STRUCTURAL AND LINGUO-PRAGMATIC ASPECTS OF INTERNET MESSAGES IN ENGLISH

Abstract

The article presents the analysis of the structural and linguo-pragmatic peculiarities of Internet health forum messages in English. Pain is a well-known to everybody but at the same time rather private sensation that can be experienced only by person in pain and is differently viewed from the perspective of the person describing pain of another person. Talking about their own pain people feel quite comfortable, use a wide range of synonyms and adjectives that help convey in detail the quality of pain they experience. However, describing somebody’s pain people feel embarrassed, because they cannot feel the pain of another person. The article presents an attempt to describe the linguistic means used to convey pain from the first and the third person singular. The author analyses the English Internet health forum messages and the differences in the description of pain from the perspective of the person in pain and from the perspective of the person verbalizing pain of another person. These questions have not been the subject of linguistic research yet. In relation to the speaker all the verbs used to express pain were divided into the three groups: I know this pain / I have experienced it; I retell the words of another person and I see / observe what another person feels.