Czy zwierzanie się w Internecie to w dalszym ciągu zwierzanie się? O ewolucji gatunku zwierzenia

The object of this paper is contemporary statements posted on Polish Internet forums, which can be interpreted as confessions. Its purpose is to check whether the semantic features of the genre of confession, with the corresponding verbal lexeme zwierzyć się–zwierzać się (to confide) and the derived noun lexemes zwierzenie (confession) and zwierzanie się (confiding), described by theoreticians and lexicographers, are refl ected in online usages. And whether analysing such contexts will result in the necessity to extend or modify the dictionary explications and definitions. This is because online confessions differ from the original genre. This gives rise to the question if this results only from the change of the medium of making confessions or they have undergone the process of adaptation based on a peculiar communication situation, as an effect of which the prototypical genre characteristics have lost their significance, being pushed to the background, or the change of the medium has involved so significant genological modifications that the statements can no longer be called confessions and a new speech genre has been created. And it is extra-structural characteristics, namely the communication situation, that have become the indicator of the genre.