Genre Aspects of Websites Classification

I. S. Kononenko, Researcher, e-mail: irina_k@cn.ru, E. A. Sidorova, Senior Researcher, e-mail: lena@iis.nsk.su, Novosibirsk State University, A. P. Ershov Institute of Informatics Systems, SB RAS

The paper proposes an approach to the development of two-level genre models of communication on the Web. Genre category of a website as a whole (macro-level) corresponds to genre types of website constituents (pages and structural blocks) on the micro-level. Two types of pragmatic parameters are used to represent genres on both levels of consideration. Praxeological parameters, such as activity subject, beneficiary, product and environment, represent human activity that underlies communication and shows itself in the site structure, content and form of site constituents. Communicative parameters concern the hierarchy of communicative tasks, functionality of site constituents, and the affordances of communication channel. The type of anticipated reaction of the target audience in the hierarchy of communicative tasks forms the basis of website genre classification on the macro-level. Functions of site constituents together with channel features (interactivity, multimodality, and dynamics of content) determine genre types of web pages. The type of a textual page corresponds to genre schematic structure composed of content blocks. Identification of genre schemata as a succession of compositional blocks is possible due to a lexicon of genre markers (cue words and constructions) that are formalized as lexico-grammatical patterns provided with format conditions. The proposed genre models are realized in the website classification system.

Keywords: web genre, website, web page, praxeological parameter, communicative parameter, genre schematic structure, genre marker, lexico-grammatical pattern, website genre model, website classification

pp. 32–40