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Языковая эволюция онлайн? Использование мультимодальной когезии на YouTube
ЯЗЫКОВЫЕ НОРМЫ И ЦИФРОВАЯ РЕАЛЬНОСТЬ/ LINGUISTIC NORMS AND DIGITAL REALITY
УДК 81; 81.06
DOI: 10.24412/2413-693X-2021-2-51-61
Языковая эволюция онлайн? Использование мультимодальной когезии на YouTube
ЛИБШНЕР Андреа
PhD, доцент кафедры иностранных языков и перевода, Уральский федеральный университет, Россия, г. Екатеринбург E-mail: andrea@liebschner.de ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2342-6536
Аннотация: Данный исследовательский проект занимается классификацией когезивных отношений между комментариями зрителей одного видео на канале YouTube, Different Russia. Видеоклипы на этом канале представляют личную перспективу нa ежедневные ситуации в жизни в России с комментариями ведущего канала на английском языке. Обычно такое видео получает примерно 100.000 просмотров. Комментарии зрителей могут быть на английском, русском и других языках. Канал был основан в 2015 году и у него есть более 60 тысяч подписчиков. Цель данного исследования анализ мультимодальных и когезивных отношений между комментариями к одному видео на этом канале. Методология анализа мультимодальных отношений базируется на исследованиях Royce (2013) по мультимодальности в текстах/картинах и Bateman (2014) об отношениях между картиной и вербальным текстом. Royce (2013) обнаружил так называемые visual message elements, визуальные элементы сообщения. Они могут быть например частью картины или диаграммы. Визуальные элементы сообщения представляют визуальную форму лингвистической единицы, например предложения. Визуальный элемент сообщения представляет процесс с помощью глагола и участника с существительным в предложении. Существительные и наречия могут выразить контекст как место или время. Цель данного анализа выявить связь между визуальными элементами комментариев в канале на YouTube и самим видео. При этом особенное внимание обращается на виды когезивных и мультимодальных средств, которые устанавливают связь между содержанием видео и вербальными комментариями к нему. Для практического анализа были кодированы 300 хронологически опубликованных комментариев из выбранного видео на канале YouTube в базе данных Excel по параметрам: номер комментария, идентификация участника, ответ на какое сообщение и когезивное средство. Данные параметры были адаптированы с Herring and Kurtz (2010), которые развивали приложение Visual DTA для анализа текстовых общений в чатах включая анализ темы в коммуникации. Как показали результаты исследования, типичными когезивными средствами комментариев к видео на канале YouTube являются: мультимодальные отношения повтора и колокации существительных, глаголов и прилагательных, использование личных и демонстративных местоимений, эллипсис существительных, а также связь с тем, что упоминается в видео.
Ключевые слова: социальные сети, когезия, связь, мультимедиа
Для цитирования: Либшнер A. Языковая эволюция онлайн? Использование мультимодальной когезии на YouTube // Сервис Plus. 2021. Т. 15. № 2. С. 51-61. DOI: 10.24412/2413-693X-2021-2-51-61
Статья поступила в редакцию: 02.04.2021.
Статья принята к публикации: 02.05.2021.
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Language evolution online? The use of multimodal cohesion on YouTube
Language evolution online? The use of multimodal cohesion on YouTube
Andrea LIEBSCHNER
PhD, assistant professor of the Department of foreign languages and translation Ural Federal University Russia, Ekaterinburg
Abstract: This research project deals with the classification of cohesive and multimodal relations between commentaries by viewers to a video of the YouTube channel Different Russia. Its videos present a personal perspective on Russian daily live situations with commentaries by the Russian host in English. Normally, a video receives around 100.000 views. Commentaries by viewers can be in English, Russian, and other languages. The channel was founded in 2015 and has more than 60.000 subscribers. This research aims to analyse the multimodal relations between commentaries and videos. The methodology for this analysis is based on Royce (2013) and Bateman (2014). Royce (2013) discovered visual message elements in the relation between images and text, which present a visual form of a linguistic entity. Visual message elements present a process with a verb and participants with a noun in a sentence. Nouns and adverbs express context such as place and time. The aim is to explain the connection between visual message elements and cohesive devices of commentaries and the video content in Different Russia. For the practical analysis 300 chronological posted commentaries from the selected YouTube channel were coded in an Excel-databank according to the following parameters, adapted from Herring and Kurtz (2010): Number of message, ID of the participant, responds to and cohesive device. The results show that the following cohesive devices were used between commentaries and a video: multimodal relations of repetition and collocation of nouns, verbs, adjectives, the use of personal and demonstrative pronouns, ellipsis of nouns.
Keywords: social network, cohesion, classification, connection, multimedia
For citation: Liebschner A. (2021) Language evolution online? The use of multimodal cohesion on YouTube. Service plus, 15 (2), 51-61 DOI: 10.24412/2413-693X-2021-2-51-61
Submitted: 2021/04/02.
Accepted: 2021/05/03.
1.1. Introduction. The following research project deals with the classification of cohesive relations between commentaries to the video «NON-TOURIST RUSSIA 2019: Street vendors & food pricing tricks. HOW RUSSIANS REALLY LIVE» on the YouTube channel Different Russia. This video was published in February 2019 and received more than 110.000 views since that time. This channel aims to present different vlogs about daily life situations in Russia with English commentaries by the Russian host of the channel. It has been available since 2015 and currently has more than 60 thousand subscribers. Every viewer of YouTube can log in to YouTube or his/her Google account in order to comment on videos. Such comments can react to a video with its content or answer/react to previously published commentaries by other viewers. Commentaries can include verbal text /and or multimedia elements (hyperlinks and emoticons). The connection between
these commentaries and the video is not always obvious to the reader. The aim of this research project is to analyse and classify 300 written commentaries concerning their cohesive relations between each other and their relation to the posted video. Before the practical analysis, it is necessary to present the theoretical background for this research area of cohesion relations, with special focus on previous research of cohesion and multimodality in online communication.
1.2. Theoretical background. As the communication in YouTube occurs by written text messages, the category of cohesion was chosen to describe the linguistic connections between commentaries in the YouTube channel Different Russia. Halliday and Hasan's book 'Cohesion in English' [5] counts as an important work about cohesion and coherence in English. They distinguish reference, ellipsis, substitution, conjunction
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Языковая эволюция онлайн? Использование мультимодальной когезии на YouTube
and lexical cohesion as categories of cohesion. They differ between grammatical and lexical cohesion. Lexical cohesion deals with the lexical items in a text. Grammatical cohesion is divided into reference, ellipsis and substitution. Conjunction can be located between lexical and grammatical cohesion.
As the communication on YouTube has its setting on the Internet, it is necessary to briefly discuss recent research projects regarding cohesion online. According to Bublitz et al. [2], the structure of hypertext asks for new ways to navigate through texts on the Internet and find an understanding of them. Hypertext requires a new type of classification of cohesion. Hypertext is non-linear and includes verbal text, images, video and sound [19], which can interact with each other. According to Storrer [16], in hypertext the direction of reading can no longer be anticipated. She mentions global coherence-building devices such as headlines or individual sentences of a hypertext document) and local coherence-building devices scubas links for hypertext. For example, Guseinov [3] Herring [5; 6], Storrer [16], Simpson [15], Woerner, Yates, and Orlikowski [18], Lapadat [10], Tyrkkó [17], Lorenzo-Dus and Blitvich [12], Markman [13] and Jandl [9] dealt with cohesion and coherence in English online communication. Their research results will be used for the discussion of examples in the practical analysis. Web 2.0 is the name used to describe the second generation of the world wide web, where it moved static HTML pages to a more interactive and dynamic web experience. Web 2.0 defined by Tim O'Reilly, is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online via social media, blogging and web-based communities. People communicate differently due to new technologies and cultural diversity in the world. This also includes different platforms for communication and social media as YouTube. In this context the new term multimodal cohesion appeared in 2014, which presents a type of cohesion for example between a verbal text and an image. Cohesion analysis considers texts as a network of multiple cohesive connections in a sentence and beyond.
Royce called it the model of 'intermodal complementarity' [14, c. 63], which explains how meanings can be set up between more than one semiotic mode, for example pictures, a diagram and a verbal text [1]. Royce [14] identified visual message elements (VME) in an image or a diagram. The visual message elements represent a visual form of a linguistic entity e.g. a sentence. Avisual message element presents a process
by a verb in a sentence. A noun expresses participants. Nouns and adverbs stand for context such as place or time. After the identification of VMEs in the visual data a comparative analysis with elements in the verbal text can be conducted [14]. The visual and the verbal parts are connected to each other by for example repetition. Royce's framework includes the multimodal cohesive devices: repetition, synonymy, antonymy, hyponomy and meronymy. These devices are comparable to lexical cohesion by Halliday and Hasan [5]. Royce [14] analyses the connections between visual, non-verbal message elements (VME) and verbal text. A research project about the use of cohesion and multimodal cohesion between messages in group communication in the Russian social network Vkontakte by Liebschner [11] revealed the following possible relations between multimedia-files and verbal messages: verbal text — audio-file, verbal text — photograph/image, verbal text — video-file, photograph — audio-file and verbal text — audio-file — photograph. The following devices of multimodal cohesion were found in the analysed Vkontakte messages: Repetition and collocation by noun, b) Reference to participants in media modes by personal and demonstrative pronoun, c) Ellipsis of nouns, personal and demonstrative pronouns, d) Verb relation and collocation to process and e) Quality of the media-file — relation by adjective and adverb [11]. The relation between visual and non-verbal message elements (VME) and commentaries in the YouTube channel will be explored in the practical analysis in this paper. A further question is how Royce s framework and the results by Liebschner [11] can be applied to intermodal relations between written commentaries and the video on the YouTube channel Different Russia. If a process, a representative participant and contextual data are visually present in the published video, then the task of the practical analysis in this paper is to establish which linguistic elements express them verbally in the written commentaries.
Methodology
For the practical analysis 300 chronological posted commentaries from the selected YouTube channel were coded in an MacIntosh Keypoint-databank according to the following parameters adapted from Herring and Kurtz [9]:
i. ID of the participant
ii. Number of message
iii. Responds to
iv. Cohesive device
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All selected messages were coded and analysed in the programs Visual DTA and Macintosh Keypoint. The number of messages was defined according to the chronological order of commentaries in the YouTube channel Different Russia. The ID of the participant is coded with the nickname. The parameter responds to refers to the related commentary/(ies). The cohesive devices in commentaries of the YouTube channel were coded based on the frameworks and results by Halliday and Hasan [5], Royce [14], Bateman [1] and Liebschner [11], which were discussed earlier in the theoretical background.
2. Practical analysis. This practical analysis will try to answer the following questions concerning the use of cohesive devices between written commentaries and the video file on the selected YouTube channel:
1. Which types of cohesive devices can refer to and connect to the video file on the selected YouTube channel, especially in initiating messages?
2. How are a process, representative participant and contextual data based on the theory by Royce [14], which are visualised in the published video, referred to in the written commentaries?
3. Which kind of cohesive relations exist between verbal text messages in English and Russian in the commentaries?
The practical analysis of 300 chronological posted commentaries from the selected YouTube channel shows, that 198 (66%) commentaries referred to the video of the channel. The remaining 102 (34%) commentaries include a conversation among other viewers regarding different topics. The term conversation is used in a wider sentence here. These topics include for example discussions about the Russian weather with cold temperatures, the activities by the people and the situation in the area in the video. Several messages start with a direct reference to the video and then change the
direction of the topic. The longest distance between a commentary and the video is 299. The distance between commentaries of viewers, which include conversations among them reaches from 1-5. 69 (23%) commentaries referred to the immediately adjacent message. 12 (4%) messages had the distance 2, five (1,67%) messages distance 3, one message (0,33%) had distance 4 and 5 to the commentaries that they referred to. The following length of conversations between viewers in the comments was found. The longest conversation consists of 25 commentaries and appeared one time. The second longest was with 10 commentaries and could be found only once. The frequency of the other conversations with commentaries was 8 (1 time), 6 (3), 5 (3), 4 (2), 3 (5). Conversations consisting of 2 commentaries occurred 14 times and included also short reactions by the channel owner Valeria or her husband Alex like «hello» or «thank you». In social media channels such as Facebook or Vkontakte in Russia hosts of groups have the possibility to monitor the content of messages or commentaries, delete them, when they contain non-appropriate content of different sorts. At the same time viewers have the possibility to edit or delete their commentaries at their own will. In the following, some examples of commentaries will be discussed, where a comment was referred to, but no longer available in the list of commentaries itself. The commentaries by viewers included five contributions in Russian, 293 in English and two commentaries only made up of emoticons. The following cohesive devices were found between the commentaries in English and the video. For lexical cohesion appeared the repetition of nouns (37/12,33%), verbs (3/1%), adverbs (1/0,33%) and adjectives (10/3,33%) and quotations (2/0,67%). The following example 1 shows the use of lexical cohesion between commentaries. Relevant words in the commentaries were marked with red by the researcher for better visualisation.
292 TheRockerxx69 1 Fish from where???
293 ImixSpb 292 The mullet you see on the counter has landed from the Black or Azov Sea, one part freshwater fish was farm-raised, another is the harvest of our lakes and rivers.
294 TheRockerxx69 293 @ImixSpb is it kept fresh on the journey to moscow???
295 ImixSpb 294 The way of how to keep fish fresh for a long time? Hmm... It was known even to people who lived in old Rus. I guess this shouldn't present a problem in the 21st century too.
296 TheRockerxx69 295 @ImixSpb at minus _20 C will be kept fresh for sure!!!!
297 ImixSpb 296 Ha! Yes, that's for sure!
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Example 1: (Corpus Liebschner)
Example 1 shows the use of repetition of nouns in commentaries 292, 293 and 296. The cohesive device between commentaries 294 and 295 is repetition of the adjective «fresh». The same is true for the connection between commentaries in YouTube.
160 CKZ F 1 Thank you for your videos — really interesting insights into Russian life !
161 Different Russia 160 You are welcome!
162 Roger 161 I have watched a few of your videos and find your conversation very engaging. Thank you for showing us all a «DIFFERENT RUSSIA»
Example 2: (Corpus Liebschner)
A quotation in YouTube commentaries can quote either from the spoken text in the YouTube video or repeat the exact written words by a viewer in the commentaries. Commentary 162 quotes the nickname by the channel owner «Different Russia» in hyphens and turns its meaning, so that it fits into his sentence structure. At the same time the reference to the name of the YouTube channel remains intact due to the capitalisation of all letters in the quoted words.
242 Anthony Isadore 1 Everytime she said «on the line» ...
Example 3: (Corpus Liebschner)
Example 3 shows the quotation from the speech by the host in the YouTube video, who is referred to with the personal pronoun «she». The host is Valeria and her mother tongue is Russian, although she speaks English in her YouTube videos. This quotation can only be understood after watching the referred sequence in the video.
Did you hear at 6:21 that «old
Brooks Anderson people» could travel by bus for
81 1 FREE! Thank you Russians for your
human response to old people's needs! old (78) geologist. :-)
Example 4: (Corpus Liebschner)
This alone standing commentary 81 refers with a quote to the speech in the video. The words «old people»
are presented in hyphens. This quote is linked to a time indication for a sequence in the video. In this case, there are actually two ways to refer to the content of the video in this commentary. Of interest is also the reference with «you» in the question. It is unknown though who exactly is addressed like this. Is it for everyone who is reading and/or writing the commentaries to the video?
This type of reference does not relate to an exact person, who is mentioned before in the context of the video. It is a type of non-defined reference.
34
35
Eric Eliott
34
Valeria, I struggle to find words that can express my high level of appreciation of your videos. You are doing a service to the world with what you do. It gives people a chance to see what Russia is really like and to see that it is nothing like what we get in our media in the states. I have great appreciation for you and Alex as you know already. I wish I could visit Russia and meet up with all my friends and acquaintances, including you and Alex, but at least I have videos like yours or voice chat and emails for everyone I know in Russia.
Eric Elliott, you spend too much time on mainstream media. You have to go to Alternative media to find the good things about the Russian Federation. Going. The POTUS: Donald John Trump. McCloud nationalist». United States is at war with communist China. On our Southern border. We are at war with Mexico. We are finishing the wall. And if the Liberals would have got into force. China would have got the contract to build 30,000 satellites. And they would have implemented 5G in America. It can be 200_ G. 5G is a little higher than microwave. Large quantities of people would be getting cancer. They're putting that together in communist China. But it didn't happen._
Example 5: (Corpus Liebschner)
Example 5 shows, how a nickname in commentary 45 attracts the attention by another viewer in 47, who repeats parts of this nickname with «red foot native American» in his question. There were also a few other examples, where commentaries in this channel referred to the nickname by viewers in the commentaries. The following types of reference based on the framework by
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i
Halliday and Hasan [5] were found in the commentaries of this YouTube channel. Reference with personal pronoun appeared 62 times (20,67%) in relation to the owner of this YouTube channel Valeria, her husband Alex, her dog Sheffield, towards viewers in the written commentaries and not specifically named people in the video-clip. Reference with demonstrative pronoun was used 34 times (11,33%) and referred to the video-clip as a medium, such as in «this video». Reference with possessive pronoun appeared 20 times (6,67%). In the following example 6 this type of reference between the video and the written commentaries is discussed.
36 VeXu666 34 This is from Moscow general area. Minimum wages are 5 times more higher than other parts of Russia. Doctors in a remote area get paid barely around 500€ monthly wages and availability of many items you'd expect is zero. It's because the country is so dependent on imported products, which aren't produced inside Russia at all. Also the infrastructure of Russia is so poor, that it usually costs too much to get stuff like that delivered by almost non-existent roads near to impossible.
37 Pardon me 35 To be fair, you can't really blame the media. I haven't seen too many documentaries about Russia at all. There were cold war era documentaries that portrayed Russia a lot poorer than it was, and the 90s were rough, so maybe people still have impressions from those.
38 Eric Elliott 37 @Pardon me, Actually, that is precisely the problem, so we can blame the media (US media in particular). The US media keeps portraying Russians and Russia as they were during world war two and the cold war, etc. while vilifying them. People in the US have a hard time separating people from their government as well, including themselves. US media is clueless as to what Russia and Russians are really like or they simply do not want the public to know or both.
39 Eric Elliott 36 @VeXu666 Thank you for this information. I really seek to know because all my true friends are Russian and they give me info about their areas too. I care very much for them.
40 Eric Eliott ? @Boris Rangelov I should not have to say this to you because I have Russian friends there that I care about deeply, but you need to use better judgement before calling people names. Why do you want to bring hate into Valeria's efforts?
41 JohnPght 39 Eric Elliott As a Russian I am glad not to be there anymore. USA has problems but there is no where better.
42 Mathilde W 39 You should go to Russia! I just went there for a few days, and it's a wonderful country. Really easy to travel there. Best public transport system in the world, clean, beautiful cities
Example 6: (Corpus Liebschner)
Example 6 shows a variety of cohesive devices between the commentaries and the video, which will be discussed here in more detail. This particular conversation starts with the commentary by Eric Elliot in 34, who thanks Valeria for her videos. He compares between the view of Russia in her videos and the own «in our media». «Our» refers here to the context of the media in his country. The connection between commentary 34 and 35 is set up by three different cohesive devices such as address with nickname, the reference by personal pronoun «you» and the repetition of the noun «media». Commentary 36 can be understood thanks to the reference with demonstrative pronoun «this «, which refers to the location shown in the video. As such it is not a traditional type of reference between written messages, but constitutes a link between a written commentary and the video. In order to really understand the reference with «this», it is necessary to watch the video itself. This type of reference can be called multimodal reference to place in the video by demonstrative pronoun. Reference to place in video with demonstrative pronoun appeared 7 times (2,33%) in the analysed commentaries of this channel. Liebschner [13] also identified the reference to participants in media
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modes such as photographs and videos by personal and demonstrative pronoun. Commentaries 37 and 38 both repeat the noun «media», and 38 includes again the address by nickname to the previous commentary. During the practical analysis of commentaries in this YouTube channel address to speaker by name was used 42 times (14%). In the analysed commentaries the addressed name is put at the beginning of the commentary with @, similar to a message in Whatsapp, or simply the name itself. In commentary 39 Eric Elliot addresses an earlier commentary another person with nickname and uses reference with demonstrative pronoun in «this information», which substitutes the whole previous commentary by the other viewer. Commentary 40 includes the address to a commentary, which is no longer available. It might have been deleted by the viewer or the host of the channel. This might be due to the use of foul language towards other people in the commentaries, as can be understood from «calling people names». Both commentaries 40 and 41 refer with «there« to a place, in this case Russia, which can be understood from the general context of this conversation in the channel, which is about life in Russia.
«Here» and «there» are not always used as way of reference in the traditional sense of Halliday and Hasan [5]. In the commentaries to this video these adverbs of place refer to places, which are shown in the video as well. This type of reference can be called multimodal «reference to place in video with adverb», which appeared two times in the analysis. At times it is difficult to say, whether this reference with adverb is simply to the context of the conversation in this channel or the content of the video. The final commentary 42 in this particular conversation also uses «there» and mentions «go to Russia», by which the contextual use of the adverb is clarified immediately. The following example 7 will show some more use of reference in the commentaries.
28 J.M. 27 as expensive in Russia as they would be in America in the winter time. The non GMO papayas are shaped like a pear. If you take the papaya seeds. And then you lay them you lay them out on a cookie sheet. And then you put them in an oven at 200 degrees. And you dry them out. Then you get a coffee grinder. To get a grinder that you're not going to use for coffee. II grinder for spices. You have to grind these dried out seeds. To a powder. And then you mix them in with a smoothie. Of your liking. And then you drink it whole. And this will help and getting any type of bugs or parasites within your intestinal tract.
29 UncleC 27 Olivia Sorry to hear. I just Left CA. It's Very anti American now. it's Expensive and Racist getting any type of bugs or parasites within your intestinal tract. as a state. It's sad to say. But I will never ever spend a dime in that state or even the west coast again. Enjoy
30 arthur l 27 **Me too** Thank you very much !
31 Rob Vi 30 I feel the same... Thank you Different Russia!
Example 7: (Corpus Liebschner)
Commentary 27 starts with a greeting, which is often used to start a commentary in this channel, which is addressed towards the video host of «Different Russia». The address to Valeria is «you», which is also used in commentaries 30 and 31, which thank her for her videos. Returning once more to commentary 27, because it refers to an activity, which is shown in the video, here «going along». This section relates to the way, how viewers experience the video and the activities presented by Valeria, as if they would actually be there with her, doing the same things as in the video. The written reference to the activity in the video is by a verb form in the commentary. There are altogether 16 examples (5,33%) for a similar reference to an activity in the video by a verb in the practical analysis of commentaries in this YouTube channel. Liebschner [13] mentions a similar type of cohesive device between a written message in Vkontakte and a video. In this research project it was called «Verb relation and collocation to
27 Olivia 1 Greetings from California. I just love going along with you. It's so great to be able to experience Russia. Thank you sharing your life and your country
28 J.M. 27 She sure does a good job with the help of her husband. It's like you're in the grocery cart watching all those foods and things. She does a great job explaining the cost. They had the GMO papaya. The long ones. They were just
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process». Commentary 28 includes another example for the use of reference by personal pronoun «she» and possessive pronoun «her», which both refer to Valeria, the video host. Commentary 30 is of interest, because it starts with **Me too**. The first association is the use of this phrase in the movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault of women, but this does not fit here at all. Here it is a type of a back-channeling referring to commentary 27. Backchannels are typically short utterances such as «yeah»or«wow». The analysed commentaries for Different Russia also included the forms «lol» (7 times), lmfao (2 times), which date back to the communication in chat rooms. Emoticons and emojis are also quite common. The location of emoticons is important, because it might indicate where individual sentences, sentence parts or words are connected by emoticons. In the analysed commentaries of the channel Different Russia, emoticons appeared at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of commentaries. The next commentary 31 presents a synonym and ellipsis at the same time with «I feel the same...» in relation to the previous commentary 30. The ellipsis expresses that both commentaries 31 and 30 share the same feelings regarding their sympathy and thanks towards Valeria, the video host, which were already expressed in message 27.
This explains how three commentaries, which are not immediately adjacent to each other share the same topic and are connected by different cohesive devices. Another type of reference typical for multimodal relations will be discussed in example 8.
Example 8: (Corpus Liebschner)
This example includes two individual commentaries, which only relate to the video and not to any other commentary by viewers. Commentary 170 relates to the topic of cold temperature, which is discussed quite frequent in the commentaries of several viewers, because the video host is walking through the snow. A common myth is, that Russia is always very cold, but here a winter walk is shown. The «cold» in 170 refers to the situation in the video by adjective. The commentary makes only
sense in relation to the video. This multimodal cohesive device is called reference to the situation in the video by adjective. Such a type of relation was found 7 times (2,33%). At the same time reference to a situation in video with noun appeared 14 times (4,67%) and reference to a thing in a video with noun could be found 11 times (3,67%). A thing is referred to in commentary 173, «food». Valeria is going shopping with her husband in the video and several commentaries refer to the items they see there. The following example 9 gives more insights into this.
105 max stax 1 I doubt you'll reply but why do they paint the trunks of trees white? I see that all the time in Russian videos.
106 Different Russia 105 for you https: // youtu. be/95Kpj040ECM
107 Конрад Карлович 105 this is protection from harmful insects
108 max stax 105 Thanks.
Example 9: (Corpus Liebschner)
Example 9 starts with a question in commentary 105, which is addressed to the video host Valeria with the reference by personal pronoun «you» and reference to the video by the nouns «trunks of white tress». No obvious address to the speaker by nickname is used, but the connection to the video is still understood, no matter how far the distance is. The connection is also held up by the second sentence by the word «Russian videos». The following commentary 106 presents the cohesive device ellipsis and hyperlink reference. The ellipsis probably leaves out a noun, but the exact missing word cannot be reconstructed, but the connection to 105 is supported by the reference with personal pronoun «you» and the hyperlink reference to another video. During the analysis of comments ellipsis occurred 31 times, which can be marked with «...» or the missing of words is not indicated particularly. Hyperlinks appeared 3 times (1%) in the commentaries. Typical for Youtube are hyperlinks, which include a time reference to a section in the video, which is mentioned and discussed in the commentary. This also happened in example 4, which was discussed above.
170 Looks very cold. Today it's Nofrackmgzone 1 71 p / 22cy Think I'll stay m . Houston.
173 Spas°je 1 Nice looking food. Honestly Kulasevic
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87 TheRockerxx69 86 @J. M. it was a marvellous time for me. I was 17 years old,.
88 Guergui Stoyanov 87 @TheRockerxx69 Everyone has a marvelous time when they are 17and in love. You are not alone, but is nice that you still remember HER. *
89 TheRockerxx69 88 @Guergui Stoyanov IT WAS MARVELLOUS AT 17--MY REAL FIRST TRAVEL ALONE ON POARD OF A MER CHANT
SHP-POUND T O IRON CURTAIN RUSSIA-1969- A MARVEII OUS YEAR FOR
ROCK N ROLL MUSIC- WOODSTOCK AND THE MAN ON THE MOON--
62 cavaliere зонтик 1 Типичная картина среднего русского города. Погодка конечно не украшает.
63 Ольга Сибирская 62 Зима — это лучшее время года.....
Example 10: (Corpus Liebschner)
Example 10 includes some more repetition of nouns and address to speaker by name in 87 and 88. Of special interest is commentary 9, which includes crossed out sentences. Guseinov [4, c.281] discovered the use of '.nmypaTMBbi' in blogs, which appear as crossed out words or phrases in sentences.
They present taboo-words or attract attention to certain words or phrases. In 89 several sentence parts are crossed out. The function here should be the attraction of attention to the crossed-out parts, which contain more information, why his time was so «marvellous». In two final examples Russian commentaries are discussed. The commentaries by viewers included five ones in Russian, 293 in English.
Example 11: (Corpus Liebschner)
Commentary 84 refers to the surrounding English positive and approving commentaries by American viewers with «американцам». Interesting is also the use of «это», as a demonstrative pronoun, which refers to the initial video again. The point of reference with «это» is wide and can also include the general topics discussed in the video.
Example 12: (Corpus Liebschner)
Here two Russian commentaries relate to each other by collocation between «Погодка» in 62 and «зима» in 63. Collocation appeared times 8 times (2,67%) in the commentaries. The Russian examples did not interact otherwise with the English commentaries and stood alone. Russian could also be found in a few nicknames, see also the nickname in commentary 63 as an example.
3. Results and conclusion
Table 1: Frequency of cohesive devices in commentaries of Different Russia. (300 commentaries = 100 %)
Cohesive device Frequency
Repetition of nouns 37 /12,33%
Repetition of adjectives 10/3,33%
Repetition of verbs 3/1%
Repetition of adverbs 2 (0,67%)
Quotations 2 (0,67%)
Reference with personal pronoun 62 (20,67%)
Reference with demonstrative pronoun 34 (11,33%)
Reference with possessive pronoun 20 (6,67%)
Reference to place in video with demonstrative pronoun 7 (2,33%)
Reference to activity in the video by a verb 6 (5,33%)
Reference to the situation in the video by adjective 7 (2,33%)
Reference to a situation in video with noun 14 (4,67%)
Reference to a thing in a video with noun 11(3,67%)
Address to speaker by name 42 (14%)
Ellipsis 31 (10,33%)
Hyperlink 3 (1%)
Collocation 8 (2,67%)
For lexical cohesion repetition of nouns (37/12,33%) and adjectives (10/3,33%) occurred most often (2/0,67%). Nouns are often repeated between commentaries, because different items are discussed, which were seen in the video or are mentioned by viewers. As viewers themselves are occupied with the discussion of the content in the video, they are not physically active themselves and therefore fewer
Приятно удивлена, что американцам
84 Natalie 1 это интересно. Это говорит о том,
Brown что мы more alike than different. Спасибо.
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Language evolution online? The use of multimodal cohesion on YouTube
repetitions of verbs appear. Often quotations in the analysed commentaries can only be understood after watching the referred sequence in the video. There also occurred a partial repetition of words from a nickname in commentaries in example 5. Reference with the personal pronoun «you» does not always relate to an exact person like the video host or another viewer, who is mentioned before in the context of immediately adjacent commentaries. Example 4 showed that it can remain unknown, who exactly is addressed with «you». Was this address for everyone, who is reading and/or writing the commentaries to the video. Reference with personal pronoun appeared 62 times (20,67%), reference with demonstrative pronoun was used 34 times (11,33%) and referred to the video-clip as a medium, such as in «this video». Reference with possessive pronoun appeared 20 times (6,67%), mostly in commentaries, which referred to the video with Valeria. Example 6 presented a type of reference, which can be called multimodal reference to place in the video by demonstrative pronoun. Reference to place in video with demonstrative pronoun appeared 7 times (2,33%) in the analysed commentaries of this channel. In the commentaries to this video the adverbs of place «here» and «there» refer often to places, which are shown in the video. This type of reference can be called multimodal «reference to place in video with adverb», which appeared two times (0,67%) in the analysis. The written reference to the activity in the video is by a verb form in the commentary. There are altogether 16 examples (5,33%) for a similar reference to an activity in the video by a verb in the commentaries. The practical analysis of YouTube commentaries also revealed reference to the situation in the video by adjective (7/2,33%), reference to a situation in video with noun (14 times/4,67%) and reference to a thing in a video with noun (11/3,67%). These categories of multimodal cohesion help to describe the connection between the visual and/or spoken video content and the written commentaries by viewers. At times it is difficult to say, whether this multimodal reference is simply to
the context of the conversation based on the video or the content of the video itsel. Example 6 included also the address by nickname to a previous commentary. Address to speaker by name was used 42 times (14%) in the analysed data. In the commentaries the addressed name is put at the beginning of the commentary with @, similar to a message in Whatsapp, or simply the name itself. The analysed commentaries for Different Russia also included the backchannel forms «me too» (2/0,67%) as well as «lol» (7/2,33%), lmfao (2/0,67%), which both date back to the communication in chat rooms. These forms comment on the previous commentary with its content and function similarly to an emoticon depending on their setting at the beginning or end of a commentary. During the analysis also ellipsis was found (31/10,33%), which can be marked with «...» or the missing of words is not indicated particularly. Hyperlinks appeared 3 times in the commentaries. Typical for Youtube are hyperlinks, which include a time reference to a section in the video, which is mentioned and discussed in the commentary. Collocation in the Russian examples formed a connection in two examples, but they did not interact with the English commentaries and stood isolated. This might be connected to the fact, that the majority of viewers is interested in Russia, but does not know Russian. Russian could also be found in a few nicknames of viewers in commentaries. The findings of this analysis repeat partly and conform with those of Liebschner [13], where the multimodal relations repetition and collocation by noun, reference to participants in media modes by personal and demonstrative pronoun, ellipsis of nouns, personal and demonstrative pronouns, verb relation and collocation to process and quality of the media-file — relation by adjective and adverb were found in comments of group profiles in the social network Vkontakte. YouTube offers many more opportunities for linguistic research projects, for example regarding the topic development in commentaries and pragmatic relations. This is for future and comparative research in social media in Russia and the Western world.
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Языковая эволюция онлайн? Использование мультимодальной когезии на YouTube
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