Humorous mode of communication during the war period in Ukraine

Abstract

The article is devoted to humorous discourse in the context of war in Ukraine, as reflected in various Internet sources. Humour-generating resources of proper names (anthroponyms, toponyms, chrematonyms, ergonyms, biblionyms, etc.) and common names are considered. The article establishes that the humorous mode arises on the basis of a mental transition from similarity to difference of concepts that include both individual and aggregate denotations. It is argued that the plane of similarity is mainly governed by sound similarity of lexical and semantic units (common and proper names, cross-linguistic paronyms, sememes of polysemous words, formative and derivative, normative and non-normative, positively and negatively evaluative units, etc.). The plane of difference is formed by semantic characteristics of lexical elements. It is found that the evaluation of humorous comments is shaped by the context of societal events reflected in mass media. The article explains how the humorous discourse of wartime in Ukraine serves to realise communication strategies of an axiological, worldview, ideological, identification, and suggestive nature. The research was funded by a grant as part of the project “Documenting Ukraine” (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM), Austria).