Russian language in modern web space: dynamic processes and development trends

This article investigates new language trends in Internet communication. The goal was a comprehensive description of new features that appeared at every level of the language system functioning in the web space. Investigation of new systemic web phenomena has both relevance and perspectives, as the focus of literary language development has shifted from literary texts to web-based texts. The research material included Facebook posts and comments. The material was processed with stylistic methods (contextual, stylistic compatibility, interpretation, etc.). The synchronic analysis was accompanied with elements of diachronic commentary. The analysis also considered the normative aspect, yet the emphasis was made on the evolution of contemporary literary language influenced by digitalization and the growth of the Internet. The important factor in language transformation and development is realization of the creative function of the language in the user-generated content of the informal segment of the Internet. The multiple extralinguistic factors influencing Internet communication are described in details, but it is the creative function of the language and the features of new communication in the Internet space that are of primary importance for the development of the literary language in the Russian segment of the Internet. The study uses examples to prove the scientific hypothesis that new language phenomena on the Internet are not random, but on the contrary are systemic, as they are manifested at every language level. This allows drawing conclusions about the inevitability of transformation of the Russian language in the future, as the language will provide the communication of digital society that is already developing new ethic norms. Considering the trend on strengthening the legal frames for actions of state and transnational actors in the network space, the study of the Russian language and its trends in the Internet as one of the powerful means of soft power makes our study relevant for forming legislative mechanisms aimed at preserving Russian national interests in the international communication. The study is perspective, since it makes a significant contribution to preserving © Ivanova M.V., Klushina N.I., 2021 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ivanova M.V., Klushina N.I. 2021. Russian Language Studies, 19(4), 367–382 368 RUSSIAN LANGUAGE IN THE INTERNET cultural and linguistic identity of Russian citizens in front of the growing international competition and uncertainty. In addition, being a linguistic study, this work deals with the issues of processing information with its increased speed and volume.


Introduction
The dynamics of language processes have always been at the centre of linguistic studies. Earlier, the representative empirical material included texts of fiction, then -texts of mass media (first of all, newspapers), but today researchers seeking to understand the trends of the Russian literary language are increasingly turning to the Internet communication, because there the most pronounced processes of language renewal are observed. This determines the relevance of the research.
The problem posed in the article is associated with the fact that it is in the Internet communicative space where for the first time different ways of creative use of language, gaining a foothold in the Russian literary language, significantly changing it, appear.
We have to mention that in the context of international multipolarity, media are becoming an important element of the "soft power" of political actors, and contemporary studies analyse this current trend, based on new means of linguistic expression (Batalina et al., 2020).
Scholars consider the new media language in a systematic way, proposing avant-garde theories about it as new forms of visual communication originating in cinema and the symbolism; parallels are drawn between new media, digital cinema, and different kinds of screen art (Manovich, 2001).
Largely due to this approach, in the theory of social media and social networks, researchers understand communication in the Internet space as a "crooked On the whole, numerous scientific researches on various aspects of language use on the Web already allows comprehensive reviews that point out the peculiarities of Internet language at each level of its system. This article presents general overview of all the levels and identifies the specific tendencies at each of them, which are characteristic of modern network communication. It is fundamentally new to consider the current trends in Internet communication through the prism of the creative function of the language. Such an approach has not yet been taken either in domestic or foreign linguistics. Also new and promising is the understanding of Internet communication not as a supplier of negative linguistic material, but as a space for creative experiments allowing the language system to develop and create new resources for further communication. The practical significance of solving the posed scientific problem is closely connected both with the new research positions in studying the linguistic state in the Internet space, and with university teaching, because the level approach to the analysis of Internet language can explain the transformation of the norm, the freedom of the creative potential of Runet users, give deeper ideas about the development of modern Russian literary and national language in general.
The aim of the study is to comprehensively describe the current trends in Internet communication, which can affect the development of the Russian language. The changes are considered by the levels of the language system, as it is necessary to show that they are not random, but systemic in nature.

Methods and materials
The material for the study included the posts and comments in social networks. The choice of empirical material is due to the fact that social networks are a dynamically developing segment of the informal Internet, where users are focused on full freedom of choice and use of linguistic means, creativity, selfexpression, and therefore actively use all the resources (not only literary) language system. The choice of social networks is also due to the fact that many linguistic phenomena because of quick dissemination in the communities become widely known and popular, which cannot but affect the fluctuation and even destruction of the norms of literary language.
Our study analyses the user content of the social network Facebook (FB), in particular, the posts and comments of philologists and journalists, because they are distinguished by linguistic reflection.
Also, theoretical scientific sources were used to confirm the authors' observations, which recorded certain aspects of linguistic changes in online communication.
The methods used to analyze the empirical and theoretical material are traditional for linguistic research: descriptive, stylistic and contextual. Vocabulary data was used. If necessary, in addition to a synchronous description of contemporary Internet communication, elements of historical commentary were included.

Results
The analysis of the state of the Russian language on the Internet shows the development of new trends in it at each level of the language system: -the graphic level reflects the tendency to visualization in the language of the Internet and closely cooperates with the orthographic and punctuation levels, where changes associated with the use of multimedia signs as a bright expressive device can be traced. Smiley faces, emoji, etc. are actively incorporated into the traditional punctuation marks and become auxiliary to express the author's emotions and evaluations; -at the lexical level of the language and the word-formation level, which is closely connected with it, there is an explosion of novelty: neologisms, wordformation occasionalism, and the replenishment of the lexical system with borrowings. Neologisation contributes to the development of thematic groups, synonymic series, creation of new antonymous pairs and homonyms; -the morphological level of the Internet language demonstrates a tendency to play around with various vernacular forms and violations of grammatical norms, replenishing the class of interjections at the expense of borrowings from English Internet jargon, etc; -syntax in Internet communication correlates with the syntax of colloquial speech, because such a framework is set by the conditions of network communication and its oral and written nature.
Thus, linguistic innovations testify to the development of language in Internet communication at all levels of the system under the influence of new technological conditions and the creative function of language to express the author's intention.

Discussion
The origins of Russian literary language. The Russian literary language has a long history of formation and development; in the science of language history, it is customary to distinguish periods of transformation and dynamic changes affecting the former rules of language use and generally accepted standards.
Today we can distinguish a new stage in the development of the Russian literary language, associated with its functioning on the Internet. The emergence of the Internet has become a trigger for dynamic processes, which, as it has always been, may lead to the renewal of the established norms of communication, and then the language system itself.
Language levels that reflected the dynamics of changes in the Russian language on the Internet. In order to identify the trends in the development of language in a particular time interval and in a separate communicative space, we decided to show their systemic nature. Language is a system of systems, so the dynamic processes at each level of the system will testify in favour of our hypothesis about the transformation and development of modern Russian lan-guage in Internet communication. The results of our study allow to talk about the emerging trends rather than individual linguistic phenomena.
Graphic level. We share the opinion of many contemporary communication researchers (Chernyavskaya, 2020;Toshovich, 2018, etc.), who note a pronounced visual turn, leading to the dominance of infographics, photographs, collages, etc. in mass communication.
Thus, mass communication sees the domination of polycode media text, where the verbal text and the visual component interact.
The Internet actively uses multimedia technology, which has a serious impact on the visualization of the language code (Dojchinovih, Milashin, 2018). In Internet communication, visualization occurs through the inclusion of multimedia signs, which leads to an update of the graphic pattern in Internet texts.
An essential role in the formation of modern polycode text belongs to advertising. In advertising, verbal texts are supplemented with the visual elements, which enhances the impact potential of the advertising message.
But visualization is not a new phenomenon in the Russian literary language. If you remember the design of the text, its decoration with headpieces, initials, miniatures, etc. in old Russian manuscripts and old printed books (Ivanova, 2011), you can see the origins of the visual component and its influential function, which was successfully realized long before the visual turn in Runet.
The graphic level of the modern Internet language is becoming more complex. It includes signs of various semiotic systems, not only letters. The development of media design as a whole trend allows to speak about the importance of graphics not only for conveying meaning, but also for implementing its pragmatic function (influencing the addressee), aesthetic (text decoration) and creative (language play). Examples:

1) -I don't think there can be right and wrong here. Your opinion is clear and argumentative. And if it provokes an additional discussion, that's great! Of course, I am familiar with the article, and I quote it if necessary. The topic is a burning 100
In this comment, instead of a dot, the number 100 is in red and italicized, which denotes an evaluation and emotion corresponding to the colloquial equivalent of "100 percent." The numerical code complements the letter code and adds special meanings.
2) -And how do you feel? After your post, I'm scared shitless to get a second vaccination.
-Don't be afraid, Tanya, t was ok. Just make sure that the second component is administered, not mixed up. This is our reality) This example uses t instead of "temperature", which corresponds to two linguistic trends -economy of speech and graphic accentuation with the Latin alphabet. At the end of the commentary there is a right-hand bracket instead of a dot, which in Internet communication symbolizes a smile and at the same time the end of the sentence.
Thus, we believe that primarily under the influence of the trend towards visualization in Internet communication the graphical code of the language is renewed. Significant graphemes become multimedia signs -gifs, emoji, numbers, brackets, hearts and other signs of emotions and evaluations.
Orthographic and punctuation levels. The spelling and punctuation levels are "auxiliary" levels of the language system, because they are not related to language itself, but to coding, to the established rules for semantic differentiation. The main thing is that these levels are not connected with the transmission of information. Here serious changes are noted, indicating the failure to comply with orthographic and punctuation norms in Internet communication, since the oral and written nature of network communication is often reflected in the intentional (even deliberate) distortion of the orthographic portrait of a word to convey phonetic or orthoepic features, as well as to enhance expressiveness.
Particular attention is drawn to the blurring of norms for the use of lowercase and uppercase letters, to the increase in the use of uppercase letters under the influence of English. "Since the 16th century, when this opposition (lowercase/ uppercase. -author's note.) appeared in the Old Russian language, it has been semantic. Even before the normalizing activity of J.K. Grot, in the Bible translations of the mid-nineteenth century, the differentiation between uppercase and lowercase letters was defined by the sacral meaning of the denoted concepts. <...> Grot, drawing up his recommendations, of course, did not anticipate how dramatically Russian life would change by the 21st century and how freely capital letters would be invented in the media, the Internet. Correspondence and comments in networks are a zone of orthographic freedom (here is a case in point, preserving the author's spelling, from K. Sobchak's personal page: "I have had the CORONA virus since childhood, and everything is ok, somehow I am survived...") (Boeva, 2020). Thus, the unregulated use of capital letters on the Web mostly fulfils the stylistic function of emphasis, of expression, e.g: "If a person leaves, it means he is not your person. He did not appreciate you, did not understand, probably he just does not deserve you. But his place will be taken by Your person." The orthographic and punctuation levels are closely connected with the orthoepic and intonational component of Internet communication. The following trends can be traced here: Doubling and tripling of sounds are frequent: -Urrrah for the clever girl; -I do not understand annnnything.
The reduction of sounds, imitating colloquialism, is also frequent: -A friend said that you may not talk to the driver... And you may not even notice him... I am anyway angry... I've been angry for the whole hour... S.F. Barysheva singles out the following word-sounding techniques in Runet: "1. Simple 'transcribing', reflecting normative phonetic processes, for example: It is really no problem to get there by foot, which is exactly what I did in summer 2005, and not only ai... 2. Playful rethinking of the phonemic meanings of the letter, e.g. the phoneme /sh/ decomposition into zch or sch elements is popular, i.e. both relatively frequent forms ischo, schaz, muzzchina (colloquial once again, now, man) (with variants like muzzschina) and occasional tovarisch (comrade), poobchavschis (after communication). 3. Playful phonetic distortion (playful transformations) of a word from colloquial proverbial to creative-occasional sounding: a) proverbial assimilations and dissimilations: Hto (colloquial for who) is the third one? Who has the rujjo (colloquial riffle) there...)))? There are bears running around; b) Proverbial prothetic consonants: All this by Transaeroy. Eraflot does not give a second piece of luggage, only for a fee; c) Proverbial inserts: We should rename this topic; d) Playful sound substitutions: Alas! Well, maybe pensioners have such impressions..." (Barysheva, 2020).
The punctuation level demonstrates the complex use of various punctuation marks, a combination of punctuation marks and emoticons in combination with emoji. Linguists have noted a certain agglomeration of marks as a special stylistic device, reflecting the prosody of spoken speech: "Signals of the prosodic parameters of a phrase (volume, tempo, duration, tone) include both traditional and nontraditional ones for book-written speech. Linguistically creative ways include numerous and diverse brackets and emoticons, as well as agglomeration of signs: And kaaashaaaaaaa!!!" (Barysheva, 2020).
Thus, the use of punctuation marks serves primarily to carnivalize communication on the Internet.
There is a tendency to abolish the dot at the end of the statement, as this is connected to the new technological parameters of the Internet -speed, modularity and interactivity, which often leads to the disregard of the norm for the sake of keyboard convenience, speed and expressiveness.
Word-formation level. We distinguish several trends specifically related to Internet communication.
Since the so-called "new oralness" is cultivated on the Internet, Runet users actively create colloquial lexemes using affixation, which supports the colloquial nature of Internet communication: pics, memsics, etc.
Abbreviations testify to the dramatic renewal of the language in certain historical epochs (for example, after the Great Russian (formerly October) Revolution). Internet communication has developed its own abbreviations understandable to Web users: imho (in my humble opinion), ZY (PS, postscript), etc. Also, the Web abbreviates existing words, but in a new way that can be understood: Mne nra (Mne nravitsya 'I like'), sps (spasibo 'thank you'), priv (privet 'hello'), spok (spokoinoy nochi 'good night'), etc. From ancient times, the most widespread and frequently used words have been written in an abridged form to save the writing materials; in Old Russian written monuments in such cases a spe-cial emendation "titlo" or specially missed letters were written over the word -"outside letters" (Ivanova, 2011).
With the development of the Internet came the so-called visual wordformation, which with the help of font, colour, graphics, design allows to give an expressive connotation to a new lexeme. L.V. Ratsiburskaya singles out the following polycode word-formation models: "A manifestation of polycodality in media neologisms can be considered the use within one neologization of different functional elements of one language (monographixation), the combination of uppercase and lowercase letters (capitalization), the alphabets of different natural languages (polygraphixation), and elements of different code systems (codographixation), colour, drawing, photo" (Ratsiburskaya, 2020).
With the emergence of the hashtag (English distributive label), we can talk about a new specific way of word-formation in Internet communication, which in general resembles the addition of bases: #WordsoftheWeek, #Moscowis-thebestcityonEarth.
Lexical level. On the lexical level of Internet communication, we note trends that are common and traditional for each new stage in the development of literary language.
Vocabulary is known to be the most open and mobile system compared to other language levels, so the processes of updating the lexical fund associated, first, with the Internet as a special subject and communicative sphere, and, second, with the new realia in the social life are clearly expressed in Internet communication. Here we see numerous lexical neologisms created with the help of wordformation, semantic neologisms appeared as a result of the development of new meanings for already known words, borrowed neologisms, including calques and half-calques, barbarisms and exotisms.
For example, the process of creating semantic neologisms is most clearly seen in the professional jargon of Internet users, as well-known and commonly used lexemes develop a special, professional meaning: mouse, keyboard, network, etc. A similar process is observed in the new "digital" meaning in the lexeme post, which in Internet communication is associated with the genre structure of the Web.
At the same time, many "updated" and borrowed words are actively functioning in Runet. For example, the word post already forms the verb to post, indicating placing a text on electronic resources. Word-formation nests appear (a repost, to repost, etc.), which fill the gaps in the lexical system in Russian language of Internet communication.
A revealing is the example of borrowing (also graphical) an English word share, meaning "to share information on the Web". In Runet, this word is common and has several variants.
Another example: Near Novaya Istra, where I made my escape. New Jerusalem Monastery for a week. The embodiment of the beauty and power of Russian Orthodoxy.
Escape is a term referring to computer literacy and means a special key on the computer keyboard. This key can be used to exit from an application or program. In this example, the borrowed neologism escape, in addition to its meaning associated with digital technology, has a playful connotation. This text actualizes the "pre-computer meaning" of this anglicism: "to escape, to slip away", using the calque "to make escape." Apart from neologisms, on the lexical level of Internet communication we can note the development of lexical-thematic groups and synonymic series, the creation of antonymic pairs, the emergence of new homonyms.
The development of lexical-thematic groups is associated with filling the missing positions in nominating new realia that emerged with the development of digital media. The replenishment of the lexical system of the Internet language gives it the ability to respond flexibly to the requests of the Web users related to the development of linguistic creativity. For example, the above-mentioned process of mastering borrowings in Runet is often used in the language game as a special expressive method of contaminating Latin and Cyrillic symbols, for example:

Kuar-code, QR-code (To the bar via kuar/to the bar via QR -comment: to the bar via QR)
The contamination of Latin and Cyrillic symbols is frequent on the Web because it corresponds to the visual turn that has occurred in Internet communication.
Noting the explosion of neology in Internet communication associated with new digital technologies allowing to accumulate the creative process of users in a single space of the Web, we deliberately do not touch in this article the issues of speech culture, such as excessive borrowings from the American version of English or the creation of a special network jargon, because it does not meet the objectives of the research. Our observations allow us to draw conclusions about the usual and significant renewal of the vocabulary in Internet communication, which can be reflected in a significant transformation of the established system of Russian vocabulary.
Morphological level. Unlike the lexical level, the morphological level is relatively closed and has a certain stability and a high degree of conservatism. The formation of Russian grammar is a complex and long historical process.
Grammatical changes in the speech of Web users reflect, first of all, the abovedescribed tendency to imitate oral colloquial speech and, secondly, the tendency to authorial creative use of grammatical resources and "adjusting" them to the language game, which is widespread in Runet. We highlight some frequent ways of creative "updating" of part of speech resources in Internet communication.
Noun. Parodying the gender of nouns is becoming popular in Runet, for example: beautiful tulle, cheerful pudel (in this example, the colloquial pronunciation is also parodied), etc. Here we should also point out a particularly active spread of feminatives: rectorka, professorsha, blogess, doctoress, etc. The absence of these words in the Russian literary language is quite historically justified, and their appearance is associated with the possibility to use the morphological category of gender to convey the gender identity of a person, which initially (in ancient times) served the formation of the noun gender category in the language.
Adjective. The active formation of relative adjectives with a pronounced colloquial character draws attention, e.g.: Facebook friend, online friendship, etc. We can also mention the development of qualitative meanings in relative adjectives, e.g: Horse prices for young beets posted by some citizens. Runet users use "combined" new forms of comparative degree of adjectives -more seriouser, less significanter, more stricter and many others, which, in terms of the norm, should be assessed as gross errors, and from the perspective of language creativityas a bright manifestation of analyticism and development of new means in Russian morphology.
The verb. In the use of verbs there is also a tendency to colloquialism, with frequent colloquial forms that have expressive connotations, for example: -I was laughed so loud.
The reflexive-middle voice in this example bears a vivid mark of colloquialism, which reflects the language play.
-Ehaj ('colloquial for imperative of go'), don't stop! The imperative in this example also emphasizes the stylization of popular colloquialism.
Interjections. Interjections are the class of invariable words that has suddenly reacted actively to the new communication on the Web by expanding and replenishing its composition, including at the expense of loanwords from the English language, for example: Wow, LOL, OK, etc. Syntactic level. The syntactic level also fully reflects the tendencies towards colloquiality, expressiveness and creativity that appear in online communication.
Errors in syntactic regime are parodied: "I laughed from him." This creates ironic stylization and colloquialism. Colloquial expressive constructions are actively used, such as simple sentences stringing, which in network communication are combined in a complex one, but with the reduction of conjunctions: "-Ku-code hasn't been demanded yet? "Went to the publishing house for a book -a textbook, authors from the two best departments in the faculty -my respect, colleagues..." Parcelling as a marker of colloquialism is also frequent: "-I'm on vacation. Really. In all senses." Internet communication is mainly dialogical, so dialogization is also very important in Runet: "-What do you think about it?" "-How do you escape the heat?" In general, the dialogue-oriented syntax of Internet communication correlates with the syntax of spoken speech in its expressiveness, simplicity, dynamism and incompleteness. This is due to the spoken-written nature of Internet communication, and it also supports the same feature in Runet communication.

Conclusion
The Russian language in Internet communication is being renewed and developed at all levels of its system. The changes of language are active and happen in short terms, that is why many innovations are negatively estimated by the contemporaries as a violation of traditional Russian speech culture and disregard for the norms of literary language. But the trigger for this development, from our point of view, was not only technological factors, the emergence of new media, but also internal linguistic processes of renewal and creativity. It is not only the fact that free and liberated Internet users are focused on their own presentation and originality. The point is that the flexible language system, with its vast accumulated wealth in forms of expression, developed creative function and potential for updating, is reflecting the new reality of digital communication according to its special linguistic laws and adjusts itself to it. It seems that the renewal of language in the space of the Web is natural and inevitable. Dynamic processes are found at all levels of the language system, which allows to speak of their nonrandom nature. There is a replenishment of the vocabulary of the language; at the word-formation level, new non-usual ways of creating occasionalisms and neologisms are tried out. Changes also concern conservative grammar -experiments are made with the gender and number of nouns, the degrees of comparison of adjectives, grammatical forms of verbs, the formerly small and closed class of interjections, etc. Syntax is converging with oral colloquial speech. Graphic, orthographic and punctuation levels reflect the playful strategies of Web users.
On the whole, the renewal of the Russian language on the Internet is explained by the attitude of communication participants to creativity, language play, expressiveness and emotionality, to a special linguistic self-expression. Thus, the free communicative space of the Internet allows to reveal all creative possibilities and potential resources of the Russian language, accumulated in its long historical development.