LINGUODIDACTIC POTENTIAL OF SEMIOTICALLY COMPLICATED TEXTS OF THE SPEECH GENRE JOKES

The level of foreign language proficiency largely depends on speakers’ ability to use language adequately in different communicative situations. Scientific research into speech genres held by Russian and foreign linguists has proved the importance of the functional approach to their studying with a special emphasis on the interconnection between a certain speech pattern and the related social environment that sets the interpretative framework. With this in view, it seems relevant to look for the new teaching methods aimed at developing foreign language learners’ ability to perceive, interpret and evaluate texts of different semiotic modes. The current research relies on English and German thematic (professional) and everyday jokes. The important point is that jokes of this kind are most difficult for learners to comprehend due to the fact that the main means of humour generation in this case is play on words (puns). However, encoding a large amount of cultural information jokes of this type is an important element of competence formation. The main methods of text analysis are genre and discourse analysis that bring to the surface the most distinctive features of thematic jokes, define them as a specific type of text and reveal their role in language acquisition. As a result, the authors come to the conclusion that using thematic jokes as teaching materials in a foreign language classroom boosts learners’ motivation and introduces them to cultural aspects of different social institutions and their most vulnerable sides.