MULTIMODAL SYNTACTIC CONSTRUCTIONS: A STRIKING FEATURE OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATION IN MODERN ENGLISH

This article is devoted to the study of multimodal syntactic constructions that are characteristic of modern English-language advertising, and more specifically, by certain insurance companies. The purpose of the study is to classify the various types of multimodal syntactic constructions by conducting a thorough analysis of the verbal, non-verbal and paraverbal means of which they are composed; to distinguish multiple groups based on their dominant constituents; to outline their semantic load and pragmatic potential; to formulate a definition that delineates the concept of ‘multimodal syntactic construction’; and to test the method of multimodal syntactic analysis as an innovative tool for studying the illustrative material. The use of the continuous sampling method made it possible to identify verbal, non-verbal and paraverbal components to be analysed. Structural and semantic analysis were used to identify the semantic and structural features of verbal, non-verbal and paraverbal units, their functional load and their functioning at the syntactic level. A distributional analysis made it possible to trace the environment of the components of multimodal syntactic constructions and to formulate possible methods of combining the means being analysed. The socio-semiotic approach was utilized to identify the implicit and implicit load to identify the true meanings. The social semiotic approach was aimed at identifying the implicit and explicit load to identify the true meanings. The comparative method was useful for distinguishing types of multimodal syntactic constructions based on common features. The method of multimodal syntactic analysis made it possible to identify possible ways of combining verbal, non-verbal and paraverbal means into semantically capacious and communicatively complete constructions, and, on this basis, to distinguish several groups and subgroups. We have chosen to classify all syntactic constructions either as monomodal or multimodal, the latter being structured into two groups: homogeneous (17%) and heterogeneous (83%). Those in the heterogeneous category may be further subdivided into four groups on the basis of the dominant component: multimodal syntactic constructions based on the verbal mode; multimodal syntactic constructions based on the non-verbal mode; multimodal syntactic constructions based on the verbal mode with the use of special effects that can influence the semantics; multimodal syntactic constructions based on several non-verbal modes (without verbal components but with the use of signs belonging to at least two semiotic systems). Within the first group, which makes up 29% of the whole corpus of heterogeneous constructions, ten types of constructions have been distinguished, which include from two to six types of components of different semiotic systems. The second group of multimodal syntactic constructions (26%) mentioned above includes four subtypes, the construction of which is ranked from three to five components. The third group (17%) consists of ten types produced by two or four components. The fourth is the least frequent (11%). These structures are formed by one or two types of components. Based on the corpus of illustrative material, it has been established that multimodal syntactic constructions should be understood as symbiotic enclaves formed by combining units of different structure and content, shape and size, which belong to at least two different semiotic systems.