Аннотации:
© Medwell Journals, 2016.The study is devoted to the analysis of some tendencies in contemporary punctuation from the viewpoint of optionality. The analysis is based on the Russian and English languages. In the article the brief description of the optionality phenomenon is given. The analysis of active trends in punctuation allows to speak about the formation of new regulations involving the usage of variants according to linguistic and extralinguistic situations. The researcher states that optionality in the given aspect is found out in the parallel use of variants of using of punctuation marks in the written form of language and draws a conclusion that optionality should be regarded as a natural way of existence of punctuation norm in the Russian and English languages.