Stylistics of Humor in Internet Memes: A Pragmatic and Multimodal Analysis

Abstract

The paper explores internet meme stylistics of humour by means of a pragmatic, multimodal approach that examines the combination of language, visual semiotics and culture in creating Internet humour. Using the Cooperative Principle of Grice (1975), which is a principle of verbal cooperation violation, as a basis of implicature, the analyses of the use of irony, hyperbole, intertextuality, and incongruity in memes to form humour and social commentary were based on the attentive reading of the Cooperative Principle and the General Theory of Verbal Humor determined by Attardo (2001). The collected corpus consists of 150 popular memes, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit (2022–2024), specifically those mentioning political figures (e.g., Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy), pop-culture icons (e.g., Taylor Swift, Elon Musk), and crises occurring in the world (e.g., COVID-19, climate change). The analysis based on the multimodal discourse theory introduced by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) breaks down the synergy of the textual captions, visual visuality, and digital affordances (hashtags, emojis, and formats like “distracted boyfriend” or “Drakeposting”). The results show that meme humour can be based on stylistic deviation, such as non-standard orthography (“u mad bro”), intentional code-switching (Arabic-English blends on Middle Eastern meme pages), and multimodal layering, which enhances ironic distance. Memes are pragmatic in the sense that they are dependent on a common background knowledge establishing in-groups and leaving out outsiders, which serves to strengthen identity and community. This study emphasizes the changing the role of memes as digital folklore where stylistics and pragmatics intersect to create modern humour, political critique and cultural negotiation.