substitution was also used with the help of abbreviations GOP — Grand Old Party and RNC — Republican National Committee (GOP Faith; GOP Mil-lenials; RNC women; GOP Hispanics; GOP Presidential Focus Group; Official GOP Exit Poll; Official GOP Super Tuesday Exit Poll; The official GOP Pint glass). Substitution wasn't the only means of grammatical cohesion, there were also examples with definite article (The Platform Committee; Health Care, the American way; Restoring the American Dreams). Logical cohesion was presented by 9,2% of means: adverbs, citation, words having spatial and temporal characteristics, graphical means and numbers. These means were called logical because they followed common philosophical rules. Next means of cohesion were found in this political hypertext: adverbs, citation, words having spatial and temporal characteristics, graphical means and numbers. Examples (Learn more!; 50 years later) belonged to logical cohesion, since adverbs helped to connect definite hypotexts from the logical point of view. Next examples (Continue Reading; Jump to Platform; Jump to Republicans believe) contained verbs "continue" and "jump to", which were indicative of further information in the hypotext followed. Besides, citation of resolutions was identified according to their operative time (2013 Resolutions; 2014 Resolutions; 2015 Resolutions; 2016 Resolutions; 2017 Resolutions) which were also added to our list of means. Designers of this hypertext also used graphical means of cohesion in the block called State Leadership. It was possible to observe picture of the USA map, divided into all states, and by clicking every state you could see the information about all party representatives exactly in this state. 8,5% of examples (How will Christie win; Which did Jefferson say; Sign the pledge; Enter to win a trip to the next GOP debate; Receive less email; Poll: Did Obama underestimate ISIS) weren't allocated to any kinds, which made us think of political hypertext having its own special kind of cohesion. Associative cohesion had 7,5% of all the found means. This kind of cohesion functioned by making recipient use his/her imagination and compensate lack of information. Generally associative means were widely used by authors of literary texts, but it has emerged that this kind of cohesion was also possible to use within political discourse. Certainly, this kind of cohesion

was realized specifically with the help of such words as "remembering" and "same old" in examples (Remembering the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing; Same old Rhetoric from Democrats). Phrases which connected recipient's memory with certain events were also found (I'm Hillary's Enemy; Practice makes Perfect; Promise made, Promise kept). Another kind of cohesion was lexical one (6,7%). Lexical cohesion was based on usage of synonyms and reiterations for creating cohesion of the structure from semantic point of view. Both means were used equally: synonyms (MEMO Democrats' War on women; A Rebirth of Constitutional Government) and reiteration (New Year, New Congress, New Faces; Tell Hillary and Obama: Yes to Energy. Yes to Jobs). The last but not the least cohesion kind, which took only 3,2% of all means, was deictic. Deictic cohesion presented means of cohesion on the morphological level, there were pronouns, modal words and particles. Mostly used was pronominal reference, because it enabled the author to call the exact referent differently (All; We Want Your Opinion; Keep terrorists out of My Backyard; Nuestra Familia, Nuestra Economia; Take the Oath, Thank Our Troops).

For more consistent results about kinds and means of cohesion and connection to recipient's attention it was decided to examine political hypertexts of different level and political hypertexts of legislative authorities were chosen: the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate. These political hypertexts had several differences, but it was decided to examine them together to see all similarities and differences clearer. First, these hypertexts had different number of hypotexts: the United States House of Representatives — 820, the United States Senate — 2590. It was connected with differences in information given. But both hypertexts contained grammatical, logical, compositional-structured and syntactic kinds of cohesion. The United States Senate hypertext also included means of associative cohesion. The most means belonged to compositional-structured cohesion. Hypertext of the United States House of Representatives — 85% (Representatives (names 435); Transportation and Infrastructure; Leadership; Committees; Ways and Means; Joint Committee on the Library; Legislative Activity; The House Explained); Hypertext of the United States Senate-38,6% (Senators (100 names); Committees; Legislation & Records; Small Business and en-trepreneurship; Finance; Committee on Foreign Relations; Committee on Appropriations; Committee on Homeland Security). As next kind of cohesion identified was syntactic cohesion, which means took 38,6% — hypertext of the

United States Senate and 5% hypertext of the United States House of Representatives. Means of syntactic cohesion could be presented by ellipsis and parallelism, which were both found in hypertext of the United States Senate (Getting to the Capitol; Emergency Evacuation Information; One way a bill becomes a law; Withdrawn; Privileged; Confirmed; How to find congressional votes; How to find copies of bills; How to find bill numbers — parallelism. Treaties with Floor Status Action in the Current Congress; Treaties Approved; Treaties Received; Senate's Executive Calendar; Senate's Legislative Calendar; Executive Calendar; Senate Calendar; Pending on Executive Calendar; Pending in committee — ellipsis). But hypertext of the United States House of Representatives had only parallelism (Majority Leader; Democratic Leader; Majority Whip; Democratic Whip; Republican Conference Chairman; Republican Policy Committee Chairman; Democratic Caucus Chairman). Next kind of cohesion turned to be logical one, which was presented 6% in hypertext of the United States House of Representatives and 15,5% in hypertext of the United States Senate. Logical cohesion could be presented by such means: adverbs, citation, words having spatial and temporal characteristics, graphical means and numbers. It was found only two means of logical cohesion in the United States House of Representatives, unlike the United States Senate, which contained four means of cohesion. Examples (More; More House History; Learn more about majority and minority leaders from the Office of Clerk; Learn more about the history of House leadership) were identified as means of logical cohesion, since adverbs helped to connect definite hypo-texts from the logical point of view. Next examples (Additional State information; View past executive Calendars; View Past Calendars of Business: Read the full Senate Story; View the Campus Map; Go to the Clerk's site for more information about representatives) contained verbs "view" and "read", which were indicative of further information in the hypotext followed. These examples (Latest issue; Past issues) were presented by means expressing temporal characteristics of information. Besides, the hypertext of the United States Senate contained citation of Congresses, documents according to their operating time (2017 (115th, 1st); 2016 (114th, 2nd); 1989 (101st, 1st); 114th Congress; 104th Congress). Such examples were also met (Chapter 1—23; Article I — VII), which were identified as numeration of hypotexts. Finally, the last kind of cohesion, which was found in both political hypertexts, was grammatical cohesion: 4% — the hypertext of the United States House of Representatives; 2% — the

hypertext of the United States Senate. Grammatical means included reference, substitution, conjunction, connective words, participial phrase, articles and demonstrative pronouns. Next kind of means were found: substitution with the help of abbreviations (USAGov; USAJobs — the hypertext of the United States House of Representatives), demonstrative pronouns (These featured biographies — the hypertext of the United States Senate), definite article (Speaker of the House; To the President; To the Senate; On the Senate Floor; The Constitution grants unique power to the Senate; The Senate and the United States Constitution; The Constitution; The Bill of Rights; The Declaration of Independence — both). Unlike hypertext of the United States House of Representatives, the hypertext of the United States Senate had one more kind of cohesion used to draw recipient's attention. It was associative kind of cohesion (Resume on Congressional Activity; Oral history Project; Accessibility Services), which was presented by 1,5% of all means.

Three political hypertexts of American political system were studied, than it was important to double check the results for proving them right or wrong in relation to recipient. So next political hypertext examined by us was political hypertext of Conservative Party of Great Britain, which included 500 hypotexts, which were connected to each other by different means of cohesion. At the stage of counting hypotexts it was possible to see the difference between American and British hypertexts of political parties. American party contained two and half times more hypotexts, which gave us the right to suppose that the diversity of connections could be bigger, but it had to be checked. While studying this political hypertext, next kinds of cohesion were identified: grammatical, logical, associative, lexical, compositional-structured, stylistic, syntactic, deictic. It became clear that both American and British political hypertext had the same set of cohesion kinds. The most used kind of cohesion also turned to be compositional-structured 65%. Compositional-structured means included insertion, aside, description of event which is not related to the main idea. As it was mentioned above these means of cohesion were realized in specific way, not only connect hypotexts, but organising information in the way it was clear and convenient for recipient to move from one information unit to the other (Manifesto; Volunteer Code; Volunteer; Member's area; Privacy/terms of Use; Members of Parliament — all 317 members' names). The second kind of cohesion was logical one and its means had 10% of all the means. Logical cohesion could be presented by next means: adverbs, citation, words having spatial and tem-

poral characteristics, graphical means and numbers. Next means of cohesion in this political hypertext were found: adverbs, words having spatial and temporal characteristics, graphical means and numbers. Examples (Read more; Shop now) belonged to logical cohesion, since adverbs helped to connect definite hypo-texts from the logical point of view. Besides, words and dates were found, which were means presenting information from temporal point of view (Local Election 2017; Budget 2017; Unemployment remains at 11-year low). Examining block about party members having seats in Parliament, the alphabetic index was noticed, which was presented by 26 hyperlinks for each letter, which could be identified as graphical means of cohesion. Next kind of cohesion turned to be syntactic 8%. It functioned on the sentence level with the help of ellipsis and parallelism. Both cohesive means were presented equally in this hypertext, 8% each. Parallelism of political hypertext was rather specific and connected hypotexts of the same significance (Labour Property and Garden tax; Labour tax hikes; 12 point plan for Brexit; Plan for Brexit; Just 11 days; 11 days; Investing in technical education; Investing in Britain's Infrastructure; Negotiating objectives for Brexit: Customs; Brexit talks begin; Theresa May Florence Speech; Standing with Theresa May). Second means was ellipsis — fragmental omission of information (8 reasons; Self-driving lorries: Boost to School Funding; Confidence and Supply Agreement; Action to defeat Islamist Extremism; Real Action on Mental Health). Next kind of cohesion (6%) in this political hypertext was grammatical one. Grammatical means included reference, substitution, conjunction, connective words, participial phrase, articles and demonstrative pronouns. But this exact hypertext had only two means of grammatical cohesion, demonstrative pronouns and usage of articles. Examples with definite and indefinite articles were found (This Man could be PM; An Extraordinary Day; For a Brighter Future Vote Conservative; Plan for a Stronger Britain; The Right Brexit Deal; Fixing the Broken Housing Market). There was only one hypotext, which was connected to the others by a demonstrative pronoun (This Man could be PM). This kind of means wasn't detected in other hypertexts. Deictic cohesion (5%) presented means of cohesion on the morphological level, there were pronouns, modal words and particles. The only means used was pronominal reference (About Us; All collections; Our team; Work for us; Contact us; Our Record on Jobs; Our Digital Strategy; Our Plan for Britain; Martin Lewis on our Tuition Fees Policy; Your Choice at this Election; Our Plan for a Stronger Britain; Written by

Corbyn and Paid for by You; Why we Need General Election). One more kind of cohesion was lexical one (4%). Lexical cohesion was based on usage of synonyms and reiterations for creating cohesion of the structure from semantic point of view. This political hypertext presented us only synonyms, sometimes even metaphors (Coalition of Chaos; Corbyn and his Tax Shambles; Corbyn and his Comrades; The Queen's Speech; This man could be PM). As it was possible to notice the example "This man could be PM" contained lexical and grammatical kinds of cohesion. Associative cohesion had only 1% of all the found means. Example (Accessible manifesto versions) enabled a recipient to get acquainted with different forms of Manifesto, which was not clear from the hyperlink directly, but the recipient still could understand. The last example (Theresa May Will Protect Workers' Pensions from Irresponsible Bosses) couldn't be allocated to already known kinds of cohesion. That's why this example was identified as means of cohesion which existed only within political discourse. The same group of means was widely presented in political hypertext of American political party.

For the balance of our study, political hypertext of legislative authorities of Great Britain was examined as well. Political hypertext of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was chosen. This website included both upper and lower houses: the House of Lords and the House of Commons. This hypertext was examined from the point of its completeness and unity for recipient. Political hypertext of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was the biggest one examined by us in this paper, and consisted of 27600 hypotexts. Such a huge number was possible because this hypertext contained news block almost of 25000 news, each being a hyperlink transferred to hypotext. According to our examination this hypertext possessed grammatical, logical, lexical, compositional-structured, syntactic, deictic kinds of cohesion. Interesting was that the biggest group of means (36,2%) turned to be the group firstly found in political hypertext of Republican Party of the USA and wasn't allocated with known kinds of cohesion. Examples (What is the government's plan for British agriculture and Brexit?; Too little done to support farmers hit by late subsidy payments; Farmers, Small business and landlords provide evidence on tax; Have you say on the Immigration Bill; Treasury must investigate if post-Brexit tax powers can boost tourism; What's in the Parliamentary Archieves?; Does the Prime Minister have to resign?; Has there been a situation of no overall control before?; Who should I contact with my

issue?), which appeared in this group, generally, were affirmative or interrogative sentences with subject and predicate, without having any characteristics of other kinds of cohesion. The second kind of cohesion turned to be syntactic 32,6%. It functioned on the sentence level with the help of ellipsis and parallelism. This political hypertext possessed only one means of cohesion, parallelism. Parallelism of political hypertext is rather specific and connects hypotexts of the same significance (Brexit: farm animal welfare — short inquiry launched; UK agriculture — public goods post — Brexit; UK agriculture — trade post Brexit; UK agriculture — opportunities and challenges post Brexit; Lords debate UK rural economy; MPs debate on snares; Lords debate climate change; Lords debates sustainable development goals; Opposition debate on the Agricultural Wages Board; What the Lords does; What the Commons does). Logical cohesion was presented by 14,5% of means: adverbs, citation, words having spatial and temporal characteristics, graphical means and numbers. These means were called logical because they follow common philosophical rules. Examples (More action required to protect UK soil Health; Further Information; Back to top) belonged to logical cohesion, since adverbs helped to connect definite hypotexts from the logical point of view. Next examples (Join a learning programme; Get involved with the Lords; Read Parliamentary News: Autumn Statement 2016) contained verbs "join" and "get involved", which were indicative of further information in the hypotext followed. Next examples (Commons Business Briefings today; Commons Business Briefings this week; Commons Business Briefings next week) were presented by the means, which pointed out to temporal characteristics of information. Besides, this hypertext had citation of explanatory notes according to their operative time (Explanatory notes 2017/18; Explanatory notes 2016/17; Explanatory notes 2015/16) which were also added to our list of means. Except explanatory notes there was the same means used, but examples were different (Westminster Hall debates: 17 June 2014; Westminster Hall debates: 4 November 2014; Statement In Calais: 24 October 2016; Chapter 1—27). Designers of this hypertext also used graphical means of cohesion for alphabetical index (Commitees A-Z). Next kind compositional-structured cohesion (10,8%) contained such means which didn't always logically connect hypotexts, therefore hypertext's structure could be changed or disturbed. Compositional-structured means included insertion, aside, description of event which were not related to the main idea (Home; Parliamentary business; Parliamentary news; Agri-

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culture, animals, food and rural affairs; Asylum, immigration and Nationality; Business, Industry and Consumers; Communities and families; Crime, civil law, Justice and rights; Government and opposition; 650 names of MPs; 798 names of Lords). As it was noticed, most means were presented as a noun or nominative phrase with attributes. The other cohesion kind, which took only 3,6% of all means, was deictic. Deictic cohesion presented means of cohesion on the morphological level; there were pronouns, modal words and particles. Mostly used was pronominal reference, which was identified during the study (All parliamentary news; Her Majesty's Government; Her Majesty's Official Opposition; Meet our members; What we don't hold; The building & its collection; Other way to have your say; Have your say: Laws and debates; Ask your MP to present a petition; Hire your venue). Grammatical cohesion wasn't used very much, only 1,3%. Grammatical means included reference, substitution, conjunction, connective words, participial phrase, articles and demonstrative pronouns. This hypertext had only two means of grammatical cohesion, demonstrative pronouns (This week in the Commons: 24—28 October) and usage of definite and indefinite articles (The Speaker; The role and history; Working with the Speaker; The Board; The work of the House of Common; Working for an MP; Key Issues for the new Parliament; The building & its collection; Women and the vote). The last kind of cohesion was lexical and was presented only by 1% means (EU must act on illegal eggs, say MPs; Equali-Teas; Voice and Vote exhibition).

All hypertexts possessed compositional-structured means of cohesion, which happened to be mostly used at hypertexts of Republican Party of the USA (34,5%), Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain (85%), the United States Senate (38,6%). Only hypertext of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland had this kind of cohesion on the fourth place (10,8%). Political hypertexts include big amount of sketchy information, which has to be structured, so that recipient can find information he needs. It wouldn't be possible without compositional-structured means of cohesion, at least it would much more difficult. Syntactic cohesion also had a leading position. Political discourse often demands concretization of homogeneous information to avoid the repetition effect and losing attention of recipient. Grammatical and logical cohesion were equally often used. Means of cohesion oh these kinds were presented in all hypertexts. Lexical, associative, deictic kinds of cohesion were not so commonly used in political hypertexts. Most probably, the reason is that these

kinds of cohesion are typical for literary texts, and have more opportunities to be realized. Political discourse has its own peculiarities; the main goal of it is to inform eventual voters. Political discourse didn't have space for traditional associative and lexical means of cohesion to the full extent, that's why we met these means only limited and modified. Special group of means was presented by sentences, partly compound and complex. At first thought, this way to create hyperlinks is unusual, because the main idea of a hyperlink is to point out next information, not to tell complete hypotext. Nevertheless, designers of these websites aimed to have this exact effect. It is connected to technological progress and how recipient evolves with it. It's not possible to look through every hypotext during this period of high level of society automation. Probably that's the main reason why designers of political hypertexts try to put as much information as possible into a hyperlink, because they can't always hope, that the recipient will follow the hyperlink.

The findings. For this study cohesion was defined as an important textual characteristic of political hypertext, which describes linear connection of separate parts of hypertext with the help of lexical and grammatical connections between minimal parts.

Classifications of kinds and means of cohesion, which were given by I. R. Galperin, M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan, T. V. Milevs-kaja were analyzed. These scientists didn't always take the same basis for their classifications, as a result there wasn't a common classification which could help to describe cohesion completely. All kinds of cohesion, appeared in works above mentioned, were combined and next kinds were identified: grammatical, logical, associative, lexical, figurative, compositional-structured, stylistic, rhythmical-formed, transitive, event-related, syntactic, deictic, cohesion on the level of similar units and sign forms, cohesion of text attributes.

5 political hypertexts were studied and all means of cohesion were distinguished. To have more authentic results, political hypertexts of political parties and legislative authorities of Great Britain and the USA were chosen. 7 kinds of cohesion were identified: compositional-structured, syntactic, grammatical, logical, associative, lexical, and deictic. Kinds of cohesion from most used to less used:

1. compositional-structured;

2. syntactic;

3. grammatical, logical;

4. lexical, associative, deictic.

Besides all the kinds mentioned above, one special group of means was discovered, which couldn't be related to any of known kinds. And as

3 political hypertexts had these means of cohesion, they were separated to an independent group. Means of this cohesion were presented as hyperlinks, which contained sentences, sometimes even complex and compound sentences.

Compositional-structured cohesion helped the recipient not to get lost among big number of hyperlinks and build spatial sequence of information. Next kind of cohesion, syntactic, was realized by ellipsis and parallelism and enabled recipient to follow the connection of homogeneous hypotexts. Means of logical cohesion helped to build temporal sequence of hypotexts. Grammatical and deictic kinds of cohesion enabled recipient to follow connection of hypotexts on morphological level. Associative and lexical means of cohesion gave an opportunity to catch the emotional atmosphere and get on recipient's good side. Last group of means, presented by sentences, had special purpose to inform the recipient without him/her reading hypotext further.

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DATA COLLECTION

23. Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain. URL: https://www.conservatives.com/.

24. Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. URL: https://www.parliament.uk/.

25. Republican Party of the USA. URL: https://www.gop.com/.

26. United States House of Representatives. URL: https://www. house.gov/.

27. United States Senate. URL: https://www.senate.gov/.

D. A. Pavlova, V. A. Kameneva

Kemerovo, Russia

COHESION OF AMERICAN AND BRITISH POLITICAL HYPERTEXTS IN WEB-FORMAT

ABSTRACT. This paper defines cohesion from the perspective of hypertext; it studies the means of cohesion in order to identify the most frequent ones in political discourse used for drawing and holding attention of a recipient; and it identifies the functions of cohesion. The paper defines the term "cohesion " and singles out the means of cohesion in hypertext political discourse. The material for this research is two British and three American websites: Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain, Republican Party of the USA, the web-sites of the UK Parliament, the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. The data were integrated and analyzed to identify predominant means of cohesion. As a result the functions of each cohesion kind in relation to recipient were identified. The methods of the research were general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis and comparison, as well as linguistic methods of vocabulary definition, discursive and interpretative analysis of hypertext characteristics.

KEYWORDS: hypertexts; political discourse; cohesion; means of cohesion; types of cohesion; recipient.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Pavlova Daria Andreevna, Master's Degree Student of Institute of Law of Kemerovo State University (Russia).

Kameneva Veronica Alexandrovna, Doctor ofPhilology, Professor of the English Philology Department ofKemerovo State University, Kemerovo, Russia.

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