Emotions expressing means in modern internet communication (by the example of patient internet reviews)
This article considers the characteristics of special graphics (emoji, emoticons) as an instrument of emotional expression in a virtual communication. On the basis of studying the patients’ reviews on websites for exchange the information about physicians and hospitals. The difficulty of emotional expression in Internet communication is associated with the lack of direct contact between the interlocutors; virtual communication participants are deprived of the opportunity to use the body language, which gives additional words meaning or emotional expression of messages (e.g., facial expressions, gestures, timbre of voice). In this regard, there is a need for special Internet graphics as a part of non-verbal communication. Using those not only to compensate, but also to enhance the emotional effect, which is mostly created by lexis and stylistics.