Speech etiquette of professional online communities

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Russian Journal of Communication

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Speech etiquette of professional online communities

Viktoria Vasileva & Liubov Ivanova

To cite this article: Viktoria Vasileva & Liubov Ivanova (2021): Speech etiquette of professional online communities, Russian Journal of Communication, DOI: 10.1080/19409419.2021.1899563 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19409419.2021.1899563

Published online: 16 Mar 2021.

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Speech etiquette of professional online communities

Viktoria Vasileva and Liubov Ivanova St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT

Networking within online communities is recognized as a new way of social interaction. The authors study Russian Internet communities that unite members of the same profession – professional social networks. In such communities, speech etiquette is formed under the inﬂuence of communicative values that are, in turn, formed under the inﬂuence of values that are determined by a particular profession. We search for a correlation between professional social networks’ speech etiquette features and the profession of their members, and raise the questions:

What communication goals are pursued by the users of the communities studied? What communicative situations form the professional social networks’ speech etiquette? What are the communicative values of an online group for professionals? What kinds of professionals’ speech activity may inﬂuence the formation of speech etiquette in professional social networks?

Speech activity of professional social networks was analysed in

‘Dentistry’,‘Overheard in the police’, and‘Law dot ru’.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 10 September 2020 Accepted 2 March 2021 KEYWORDS

Online community; speech etiquette; humorous communication; professional social networks; online audience

Introduction

Networking within online communities is recognized as a new (with the advent of theﬁrst social network Classmates.com in 1995) way of social interaction. As a phenomenon of the digital age, this type of communication uses the technical capacities of its time, but in its essence, it still remains speech communication. As it has always been, this communication is based on rules that participants follow.

Special speech etiquette in the new technical conditions had been discussed even before the advent of social networks. Theﬁrst well-known book with a list of such rules appeared in 1994: Virginia Shea in a small book,‘Netiquette’, formulated 10 rules of Inter- net communication in relation to the interaction of partners during email correspondence and in forum discussions (Shea,1994). These rules implement the norms of successful communication in general; they consider communication, as such, cf. the maxims of Grice (In our paper, we use the term ‘rule’ to describe a speciﬁc implementation of

‘norm’). And only the ﬁrst rule – ‘Remember the human’ –implies virtual reality. This kind of reminder made sense for theﬁrst email and messenger users, as communication via a faceless computer (not via a mobile phone, as it mostly happens today) had few simi- larities with live communication. But for today’s user, after 25 years of online

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communication, there is no signiﬁcant diﬀerence between a face-to-face and a gadget- mediated contact.

Current participation of one person in a variety of online communities indicates a conscious depersonalization of communication, where the addressee of messages is a wide group of people. It is unknown who of the community members are online at the time of sending the message, there is a factor of delayed delivery, and authors do not know who will respond to their message or when. This creates a special audience space that is in constant motion and cannot be limited to the parameters made outside, since almost any boundary of online communities is permeable for Internet devotees. The study of communication rules in these new conditions is diﬃcult even at the stage of identifying the object of research, i.e. speech interaction participants and communicative situation parameters.

It seems, however, that there is an audience parameter that contributes to a clearer formation of the boundaries in the community: an online social network that unites representatives of the same profession not only gets the maximum audience certainty, but also ends up being thematically inaccessible to the non-initiated. These communities account for current boundaries and are known as professional social networks (PSNs). A PSN is a network that unites people of the same profession on an online platform, and it is a network for usage of social media by professionals. Rules of participation in a PSN specify a strict requirement: one should belong to a certain profession (this often must be veriﬁed with professional education documents).

In PSNs, speech etiquette is formed, which is, as we will show, not the same as politeness. Our research shows that a PSN forms its own norms of communication, based on certain values. We assume that the communicative values of a PSN may be formed under the inﬂuence of values that are determined by a particular profession.

In Russian sociological studies, the question of value content with respect to the profession is often raised, and the social meaning and social purpose of the profession are analysed (Angelovsky,2010, Yadov,1977). The deﬁnition of professional values is determined not only by their ethical content, but also by the political, economic, social, and legal characteristics of the profession, and–what is important for our study–the speciﬁ- city of a particular professional activity (Nazarova,2015).

The purpose of our research is toﬁnd a basis for understanding the speech etiquette for communication in online communities that have at least one organizing principle, i.e.

profession of participants. This approach can be extrapolated to similar PSNs in social media, where communication is based on professional values.

Problem statement

The media discourse vector in the research of speech activity assumes as scientiﬁc tasks– among others–the ascertaining of the relationship between the type of utterances and the nature of activity, and assessing the technological determinism of speech activity. In this perspective, the etiquette acquires a prominent focus on the addressee that is expressed in‘textual demonstration of address and response’(Duskaeva,2018b, p. 236) (Hereinafter translated from Russian by Liubov Ivanova).

The study is based on the premise that it is a profession that inﬂuences the formation of speech etiquette in the online community, which is organized on a professional basis.

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Trying toﬁnd the most representative‘human-to-human’professions (Klimov,1995), we chose dentists, police oﬃcers, and lawyers, namely: the PSN‘Stomatologuiya’[Dentistry]

(https://vk.com/vk_stomatologiya), the PSN ‘Podslushano u Politsii’ [Overheard in the Police] on the basis of the social network‘Vkontakte’ (https://vk.com/overhear_police), and a PSN for lawyers and law students,‘Zakon.ru’[Law dot ru] –a community in the format of a website (https://zakon.ru/blogs).

Some principles for intergroup communication are verbalized in the rules of communities by administrators. For instance, dentists follow these rules:‘A group for exclusively scientific content’and‘Do not give advice to people if you do not understand the subject matter’. In the police officers group rules,‘The main goal of this community is to create and maintain a positive image of the police officer in the eyes of citizens’. Lawyers are instructed as follows:‘Attorneys ask practical questions to their colleagues and get com- petent answers.’This pre-moderation explicates professional and communication values.

Hence, more speciﬁcally, the purpose of our study is toﬁnd a correlation between the peculiarities of speech etiquette in PSNs and the profession of their members.

We aim to answer the following questions:

(1) What communication goals are pursued by the users of the communities studied?

(2) What communicative situations form the PSNs’speech etiquette?

(3) What are the communicative values of the PSNs?

(4) What kind of professionals’speech activity may inﬂuence the formation of speech etiquette in PSNs?

Background to the problem

In the modern, network-based world (Castells, 2001), online communities are speciﬁc markers of social practices, ‘social constructs’ (Kurbatov & Krupennikova,2016), having a clear structure and a set of technical tools in the online environment (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Online communication today is often used by representatives of diﬀerent professions for professional purposes. PSNs are considered to be‘new social communities where the interested actors consolidate, which are characterized by network thinking, the network language, network morals, and network ways of discussing and solving socially important problems’(Kurbatov & Krupennikova,2016, p. 57).

It was found that PSNs perform the function of accompanying the professional lives and enhancing the professional interaction between its members (Kurbatov & Krupenni- kova,2016). Traditional professional associations (for example, a lawyers’ guild, a trade union, a musical professional association, etc.) are considered to be a socio-cultural phenomenon (Mart’yanova, 2013), in which there are special orienting points for those choosing, mastering, and performing their professional activities (Korotayeva & Matvey- chuk,2012).

However, it has not yet been systematically studied how representatives of human-to- human professions maintain a productive conversation. The productive communication of the representatives of the same profession in an online environment is understudied, while online communication is actively studied from diﬀerent perspectives, for instance, how the web resource format (social network, a portal, a website, etc.) determines

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features of speech rules (Bou-Franch & Blitvich,2018; Garzone,2018; Graham & Hardaker, 2017; Kakorina,2010; Kaznova & Ovchinnikova,2014; Seargeant et al.,2012; Zoltner & Sha- burova, 2017). The features depend on the functional orientation of the Internet communication – for example, they are studied in the oﬃcial administrative resources (Putilina & Mel’nikov,2018).

Speech etiquette in theﬁeld of Internet communication– ‘netiquette’ – is called in Russian, ‘setiket’ (‘set’meaning ‘web’) (Antipov & Krasnova, 2012; Karaban’& Dikareva, 2018; Shea,1994; Surikova,2014), aiming to draw a line between Internet communication and the usual oﬄine communication (Zanadvorova,2014). Netiquette is recognized as a part of social norms, conceptualized in terms of prohibitive, prescriptive norms (Linek &

Ostermaier-Grabow, 2018). At the same time, netiquette contains values that reveal one’s expectations of their social role as an Internet user (Pręgowski,2009).

In addition to drawing a line between the rules for online and oﬄine communication (etiquette vs. netiquette), there is an interesting research question of how the etiquette diﬀers from politeness. Politeness has been well studied. Researchers point out that

‘politeness is always situated: in particular societies, cultures, in various institutional, inter- personal or public contexts, in certain interaction types or genres, as well as in various different relational networks’(Kádár & Haugh,2013, p. 5). First, it is noteworthy that the understanding of courteous and non-conflict communication (as shown in the Grice’s conversational maxims) does not coincide in different cultures (Ratmayr,2003; Sifianou

& Blitvich,2017; Wierzbicka,2003etc.). Secondly, there is a discursive approach to politeness, which requires consideration of context:‘what is a polite thing is not necessarily a correct etiquette one, but an unethical thing is always impolite’(Formanovskaya,2003, p. 353).

In this connection, the separation of the speech etiquette notion from politeness is reason- able. Thus, Alpatov (2018) attests that there is a need for a diﬀerentiated approach to the notions of politeness and etiquette because of diﬀerences in the language expression. Study- ing online group’s polylogues, Duskaeva (2020) argues that the speech etiquette in online communities is built by group participants in accordance with the proclaimed communicative values, but not due to the common sense of politeness.

Another aspect of the study of the norms and rules of Internet communication is associated with the concepts of communicative risks and media security. The term‘communicative risk’ ‘reveals the ontology of human riskogenic activity in the network society’ (Ust’yantsev,2016, p. 168).

Researchers have noted two types of results that communicative risks may produce: (1) the possibility of obtaining an unplanned communication result other than the expected one; (2) a risky action leading to a communicative failure or provoking a conﬂict. (Strakhova,2017, p. 152)

Media texts are also analysed in the light of media security. The danger of texts in, for example, social networks is seen in that they function as the conductors of speech culture for the mass audience (Antropova & Morozova,2015).

The study of ‘semantic-linguistic and communicative-pragmatic etiquette-based language resources’(Duskaeva, 2018b, p. 237), which are necessary for the realization of network etiquette, are seen throughout diﬀerent genres and within certain types of discourse, is considered to be one of the main areas of medialinguistics.

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Method and analysis

Our study is based on the praxeological method that is accepted in medialinguistics:

This method provides for: (1) the development of the typology of action means; (2) the ascer- tainment of eﬀective regulatory systems of action; (3) the identiﬁcation of activity procedures;

(4) criticism of human actions from the point of their advantages, and criticism of the methods used in these actions. (Duskaeva,2018a,2018b)

Considering thefirst approach to the implementation of these tasks in the study of PSNs’ speech etiquette, the following parameters of the analysis were chosen: the usage of methods of establishing and completing the contact; communicative support of the partner; the choice of interrelationships type in the dialogue; the manifestation of professional expectations in the responses; the specifics of the complimentary or critical evaluation of the partner in communication. The most important principle of the praxeological method is based on the purposefulness of communication. The parameters of the analysis that we suggest are revealed when referring to a specific purpose of interaction.

The PSNs’posts could be grouped according to three types of goals: (1) to get professionally relevant up-to-date information, (2) to get advice from colleagues, (3) to get evaluation (approval) of their professional activities. (All examples presented in the analysis are given in transliteration with translations in square brackets.¹)

Obtaining professionally relevant up-to-date information

This type of verbal interaction between communicants is a horizontal dialogue built on equal ground. Medical practitioners ask one another questions on technical innovations, legal and psychological nuances of communication with patients; lawyers describe, in detail, the proceedings they have held in court; and police officers describe specific problems and discuss whether stereotyping of their profession influences communication with individuals when offduty.

In their posts, dentists use the methods of establishing contact (polite address such as

‛Dobryj vecher, kollegi’ [Good evening, colleagues], ‛uvazhayemyye kollegi’ [Dear colleagues], congratulations as a greeting ‛Vsekh s prazdnikom!!!’ [Happy holidays everyone!!!]) and finishing contacts (‛Spasibo vsem otvetivshim’ [Thank you all who responded]). The ironic address‛Tovarishchi i tovarki!’ [Comrades and Comradesses!] is used often, which removes formality from communication. Humour is created within the address by combining the word ‘comrade’ (today, it is an official address among the military and police members, but in the USSR, it was a common way to address all men and a women), and the contextual neologism‛tovarka’[comradess], formed as a fem- initive (compare:‘waiter–waitress’) with the suffix‘- k -’(‛tovarka’is a female comrade).

Like many new feminitives in the Russian language, this kind of address has a humorous connotation. In addition, the word‛tovarka’has its own meaning of ‘friend, assistant’, adding ambiguity to the address ‘Comrades and Comradesses’. Lawyers in their posts request up-to-date information, show restraint and often use the neutral vocative

‛kollegi’ [colleagues]. The police may establish contact either with neutral language means (‛Privetstvuyu Vas tovarishchi’ [Greetings to you comrades]) or highly formal language means (‛Obrashchayus’ k deystvuyushchim sotrudnikam politsii’ [I appeal to the current employees of the police]). The requests for up-to-date information or opinions

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from practising colleagues is also formulated using etiquette-based language means (introductory words and constructions, full sentences):‛Podelites’pozhaluysta otzyvami kto proboval, khotelos’ by uslyshat’ mneniye kolleg’ [Please, those who tried, share your feedback, I would like to hear the opinion of colleagues] (dentists),‛Proshu profes- sionalov utochnit’momenty, informatsiya o kotorykh v seti protivorechiva’[I request professionals to clarify the points that are given contradictory explanation on the Internet]

(lawyers),‛Znayushchiye lyudi, podskazhite pozhaluysta’[Knowledgeable people, please tell me] (the police).

In response to the request for professionally relevant information in the lawyers’PSN, it is typical to give detailed comments with reference to the law, which are preceded by etiquette-based greetings such as ‛Zdravstvuyte, schitayu, chto pravil’nym resheniyem budet sleduyushcheye:… ’[Hello, I think that the right decision would be the following:

…]. Responses in the dentists’PSN are concise, where equality of the communicants is emphasized with vocatives and by switching to the‛TY’-register (‛ty’is the Russian infor- mal pronoun of the second person singular):‛Instrument izgotovlen lichno podtebya, poetomu i dorozhe’[The tool was made personally foryou, and therefore is more expens- ive]. The switch to the‛TY’-register is also found in the responses of members of the police community:‛Skhodi sam v otdel, k rukovodstvu’[Go to the Department yourself, to the management].

Request for advice

In contrast to the horizontal interaction in the requests for professionally signiﬁcant up-to- date information, the appeals for advice are structured vertically–from an inexperienced professional to an experienced one (or to one knowledgeable in any particular issue or area). Users turn to one another for advice using the generally accepted etiquette- based formula: greeting with a polite address to colleagues and elevating the communicative status of the hypothetical addressee by mentioning their experience:‛Prostite za takoy vopros, no ya neopytna yeshche. Khochu znat’ mneniya starshikh po zvaniyu’ [Sorry for this question, but I’m still inexperienced. I want to know the opinions of seniors], ‛Doktora, pomogite neopytnomu ortopedu’ [Doctors, help an inexperienced orthopedist], ‛Pomogite razobrat’sya!’ [Help me understand], ‛Kollegi, pomogite kto chem mozhet… ’[Colleagues, help me, anyone, with anything…],‛Nuzhen sovet opyt- nogo protsessualista… ’ [Need advice of an experienced proceduralist], ‛Na dnyakh popal v slozhnuyu situatsiyu i nuzhny sovety opytnykh kolleg’[The other day I got into a diﬃcult situation and need advice from experienced colleagues].

Comments in response to the posts containing request for advice thematically support the initiating message. Communicative support of the addressee can be done in diﬀerent ways, such as:

(1) The questioner is asked a clarifying question that helps to work out the problem in detail. Dentists:‛Atroﬁrovana kost’kak sil’no?’[How much has the bone atrophied?],

‛yest’obshchiye zabolevaniya?’[Are there common diseases?];‛A dlya chego pereba- zirovku delali?’[And why was relocation performed?]. Lawyers:‛Skazhite, krome etikh 10% kliyent chto-to yeshche dolzhen byl oplachivat’, ili eto oplata za ves’kompleks uslug?’[Tell me, in addition to this 10%, did the client have to pay anything extra,

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or was it a payment for the whole range of services?]. The police:‛A kakoye s nim nado imet’delo yesli u nego net statusa?’[Why do we have to deal with him if he has no status?].

(2) The questioner is encouraged:‛Gluposti! Vse tak nachinali!’[No big deal! That’s how we all started!]; ‛Delat’ shag vperyod, ne kompleksovat’ …Vse budet!!!’ [Make a step forward, do not feel self-conscious…it’s going to be OK!’; ‛U menya lichno takaya zhe situatsiya’[I personally have the same situation].

(3) A joke or irony is used to show the questioner that their situation is not very serious, and even quite banal:‛Ty kogda kontrakt podpisyval, videl chto napisano? Yesli net, to udivlyayus’kak na tebya yeshcho ipoteku ne oformili’[When you signed the contract, did you actually see what was written in it? If not, I wonder why fraudsters have still not taken out a mortgage in your name]–here is a hint of credulity that can be used by scammers for deceiving a person;‛Podayte v sud otdel’nyy isk v kotorom trebuyte zamenit’poruchitelya, kak-to Vy lenivy madam’[File a separate suit to the court with a request to replace the bailsman. You are kind of lazy Madam] –here, stylistic and semantic contradiction is created by the combination of the reproach for laziness with the ‘You’-address (the capital letter in ‘You’ conveys an extreme degree of respect for the addressee, and it’s infrequently used in Russian written communication), as well as the nomination ‘Madam’, which emphasizes the gender and social status of the addressee;‛Odnim slovom otrabatyvayte bablo kollega’[In a nut- shell, work oﬀyour bucks, colleague]–a joking assessment of the situation arises from the combination of the rude slang word‘bablo’(money, dough) with the emphatically polite oﬃcial address‘colleague’.

Speech interaction in the PSNs is based on communicative interests that all its members share. These communicative interests in turn are based on the common activity.

However, common activity does not always provide a common understanding of the principles of etiquette-based communication. The profession, according to the expectations of the members, binds them to a respectful attitude to colleagues, clients, and patients;

verbally expressed disrespect is often condemned and rejected:‛I kharakter napisaniya postov bol’she po stilyu pod molodykh i derzkikh, a okazalos’, chto slova pats, dokhtur i podobnoye ispolzuet chelovek starshe menya’ [The posting style is typical for the young and daring, but it turned out that words ‛pats’, ‛doc’and such were used by a person older than me] (the words ‘pats’) (short for ‘patient’), ‘dokhtur’ (distorted, perhaps, by poorly educated people’s pronunciation of the word ‘doctor’) – refer to slang words that, according to the correspondent, are excusable only in youth communication;‛Vitaliy, konechno, spasibo, chto udelili vremya dlya prochteniya mnoyu napisan- nogo, da yeshche i kommentariy ostavili, no schitayu, chto mozhno byt’korrektneye pri vyskazyvanii mneniya’ [Vitaly, of course, thank you for taking the time to read what I wrote, and even leaving a comment, but I think that you could be more tactful in expres- sing your opinion]–ironic gratitude is combined with reproach for incorrect criticism and expresses resentment;‛Glavnoye matom ne kryt’‘[The main thing is not to curse]–the expression ‘kryt’ matom’ means to curse or swear at someone; the author of the comment is ironic about sharply critical posts, which, as he believes, in content are very close to the extreme degree of cursing and only in form can’t be considered obscene while their oﬀending power is great.

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Obtaining evaluation (approval) of one’s professional activities

A post that invites speech interaction and acts as a prompt could be articulated by the initiator of communication–a member of the community–in the form of a case study providing a successful solution to a professional problem.

In these types of posts, dentists omit the standard etiquette-based formulas of greeting and address, preferring to immediately turn to the gist of the issue, using:

. The name of the problem solved or the procedure performed (‛Odnomomentnaya implantatsiya. Udaleniye zuba 2.5 i ustanovka implanta Any Ridge 5*8.5’ [Single- stage implantation. 2.5 tooth extraction and Any Ridge 5*8.5 implant installation]).

. The formulation of the question to a hypothetical addressee (‛K voprosu o “a est’ li SMYSL…?"’[To the question of‘and is there a SENSE in…?’]), or the opinion of the opposite party (‛Patsiyent ne ochen’ veril chto mozhno vylechit’ 4.6 zub, tak, kak yemu sovetovali yego udalit’’ [The patient did not really believe that his 4.6 tooth could be treated, as he had been advised to remove it]).

. Invitation to assessment and co-thinking:‛Na vash sud!!! Povtornaya endodontiya’[For your judgement! Recurrent endodontic treatment]; ‛Retraktsiya metodom 2kh nitey.

Otsenki, zamechaniya, sovety’ [Retraction using 2 threads. Assessment, comments, advice];‛Kto ya? Tvar’drozhashchaya ili pravo imeyu?’[Who am I? Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right?]–a direct quote from Dostoevsky’s novel is used in an ironic way: the novel’s hero, Raskolnikov, asks himself this question in the context of making a decision about murder, and the dentist in his post invites you to reﬂect on the doctor’s freedom in choosing treatment options.

In the lawyers’PSN, the authors of case study posts use:

. Stylization:‛Istoriya o tom, kak Verkhovnyy sud bankrotnyy turizm presekal’[The Tale of How the Supreme Court Suppressed Bankrupt Tourism]–the title of the case parodies Russian folk tales.

. Syntactic language tools: ‛Soglasheniye o dobrosovestnosti: delo o prosrochennom ketchupe’[Agreement on good faith: the case of expired ketchup]–formal business syntax is used.

. Stylistic resources: ‛Razmyshleniya nad delom Savushkina, ili Kakim byt’ russkomu reshale’ [Reﬂections on Savushkin’s case, or what a Russian problem-solver should be like]–the word‘reshala’is formed from the verb‘reshat’’(‘to solve’), and belongs to the criminal world, meaning a person who, for a fee, often uses illegal methods to provide intermediary services to resolve various problems.

Metatext comments on the statement become a means of coordination with the reader, allowing them to decide whether to read the comments:‛VNIMANIYE! daleye sle- duyut spoylery’[ATTENTION! What follows is a spoiler].

Case studies of the police oﬃcers’PSNs’are mostly anonymous and are published on behalf of the community. They often duplicate information from the Internet media about the successful work of the employees of the Ministry of Internal Aﬀairs. However, the community members may provide good advice, or life-hacks, for colleagues: ‛Kupil v

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antikvarnom magazine starinnyy morskoy svistok za 2000r…Svisshchu na zaderzhanii azh ushi zakladyvayet’[Bought a vintage marine whistle for 2000 roubles in an antique shop. During arrests, I whistle and pop everyone’s ears]. Usually, in response to such posts, the members of the community make jokes on the topic given in the post:‛Kupi yeshcho dudku kak u Nil’sa i krysy v obez’yannik poydut sami’[Buy a pipe like the one Nils had, and the rats will go to the monkey houses themselves]–here is an allusion to Selma Lagerlöf’s fairy tale‘The Wonderful Adventures of Nils’;‘rat’is a contemptuously rude word for a person,‘monkey house’is the slang name for a pre-trial detention cell in a police station.

Comments on remarks of reaction to the case study posts in the PSNs’are sometimes complimentary or may contain criticism.

A compliment from a community member to the author of the post, or‘high, and even inﬂated estimate of the addressee: his qualities and actions’(Formanovskaya,2014, p. 238), is focused on boosting the communicative status of the author. In this complimentary response, one uses favourably hued vocabulary and evaluative vocabulary: ‛Molodets!

Ochen’bol’shoy kompromiss’[Well done! Very big compromise],‛otlichnyy rezul’tat’[excellent result],‛krasivyy keys poluchitsya’ [it will turn out to be a beautiful case]; vocatives

‛Otlichno dok’ [Excellent, doc]. With some of those who highly appreciated them, the author of the post seeks to maintain contact and thanks them for the positive feedback on their work (‛Yelena, spasibo, vashi slova mne dorozhe vsekh ostal’nykh’[Yelena, thank you, I cherish your words more than all the others]). In turn, the reacting commentators demonstrate their readiness to continue the interaction:‛Ochen’zhdu chto dal’she budet.

Spasibo za sluchay!’[I am waiting for what will happen next. Thanks for the case study!].

The highest form of gratitude in the lawyers’ PSN is requests to share materials: ‛A mozhno sudebnyy akt poluchit’??? yesli ne trudno–analogichnaya situatsiya’[Is it possible to get the court decree? If it’s no bother < I have > a similar situation],‛i yesli ne trudno podelites’rezul’tatom iska?’[If it’s no bother could you please share the result of the lawsuit?].

Critical comments in response to a case study post from a community member may contain elements of etiquette aimed at compensation of critique (‛Doktor bravo. No smysla v podobnykh manipulyatsiyakh ya ne vizhu’[Bravo, doctor! But I see no point in such manipulations]). The correspondent may clarify their critical position (‛No i broshu kamen’v ogorod avtora: yego vsegda ochen’tyazhelo chitat’, sumburno pishet chelovek, ne dogovarivaya mnogiye momenty’[But I’ll throw a stone in the author’s garden: he is always very hard to read, the person writes chaotically without mentioning many details] – the idiom ‘to throw a stone in someone’s garden’ means to speak ill of someone and to express a critical assessment). In critical comments that do not contain explanations, the etiquette-based formulas are ignored (‛Za ispolneniye otl, za tselesoo- braznost’ v ortopedicheskoy perspektive neud’ [For the performance I give 10 out of 10, for the viability from the orthopedic perspective, I give zero]).

The publication of posts with interesting case studies as an element of network communication, is aimed at social orientation of the participants of the communicative process, occupational socialization, and professional self-actualization. Sending signals to the group makes the members of the group realize their belonging to this group.

The users’comments on case study posts conﬁrm the professional expectations of the initiator of the communication as they contain elements of maintaining contact, approv- ing comments, and criticism.

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Discussion

As the analysis of PSNs’has shown, group members form common ethical ideas about the norms of communication. We consider these norms to be related to communicative values. As sociological research shows, for social network members, professional values include business image (Litvinov,2010), professional competence (Inyutina,2017), self- development in the profession (Sergeyev, 2013), and readiness for mutual professional assistance (Polyakova, 2008). In the most general terms, we focus on the professional values of the professions being considered and show the corresponding communicative attitudes evidenced with our material.

Communication in the dentistry sphere is based on professional values of medical workers. Kornaukhova (2015) studied personal and group values of doctors in their practice: respect for the patient’s personality, responsibility, tolerance, honesty, openness, experience, communicative competence, and social solidarity. The key personal and professional value is the orientation of a medical worker toward self-development.

Thus, the orientation toward self-development causes a great number of such communicative situations as the exchange of experience, the request, and the communication of speciﬁc, professionally relevant information with details and practical recommendations.

It is important that, behind the described cases of medical practice, one can see a patient, the care of whom dictates, in particular, the requests for professional assistance. The formation of speech etiquette in the dentists’PSN is inﬂuenced by such professional characteristics of the audience as social solidarity when a doctor and a patient participate in a common life situation.

In the police officers’practice, both legal and ethical norms are equally recognized by sociologists as a factor of conflict prevention and resolution. The conflict solution competence is‘an essential factor in stabilizing relations, determining the universal standards of behaviour in a team’(Paliy,2013, p. 415).

Professions of the‘human-to-human’type, which includes the police service, are the most prone to professional deformations. Police oﬃcers, whose profession is associated with constant communication with people who have broken the law, are subject to such deformations as suspicion, fault-ﬁnding, distrust, callousness, formalism, rigidity, and rudeness (Yablokov,1991).

In the police PSN, a request for up-to-date information or the opinions of colleagues is formulated using special etiquette-based speech means: neutral in the military community –‛Privetstvuyu!’[Greetings!], or oﬃcial–‛Obrashchayus’k deystvuyushchim sotrudnikam’[I appeal to the current employees]. A member of the community, while making a choice of speech method of establishing contact, thus, demonstrates an evaluative attitude to the status of their request (Fedyaeva,2012). This, in turn, makes the audience aware of the degree of importance and the seriousness of their request, and is concerned about the correct understanding of their communicative behaviour–that is, they ultimately aim at stabilizing relationships with colleagues and avoiding conﬂicts in Internet communication.

Professional values of legal activity are deﬁned as a set of necessary personal qualities.

The search for truth in criminal proceedings is a creative process, so an investigator, a prose- cutor, a lawyer, and a judge need such qualities as humane attitude, sensitivity, attentiveness, the ability to penetrate into the inner world of a person, to ﬁnd the most appropriate methods of work in each case. (Gabrichidze & Coland,1993, p. 160)

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In the lawyers’PSN communication, lengthy case study posts are popular, which provide detailed circumstances and causes of the situation:‛Ya khotel by obratit’vnimaniye na pri- vedennoye nizhe delo kak obrazets i primer pronalogovogo podkhoda sudov, nekompe- tentnost’sudey i formalizm v rassmotrenii spora’[I would like to draw attention to the case below as a model and example of the pro-tax approach of the courts, the incompe- tence of the judges and the formalism of the dispute]. Comments to such posts indicate the extra work that the commentator has done to help a colleague:‛Prochital sudebnyye akty po Vashemu delu. Vy sprashivayete, pochemu…Dumayu, zdes’sudy… ’[I read the court rulings on your case. You ask why…I think, courts here…]. It is worth noting that although lawyers usually provide their notes with an indication of speciﬁc paragraphs of the laws, it is important for them to understand, in detail, the precedent that may be helpful to colleagues in their practice.

Findings

Here are some speciﬁc conclusions based on the chosen parameters of the analysis of speech etiquette in the PSNs studied.

. The usage of techniques of establishing and completing the contact: the presence/

absence of such techniques depends on the purpose of a particular interaction.

. Communicative support of the partner: participants demonstrate reciprocal readiness to continue their interaction; additional comments are used as a means of coordination with the reader.

. The choice of relationship type in the dialogue: depending on the purpose of interaction, a horizontal (colleague to colleague in the evaluation of activities) or vertical interaction pattern (senior to junior, experienced employee to beginner when requesting assistance, advice, and in response to such a request) is selected.

. The manifestation of professional expectations in the responses: detailed comments on requests for advice and assistance conﬁrm professional expectations; communicants expect a high level of preparedness of each other; communication is based on the cog- nitive characteristics of the perceiving consciousness.

. The speciﬁcs of the complimentary or critical evaluation of the partner in communication: compliments have the function of supporting colleagues in a diﬃcult situation or in solving a professional problem; criticism is based on professional arguments;

expressed verbal disrespect and impudence are rejected.

Thus, the answers to the questions posed at the beginning of the study are:

(1) Communication goals are: to receive up-to-date professionally relevant information– to share such information; to seek professional advice/help –to give advice/assistance; to get approval from the colleagues–to approve/criticize a colleague.

(2) In a communicative situation of‘request–response’, the roles between the participants are distributed diﬀerently. The communicant forming the request may perform the role of an inexperienced beginner. The communicant responding to the request demonstrates, on the one hand, their high professionalism, and on the

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other, professional solidarity, positioning themselves either as a professional friend or as a more experienced colleague.

(3) The main communicative values are the orientation to mutual understanding and trust in participants of communication. In the examined PSNs, we observed a thematic integrity of communication, a focus on the question, pursuit of precise wording, and commitment to the norms of professional language.

(4) The humorous speech activity shows the most obvious connection between a profession and speech etiquette in the PSNs. Humour is used in diﬀerent ways in the PSNs. In particular, it is used in relation to the humour objects, which are situations and persons. In the PSNs, the policemen and doctors laugh at themselves. Doctors laugh at the demonstrative ﬁctional professional situations. Lawyers and doctors never laugh at clients, but policemen do laugh at complainants. Humour and self- irony in the PSNs are organized into separate communication branches and even specialized sections such as ‘at leisure’, where professional jokes coexist with what is generally understood. Thus, professional communicative values are also involved in the implementation of the recreative function of communication; this function is also realized thanks to humour.

Conclusion

The study has shown that in three online communities organized on a professional basis, there are common communicative features. It has been established that the members of the PSNs studied join in Internet communication to achieve a certain result:

. To get professionally relevant up-to-date information.

. To get advice from colleagues.

. To get evaluation (approval) of their professional activities.

The type of profession aﬀects how the communicative purpose is realized and the extent to which the selection of these means is subject to certain etiquette requirements.

Professional values exist within a certain professional activity and communicative values take the form of speech etiquette. While professional values play the role of a regulatory mechanism for speciﬁc professional activities, network etiquette serves as a‘password’for admission to professional communication. Speech etiquette that is developed in PSNs, on the one hand, reﬂects professional values, and on the other, may itself serve as a basis for identifying the substance of professional values.

At this stage of the study, it is safe to say that in PSNs, there is a correlation between the features of speech etiquette and the profession of the PSNs’members.

Note

1. In accordance with a recommendation of the Ethical Guidelines 3.0 published by the Associ- ation of Internet Researchers, the discourse we study has public nature; therefore, participants of open communities in VKontakte implicitly accept that their usernames and texts are free for scientiﬁc use without their consent.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the post-graduate students of the Department of MediaLinguistics of St. Petersburg State University Soﬁa Kulazhko and Anastasia Samsonova for their practical assistance in the selection of professional social networks. We are also grateful to Professor L.R. Duskaeva for organizing the working group around this promising research topic.

Disclosure statement

No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation under [grant number 19-18-00530].

Notes on contributors

Viktoria Vasilevais an Associate Professor of St Petersburg State University. She has authored more than 100 scholarly articles, and has been a member of the authors’teams of several textbooks on stylistics and journalism, as well as scientiﬁc monographs on media linguistics. She has been teaching stylistics, literary editing, and speech technique to journalism students.

Liubov Ivanovais a senior lecturer at the Department of Medialinguistics of St Petersburg State Uni- versity. In 2018, she defended her candidate (PhD) dissertation‘Speech representation of intertex- tual dialogicity in the media discourse of international relations.’

ORCID

Viktoria Vasileva http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1505-3271 Liubov Ivanova http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6776-3721

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