DISCOURSE HETEROGENEITY: FROM FOUNDATIONAL APPROACHES TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONS

Problem statement. A widespread thesis holds that heterogeneity is a defining aspect of modern discourse, reflecting the multiplicity of forms, genres, styles, and contexts in which communication takes place. This phenomenon is determined by socio-cultural, political, and historical factors, and in the digital era – by technological factors that radically transform the nature of discursive practices. Recognizing discourse heterogeneity is essential for improving analytical methodology, as it makes it possible to account for new forms of communication emerging in the digital age. Purpose of the article. The article aims to highlight the phenomenon of discourse heterogeneity, reveal its multidimensionality, and demonstrate how the digital era transforms discursive practices, posing new challenges and methodological perspectives for modern linguistics. Research methodology and methods. The study employs the descriptive method to synthesize and generalize theoretical approaches, the comparative-historical method to analyze the evolution of discursive practices, and discourse analysis to identify the specific features of different regimes and genres. Digital forms are examined through multimodal analysis, which highlights the interaction of textual, visual, and audiovisual elements; corpus methods, which enable the processing of large datasets; and a socio-semiotic approach aimed at uncovering the social meanings embedded in linguistic and visual codes. Results and discussion. Scholarly approaches to discourse study in the twenty-first century differ significantly: some researchers focus on specific aspects, such as spoken discourse, while others view discourse as a more homogeneous category, where the key analytical unit is the “text/genre” pair. Each of these approaches reflects certain traditions. The problem of heterogeneity is evident in differences between spoken and written discourse, institutional and non-institutional genres, and formal and informal registers. Discourse regimes are divided into spoken, written, digital, and multimodal, each with its own stylistic norms and organizational features. While spoken and written forms have a long history, digital and multimodal regimes have only in recent decades become an active subject of scholarly analysis. The development of the Internet and digital technologies has challenged traditional approaches formed in the mid-twentieth century and based mainly on printed texts. In today’s discursive space, genre is no longer a stable category but a dynamic system marked by constant variability and innovation. Comments on social media combine elements of public and private communication, memes integrate verbal and visual resources to convey evaluative or ironic meanings, threads create new forms of coherence reminiscent of journalistic or academic texts while remaining spontaneous, and Instagram/Facebook stories demonstrate multimodal integration of image, text, and sound. All this suggests that the digital era shapes a new dimension of heterogeneity that extends far beyond classical models. Conclusions and prospects. The study has demonstrated that discourse heterogeneity in the twenty-first century manifests itself at interrelated levels. At the level of regimes, it is evident in the coexistence of oral, written, digital, and multimodal forms; at the genre level, in the transformation of traditional genres and the emergence of hybrid formats such as memes, threads, and Instagram/Facebook stories, which combine features of different communicative practices; and at the methodological level, in the need to adopt an integrated approach that combines multimodal analysis, corpus methods, socio-semiotics, and digital ethnography. The digital environment therefore not only expands the spectrum of discursive practices but also underscores the necessity of treating heterogeneity as a key analytical principle of contemporary discourse studies.