PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF FAN FICTION

Abstract

The present paper deals with investigating pragmatic functions of fan fiction. We define fan fiction as a corpus of texts (fanfics) written by non-professional authors based on a certain work of culture (book, film, TV series, etc.). Being on the Internet creates a number of features in fan fiction texts: conditional anonymity (nicknames), interactivity, hyper-authorship, verbal and visual interconnection, etc. Fan fiction is a multifaceted activity that fosters creativity, community, skill development, representation, and critical engagement. The conducted analysis showed that the megatextual structural elements of fan fiction can be conditionally divided into: technical, related to the volume of the text, visit statistics, the date of the last update, the degree of completion of the fan fiction; and meaningful, in which the rating, pairing, genre, some information about the chronotope and the plot are displayed in the descriptions; author's notes, from which the main themes and motives of the future fan fiction become clear. These megatextual elements give the reader a preliminary idea of the content of the text, so their correct design plays a big role in communities. On the one hand, the megatext contributes to the self-identification of the members of the fan fiction culture, and indicates belonging to this group. On the other hand, skillful, competent design speaks of a certain level of the writer and attracts more readers to his text.