Polycode text in digital communications of the university: Сontent, graphics, illustrations

Abstract

The article considers the structuring regularities of the polycode text functioning in the news feeds of the technical universities websites. The relevance of the research is due to the need for a linguistic description of various formats and genres of digital communication. The novelty of the research lies in the comprehensive analysis of the scientific news feed of technical universities. The purpose of the study is to analyze the verbal (verbal media topics, themes) and non-verbal (graphics, illustrations, visual media topics) components of a polycode text. The research methods are content analysis, graphical and semiotic analysis. The multidimensional characterization of the various components of the text of scientific content makes it possible to identify the thematic dominants of university content, as well as a system of paraverbal techniques for its design. The discourse analysis makes it possible to establish inter-semiotic relations that reflect the distribution of meaning at the level of the verbal and visual code of the text. The image of the technical university as a research structure in the relevant fields of science and production dominates at the level of verbal codes. Herewith, the scientist (as a person) is on the periphery, but it provides the research process. Visual media topic is dominated by the image of a male scientist (as a person), which is a more significant component in the structure of the scientific process than the process itself and the scientific community. The visual components of the text (graphics and illustrations) are distinguished by a narrow repertoire of techniques. The analysis of verbal and visual media topics showed a logical inversion. The visual code complements and compensates for the verbal code, and vice versa. These data are consistent with the established dominant function of illustrations in the news text: the function of a supplement.