INTERTEXTUALITY IN COMMENTS ON ONLINE ARTICLES: AN ANALYSIS OF COMMENTS ON GERMAN ONLINE ARTICLES ABOUT THE BOLOGNA PROCESS

Abstract

The paper focuses on different forms of intertextuality in comments on online articles which are characteristic of this communicative practice. Comments can refer either to online articles or to comments of other users as well as to other verbal and non-verbal texts. Due to media-related constraints and the modified textual practices of computer-mediated communication (dialogicity, interaction etc.), intertextual relations have to be described for each different type of reference text separately. Only in this way can we adequately describe the new quality of intertextuality influenced by media. Based on the analysis of 119 comments on three different online articles referring to the Bologna reform from the German online newspaper Zeit-Online, a typology of different forms of intertextual relations was proposed, taking into consideration both technical and media aspects. Intertextual references on textual, auditive and visual elements were all considered. Although established forms of intertextuality were found to be the most common in online comments (e.g. reproduction of key lexical elements and allusions to the content), some changes of intertextual references (longer citations at the beginning of comments) or new forms (links, speech sequences etc.) were identified.