IRONY IN CONTEMPORARY DIGITAL PLATFORMS: A LINGUOPRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE ON ONLINE COMMUNICATION

Abstract

Abstract: The emergence of digital communication platforms has significantly transformed the ways in which language is produced, interpreted, and negotiated in everyday interaction. Among the various pragmatic phenomena that have gained renewed importance in online environments, irony occupies a particularly prominent position. While traditionally associated with rhetorical speech and literary discourse, irony has become an essential communicative resource in social media interactions, where users frequently employ indirectness to express criticism, humor, evaluation, and social commentary. This article explores the linguistic and pragmatic characteristics of irony across contemporary digital platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Telegram, and Facebook. Drawing on Gricean pragmatics, Relevance Theory, and recent approaches to digital discourse analysis, the study argues that irony in online communication extends beyond verbal expression and increasingly relies on multimodal resources including emojis, memes, hashtags, images, and videos. The analysis demonstrates that successful interpretation of irony depends not only on linguistic competence but also on shared cultural knowledge and familiarity with platform-specific communicative conventions. The findings contribute to current discussions on digital pragmatics and the evolving nature of figurative language in technologically mediated communication.