The role of political memes in enhancing contextual comprehension and pragmatic skills of students learning English

this paper examines the relationship between political memes and their impact on improving contextual comprehension and pragmatic skills in a foreign language among second-year students enrolled in non-linguistic programs, namely, "Information Systems and Technology" (technical focus) and "Economic Security" (humanities focus) at Pskov State University. The aim of the study was to evaluate the use of political memes in English classes as a tool based on the analysis of their impact on the development of pragmatic skills and contextual comprehension, which, in turn, is necessary for developing knowledge of the linguistic realities of the target language countries and for improving foreign language proficiency overall. A methodological experiment conducted with students led to the following conclusions: 1) improved contextual comprehension occurs through in-depth analysis of memes; 2) specially designed tasks (role-playing games, discourse completion tests, tasks to identify violations of pragmatic principles, project presentations) help improve the development of pragmatic skills; 3) similar results in the technical and humanities groups are explained by the shared interest of modern young people in digital technologies and their products.

internet meme, political meme, cultural product, memetic message, English language learning, pragmatic skills, contextual comprehension