SYSTEM-FUNCTIONAL FEATURES OF SEMIOTIC MECHANISMS ORGANAZING INTERNET MEMES ABOUT CORONAVIRUS

Abstract

The article studies semiotic mechanisms of organizing Internet memes on coronavirus (COVID-19) as polycode texts reflecting the socio-cultural phenomenon significant for an indefinite period. It also examines relevant evaluative meanings of COVID-19 arising through the interaction of image and text in polycode units. Systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis serves as the research methodology and provides the framework for linguistic, cognitive and pragmatic aspects of the study. In line with the approach, a comprehensive interpretation of a communication act incorporating text analysis along with situational and cultural reflection, the inductive method and its main research procedures (observation, analysis and comparison) are applied to specify the COVID-19 discourse in Internet memes. The analysis of the system-functional peculiarities of coronavirus-related Internet memes has specified textual means of designing a communicative intention in polycode units, semiotic elements of pragmatic impact, as well as a multimodal perspective of interpreting the COVID-19 discourse through the interaction of verbal and visual references. The results show that COVID-19 memes convey condition-, interaction- and event-oriented evaluative meanings. The study revealed that the semiotic tools of different origin and precedence degree enable verbal-visual interaction to convey the sense of kinship and shared experience. Along with the disturbing meanings of apprehension and danger, the Internet memes noticeably express social unity and confidence in overcoming the challenges. The meanings are reinforced by the images of significant cultural value in the Russian community.