Abstract:

Mass information culture is characterized by spectacularity, anonymity and virality. Memes have become one of the favorite formats of this type of culture. The term "meme" was first coined by the Oxford professor, ethologist and evolutionist, Richard Dawkins. He used this term in his book «The Selfish Gene» to show that not only genes can be used by natural selection, but other types of replicators as well. D. Dennett notes that from the point of view of cognitive science, a meme is a complex idea that affects human behavior, and also spreads in the form of something definite and easy to remember. M.I. Gromovaya proposes to consider Internet memes as linguistic culture - units of cultural value.

By the way they are expressed, Internet memes can be classified as follows:
1. Text meme;
2. Meme picture;
3. Videomem;
4. Creolized meme, consisting of text and visual parts;
5. Hyphae.

Creolized meme is a kind of creolized texts, "a texture consisting of two inhomogeneous parts: verbal linguistic and incorrect, belonging to other sign systems than natural language". Memes are a great educational device for teachers and students alike to promote clarity, pedagogy and humor. Assignments with memes can be not only a fun but a novel way to get student engaged in content, creative communication, which expects students to communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals. Students may be exposed to the new vocabulary (which is semantically charged, the current idiom of the time, the particularities of the formal/informal English); imagery (tropes and figures of speech; epithets; symbols, metonymies, metaphors; irony, contrast based on oppositions, antonomasia); and syntax (inversion, ellipsis, interpolation, parallelism, repetitions, detachments, rhetorical questions).

Keywords:

Mass information culture, linguistic culture, Internet meme, creolized text, educational device, student engagement, creative communication.