Creating a comic effect in English-language demotivators

The article considers creating comicality in English demotivational posters. It has been established that since the demotivator is a creolized text consisting of verbal and visual components, the comic effect it produces depends on the relationship between its parts. Three groups of demotivators have been identified regarding the role of verbal and visual components in creating a comic effect. The first group includes demotivators with autosemantic relations between the parts of the poster. The comic effect in them is created on the basis of a relatively autonomous verbal component with the help of a rich arsenal of expressive means available in the language. Phonetic, lexical and syntactic means of creating a comic effect have been systematized and described. It has been shown that their role in creating comicality is not the same. Phonetic devices only, such as rhyme, are insufficient in this case, and they always accompany lexical or syntactic stylistic devices. At the lexical level the most common devices for creating a comic effect are metaphor, pun, proverbs, comparison and irony. At the syntactic level the most frequent stylistic devices include antithesis, repetition, parallelism and chiasmus. Demotivator texts can be characterized by the interaction of phonetic, lexical and syntactic expressive means. The visual component in the first group of demotivators illustrates the verbal part and is not involved in creating a comic effect. The second group consists of demotivators with synsemantic relationships between the components. The verbal part in them is not independent from the visual part, so both components are equally important for the comic effect. The verbal component contains certain stylistic means. However, the comic nature of the situation described by the demotivator becomes clear only due to the visual component. It does not simply illustrate the verbal part, but is essential for the correct understanding of the communicative idea implemented in the demotivator. The third group includes demotivational posters with synsemantic relationships. The verbal component in them is oriented towards the image or refers to it. The verbal part contains no stylistic means. The obligatory visual component of the demotivator is of primary importance in creating a comic effect. This group is represented by two types. In the first of them, the text of the demotivator is devoid of semantic independence without correlation with the visual component. In the second type, the verbal component cannot be correctly interpreted without correlation with the image. It is concluded that the comic effect of a creolized text, such as demotivator, should be described considering the role of its components, which are in close unity and interaction. The study of the features of demotivational posters as a specific genre of Internet communication allows us to shed light on the relevant for modern linguistics problem of the polycode texts impact on the addressee. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

Keywords

Authors

References