Language as a semiotic system of digital communications
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47526/3107-3085.235Keywords:
language, digital communication, semiotics, multimodality, cognitive linguistics.Abstract
The article examines language as a multi-level sign system in the context of digital communication. The study demonstrates how traditional linguistic levels—phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and semantic—are integrated with the affordances of digital media. Digital communication combines linguistic signs (text, emojis, hashtags) with visual and paralinguistic elements (images, GIFs, hyperlinks), creating a hybrid semiotic environment. The research draws on Ferdinand de Saussure’s concept of the sign and meaning, Roman Jakobson’s communication model, Charles Sanders Peirce’s triadic semiotics, and Yuri Lotman’s cultural semiotics.
The research methods include comparative-cognitive analysis, corpus linguistics, and social semiotics. The empirical base consists of 1,500 messages collected from the platforms Twitter, Telegram, and Reddit. The sample covers various genres, multimodal types, and language varieties. The messages were annotated according to modality, semiotic elements, structural features, and pragmatic functions.
The findings reveal four key trends: digital communication functions as integrated signal complexes; the shift toward visual and interactive codes transforms cognitive processes; “digital bilingualism” emerges; and online communities develop platform-specific grammatical and semantic models. These processes enhance the semiotic complexity of language and its adaptive potential.
In conclusion, language in digital communication represents a multimodal, multi-level, hybrid semiotic system in which meaning is constructed through user interaction. The results contribute to understanding the evolutionary trends of 21st-century communication and are applicable in linguistics, media semiotics, and pedagogy.
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