Modeling as a Method of Research of Communicative Interaction: a Dynamic Model of Internet Communication

   In the 21^st century a significant part of communication has been transferred from the real world (face-to-face interaction) to the virtual space, as the worldwide web provides unprecedented opportunities, reduces geographical distances and eliminates barriers to communication. Linguists propose different approaches to Internet-mediated communication. One of the approaches is to identify the dominant strategies used by the participants to Internet-mediated communication. The paper focuses on the study of communicative behavior and strategies of communication participants within the Internet space. The Internet is supposed to be a dynamic space that mediates the participation of an unlimited number of communicants in a variety of discussions. In this regard, the crucial task is the analysis of communicative interaction as a “procedural” phenomenon, the dynamics of which is subject to certain laws.

   The purpose of the paper is to substantiate the choice of a method for studying communicative interaction and to construct a dynamic model of Internet-mediated communication.

   The study is based on the autopoietic theory, which allows to take into account the dynamics of Internet-mediated communication and to model communicants’ behaviour, thereby describing the development of communicative interaction, addressing such properties of the participants to this communication act as adaptability and plasticity.

   To achieve the goal we need to solve the following tasks: to study the features of the modeling method; to analyze the specifics of Internet-mediated communication as a special type of dialogical interaction; to consider the main concepts and categories of the autopoietic theory that is seen as a methodological platform for modeling communication as a recursive interaction and to process them within the methodological framework. The results of the study present an autopoietic model of Internet-mediated communication and an experimental research aimed to verify and apply this model to the analysis of linguistic material.

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