Punctum.

By: Ksenia Shilikhina

ABSTRACT

The paper discusses multiple instances of sociopolitical irony conveyed by memes which reflect people’s reactions to Russia’s current internal and external policy. Despite the danger of legal prosecution, several Telegram channels, whose owners reside outside Russia, specialize in creating and spreading online memes that comment on current events and official political statements produced by Russian officials. The study is based on a collection of 124 memes posted by several oppositional Russian-language Telegram channels in 2022-2024. The complex image-language relationship in memes allows them to convey various explicit and implicit social meanings. In this research, the analysis centers around the semiotic status of verbal and non-verbal components used in satirical memes. The visual part of memes is usually an original photo, which sometimes can be edited or altered, often to make it look funny. The main function of the visual component is to create an intertextual connection with the specific person or political event. The verbal part is a concise comment that places the image in a new context. In memes, the visual part can function as a full-fledged component of the message which contributes to the creation of the ironic meaning: it triggers an intertextual connection with a wellknown visual object and functions as a source of a mismatch with the verbal part of the meme.

 
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