UDC

811.111+82-92

Authors

Natal’ya V. Potapova
Kemerovo State University;
ul. Krasnaya 6, korp. 6, Kemerovo, 650000, Russian Federation;
e-mail: nv_potapowa@mail.ru
Veronika A. Kameneva
Kemerovo State University;
ul. Krasnaya 6, korp. 6, Kemerovo, 650000, Russian Federation;
e-mail: russia_science@mail.ru

Abstract

The globalization of communication due to technological progress has made any hyper- or hypotext of electronic media available to almost any user with Internet access knowing the language of that text. At the same time, all news hypertexts are designed for a certain audience in terms of gender, race, social status, educational level, religious affiliation, and so on. It seems that the age of the target audience plays an important role in predetermining the linguistic features of news hypertexts. This paper studied the structural features of English-language hypotexts included in the news hypertext posted on the US news website CNN and intended for adults and youth. The material of the study included two groups of English-language news hypotexts, with either adults or youth as their target audience. The number of hypotexts analysed in each group was 80 units. The research aimed to identify possible differences in the structure of news hypotexts targeted at addressees of different ages. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were accomplished: a) a review of academic literature on the structure of news texts, b) an analysis of the structure of news hypotexts for adults and for youth, с) a comparison of the previous data with the results obtained by us. The analysis has shown that news hypotexts on CNN are based on the inverted pyramid principle. At the same time, the structure of news hypotexts designed for youth looks like a truncated inverted pyramid due to the absence of the headline, one of the most important elements of the structure. The study was performed using the conceptual and terminological apparatus as well as methods of the theory of the text and the theory of Internet communication. The results obtained can be used for further development of the theory of the text.

Keywords

English-language hypotext, news hypotext, news hypertext, inverted pyramid, age of the target audience

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