ENGLISH IN RUSSIAN INSTAGRAM MEMES: CODE-SWITCHING IN DIGITAL HUMOR
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55640/Keywords:
code-switching, internet memes, digital discourse, English influence, Russian language, Instagram communicationAbstract
The global spread of English has increasingly influenced communication in online environments, particularly within social media discourse. One noticeable example of this influence can be seen in internet memes, where humor and creativity frequently involve the combination of multiple languages. This study examines the presence of English elements in Russian-language Instagram memes and analyzes the role of code-switching in the creation of digital humor. The research is based on a corpus of memes collected from Russian-speaking Instagram accounts published between 2022 and 2025. These memes contain Russian text combined with English words or short expressions. Through corpus-based and discourse analytical approaches, the study identifies common patterns of code-switching and explores their communicative functions. The results show that English is mainly used through lexical insertions, brief phrases, and well-known meme templates, contributing to humor, irony, and the expression of shared identity within global online culture.
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References
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Authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts, and all Open Access articles are disseminated under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC-BY), which licenses unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is appropriately cited. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.
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