CORREALTION OF CONCEPTS OF “HASHTAG-ETHNEM” AND “DME-HASHTAG” IN THE INTERNET DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article focuses on correlation of the concepts of “a hashtag-ethneme” (HE) and “a derogatively marked ethnonym-hashtag” (“DME-hashtag”) in the Internet discourse of the modern English language. The researcher has studied 326 DME-hashtags from social networks and microblogs with open access such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (2010-2018) as well as foreign media “New York Times” and “NBC News” based on methods of geographically stratified and ethnically stratified sampling. Relevance of the research is attributable to the reinforcing influence of the Internet technologies on human life, creation of new forms of interaction on the Internet that offer instant communicative exchange between the producer and the recipient of a message. Innovative nature of the research is determined by the fact that such concepts of the up-to-date linguistic reality as “a derogatively marked ethnonym-hashtag” and “a hashtag-ethneme” have been described and defined for the first time. Specific attention has been paid to intralinguistic and extralinguistic factors that contribute to the emergence of DME-hashtags and HEs in the language. The author concludes that the producer takes an active position in the process of emergence and establishment of DME-hashtags and HEs, while the recipient acts as a co-dependent observer. The author develops and presents 5 functions of DME-hashtags and HEs in the language.