Speech Genres of the Russian Language Segment of Instagram Social Network

The article considers issues related to speech genres in the new global areas of communication, which, in the first place, includes the Internet. Taking into account the main parameters of structuring the genre space of network discourse (V. I. Karasik, E. I. Go­roshko), the author identifies and describes the genre characteristics of the social network Instagram, which is one of the most popular platforms for communi­cation, self-­presentation, promotion and sales. As the basic features of this type of communication, the fol­lowing ones are highlighted: 1) a hypertextual na­ture (a special form of text organization, mediated by a computer environment, characterized by a process of non­-linear writing and reading); 2) interactivity (a publicly available feed of publications on Insta­gram implies the possibility of approval and comment­ing on materials posted by the author – the number of comments on the post is considered as the main indicator of the “success” of the account/author); 3) imperative character (most of the represented gen­res are imperative, including indirect representations); 4) predominance of polycode messages, including text, visual and video components (the initial predominance of the visual component of the genre as a result of the development of the Instagram communicative space was replaced by the implementation of the genre at the same time at several levels – verbal and visual, with an increase in the volume of the text component). The article also discusses specific aspects of Insta­gram as a social network. It has special opportunities not only for virtual socialization and self­-presentation of the subjects of communication, but also for pro­moting brands, goods and services, that significantly changes the existing speech genre pattern. There is a focus on the possibilities of typologizing genres present in the communicative space of social networks, in particular the Instagram network. It is determined that the genre system of this discourse type is flexible, characterized by blurring of the bound­aries between the genres and their transformation in accordance with the prevalence of utilitarian commu­nication goals.