Semantic word change as the main way to create a comic effect in the speech genres of Internet communication

The subject of the study is the semantic change of a word as a way to create a comic effect in the Internet communication. The object of the research in the article is Internet memes. Special attention is paid in the article to new ways of creating a comic effect, which the authors of memes find against the background of an increase in the level of intra-genre competition. Comic genres of Internet communication are becoming a kind of thesaurus reflecting the current state of the Russian language and the changes that have occurred in it. Nevertheless, the novelty and dynamic change of linguistic trends in the speech comic genres of Internet communication suggest an insufficient theoretical justification of the problem, which determines the relevance of this work. To establish the methods used to create a comic effect, methods of analyzing dictionary definitions and contextual analysis of lexical units in the meme (including the influence of the non-verbal component) were applied. The main conclusions of the study: 1) there are a number of ways to create a comic effect based on a semantic change of a word; 2) certain features (conditions) of using these methods increase their effectiveness: the ambiguity of lexemes, the assignment of an essential role to the non-verbal component of a meme, the colloquial or slang character of the actualized meaning, the presence of a token, the recognition of verbal and non-verbal components, intentional violation of spelling rules. A special contribution of the authors and the novelty of the research is the study of ways to create a comic effect (based on semantic word change) in the genre of an Internet meme, including a non-verbal component that has a special effect on the recipient's perception of information.