Explicit and Implicit Markers of Conflict Speech Behavior in Internet-Mediated Communication During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction. The Internet leaves a significant imprint on the features of the construction and means of implementing conflict communication. The calculation of these tools allows us to differentiate communicative conflicts on the Internet with a sufficient degree of clarity and suppress them.
 Aim. Identification and comprehensive study of the conflict speech behavior in the process of exchanging comments on posts in the LiveJournal for the period from January 2020 to December 2022.
 Methodology and research methods. A continuous sampling method is used to select study material, a method of complex communicative-pragmatic analysis provides the assessment of comments as conflicting, linguostylistic analysis and contextual analysis contribute to detect the explicit and implicit markers of conflict interaction.
 Results. Detected explicit markers: profanity, zoometaphores, negative facial nomination from the point of view of origin, mental development, health status, level of education, from the point of view of the interests of society, occasionalism of the pandemic period, naming of the interlocutor as representatives of hostile ideology, emotive verbs with negative meaning, neutral device nominations when referring to the interlocutor, lexical means with threat, isolation, vaccinating semantics. Detected implicit markers: means that contribute to the construction of a dichotomy "own - alien", phraseologisms with negative connotations, an abundance of punctuation marks, Internet memes for the transmission of emotions, typeface, parcellated constructions, English-language interspersions, erratives, multiple questions, incomplete sentences, parallel constructions, repetitions, imperatives, subjunctive mood in an incentive meaning, modal words with the semantics of dignity. Means-enhancers of conflict interaction: adversative conjunctions, hyperbolization, phonetic pun, indefinite pronouns, double negation, adverbs-intensifiers, amplifying-excretory particles.
 Scientific novelty. A wide range of verbal and non-verbal means that show conflict explicitly and implicitly has been identified.
 Practical significance. We believe that the achieved results will ensure the regulation of the increase in conflict situations on the Internet.