Kutoyan A. Compositional Speech Means of the Comic Creation in the Text of the English Comedy

The paper focuses on the investigation of means that produce a humorous effect in the text of the English comedy. The analysis shows that the main principle on which all the devices and means are bused is the principle of incongruity which suggests any discrepancy, dissonance or contrast. This principle has a throughout character and is actualized in all spheres and levels of the text. It underlies the composition, the plot, the subsystem of characters and runs through all verbal aspects: phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactical. As to the plot and composition, incongruity reveals itself in the device of parodying when original and derived forms are contrasted, and inversion when characters change their social roles deliberately or accidentally. The stylistic devices used in the comedy text are also based on the principle of incongruity; malapropism, paradox and zeugma being especially popular. Tropes, first of all, similes and metaphors, are based on the contrast between elevated referents anddown-to-earth correlates or vice versa. United by the core feature - incongruity in its different forms - all the devices and means produce a humorous effect which is enhanced due their convergence and irradiation.