STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF THE NON-GOVERNMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS’ OFFICIAL WEBSITES

Abstract

Due to the gravity of the environmental situation in the world, the study of the environment as discourse has been recently featured in different ways on the linguistic research agendas. The awakening of a scholarly interest in the relations between language and ecology gave rise to a new branch of linguistics – ecolinguistics. Since non-governmental environmental organizations (NGOs) play a crucial role in redirecting the humanity towards a more sustainable way of living, it is important to study the verbal and non-verbal means they employ to spread knowledge and, most importantly, promote environmental awareness. The article is devoted to the analysis of structural features of the non-governmental environmental organizations’ official websites. The research has made is possible to draw the conclusion that the above-mentioned websites function as a hypergenre of environmental Internet discourse and include such genres as environmental Internet news, blogs on environmental issues, social Internet advertising, a commentary, and via a system of hyperlinks, provide access to their profiles on various social networks. The study shows that the genres constantly interact and interpenetrate with each other. For further research, it seems reasonable to carry out a more profound study of structural peculiarities of websites that highlight environmental issues. Yet another perspective is a comparative analysis of online and offline genres of environmental discourse.