Discontinuity of patterns?

Abstract

The paper analyzes a variety of media texts that exist in the media sphere and discusses tendencies marking the changes in content as well as in the formal and functional organization of a text. The type of text is understood as an invariant, which can vary under the influence of different factors. And, though the invariant of the “type of text” is conventional, it cannot be described as a template that language speakers tend to reuse again and again. Transformations of the semantic, syntactic and functional text structure are inherent to different types of texts and can be influenced by factors which are internal or external to the generated text. The changes in the textual organization under discussion manifest themselves in the preferable use of a variety of language means belonging to different levels. This changes the functional potential and leads to the transformation of the semantic and syntactic macrostructure of the texts of various types. The changes in media texts are described as the tendency of hybridization, or, alternatively, splitting of the former text type into two or more text types. The latter tendency leads to the emergence of new variations of the text type. Thus the text changes its functional potential, i.e., its enrichment or impoverishment or a more subtle differentiation. The changes in the textual organization of media texts can be described within the unified theoretical approach to fictional, academic and other types of text as the manifestation of general cultural tendencies: (1) hybridization, which leads to either the division of the former type of text into two or more types; (2) change of the text’s functional potential; (3) changes in the text’s functionality in a specific culture and/or the types of discourse strategy