Lexical selection criteria for the composition of linguistic hypertext for a literary text

The article contemplates linguistic hypertext as an instrument of avoidance of communicative failures in the process of reading of foreign literary texts; the article analyzes possible formal and informal lexical selection criteria for the composition of linguistic hypertext for a literary text. As linguistic hypertext we consider commentaries to literary texts, i.e. clusters of polythematic, hermeneutic information presented in nonlinear order after the main text which might be referenced to one another. Commentaries are especially important when apprehending foreign literary texts since it requires understanding of both extralinguistic and linguistic contexts. The main function of linguistic hypertext is the convergence of author’s and reader’s worldviews. Elements of a literary text included into the commentary are considered as possible gaps in the reader’s thesaurus which might thus lead to communicative failures in the process of written literary communication. An important step in the research of linguistic hypertext is the identification and analysis of possible lexical selection criteria for its composing. A commentator bases his selection of lexical elements of a literary text on the address of the text and the sociocultural discrepancies which the author and possible readers might have. The performed analysis leads us to conclude about formal and informal lexical selection criteria. Formal criteria include word frequency, morphological structure and ambiguity of a lexical unit. Informal criteria include such factors as linguistic and professional competency of a reader, importance of a lexical unit for the understanding of a certain part of the text or the whole text, cultural and language differences of an addressant and an addressee. Information presented in linguistic hypertext is aimed at neutralizing language difficulties and reducing spatiotemporal distance between the author and his reader and the analysis of selection criteria for such information is a vital element in research of the process of literary text apprehension and the study of linguistic hypertext as a means of communicative cooperation between the author and the reader.