STRATEGIES FOR TRANSLATING CYBERMEMES AS A LINGUISTIC-CULTURAL COMPONENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS MANIPULATION

Abstract

The article deals with the phenomenon of language play within the context of cybermemes, focusing on the challengesand strategies of its translation from English into Ukrainian. The study is grounded on the idea that cybermemes are a dynamic formof online communication where linguistic creativity intersects with visual and cultural elements. Language play and creativity in employing rhetorical devices are mainly used to draw readers’ attention. Expressive means in cyber memes are a powerful instrumentto manipulate consciousness as they inform and actively influence the audience's thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Their use communicates the information and produces specific emotional reactions, affecting the perception of events, people, and phenomenaand imposing necessary attitudes and evaluations. The authors emphasize the importance of the psychological peculiarities of language play in analyzing cybermemes, revealing the sources of informational and psychological impact on the addressee’sconsciousness and predicting the consequences of such an impact on an individual and social process. The research aims to definethe main types of language play used in memes and to analyse how they are preserved or transformed in translation. The analysis isbased on authentic examples of English-language memes and their Ukrainian equivalents. It demonstrates that translating language play requires linguistic competence and a deep understanding of the cultural and pragmatic context when a translator co-creates the planned effect. The article applies a set of translation transformations, such as lexical adaptation, stylistic compensation, syntactic restructuring, and pragmatic adjustment. The theoretical framework includes the works of foreign and Ukrainian scholars.The paper concludes that creative, culturally adapted translation strategies are essential to retain the humorous and expressiveeffect of memes. The findings of the study may be relevant for translators working with digital discourse, media texts, and humour-oriented content.