MULTIMODALITY OF MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAGE INTERNET COMMUNICATION

The article is devoted to a critical review of modern works of leading Ukrainian and foreign researchers focused on the study of English-language Internet communication. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that the Internet has given users an unprecedented freedom of communicative action, which did not exist in the former historical forms of communication, which overcomes geographical distances and social differences. A comprehensive analysis of the main characteristics and features of the functioning of Internet communication elements was carried out. Special attention is paid to the phenomenon of multimodality – one of the main features of Internet communication, which involves the use of several means or channels of information transmission. Multimodality describes communication in terms of the textual, audiovisual, linguistic, and spatial modes that are involved in composing and transmitting a message. Multimodal communication uses various semiotic modes, which are aimed at increasing the effectiveness of transmission and reception of messages. The functions of multimodal Internet text are considered, as well as the linguistic features of communication through the Internet, examples are given. While speech is the central code, non-verbal components also play an important role in the process of information transfer. The audiovisual component is a catalyst for the receiver's full perception of the broadcasted information. Multimodal linguistics is just emerging and is beginning to answer the question of the congruence of the functioning of all elements of Internet communication. Without a doubt, it is a necessary and important direction of modern linguistics, which studies the regularities of communication in the network.  Keywords: Internet communication; Internet linguistics; multimodality; communication; modern Internet technologies.