GENERATIVE CONCEPTS OF THE ENGLISH DISCOURSE OF WAR
This article focuses on the analysis of the discourse-generative concept of WAR in English-language political discourses about russia-Ukraine war. Theoretically, this present study builds on the theories of political linguistics, cognitive linguistics, world construal, matrix modeling of the concept...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Ivan Franko National University of Lviv
2024-11-01
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| Series: | Іноземна філологія |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://publications.lnu.edu.ua/collections/index.php/foreighnphilology/article/view/4493 |
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| Summary: | This article focuses on the analysis of the discourse-generative concept of WAR in English-language political discourses about russia-Ukraine war. Theoretically, this present study builds on the theories of political linguistics, cognitive linguistics, world construal, matrix modeling of the concept, and on the theory of conceptual metaphor, metonymy, and metaphtonymy. The material for this analysis was drawn from the pro-Ukrainian discourse of the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the pro-putin political discourse of the Chinese official media during the period of 2022 – 2024. The main methods used to analyze the concept of WAR were a complex of a component analysis of lexemes to single out semantic potential of the concept of WAR nominations, a matrix modeling to determine conceptual domains of WAR, and a cross-mapping of concept properties to describe conceptual metaphors, metonymies, and metaphtonymies of WAR. As a result, this study distinguished linguistic means that objectify the concept of WAR, including the conceptual metaphors and metonymies (mainly synechdoсhes) of WAR, and modeled the corresponding domain matrix. I argue that the domain matrix of WAR consists of the domains and subdomains WAR CHARACTER (subdomains CONCEPT PROPERTIES FOR UKRAINE :: FOR RUSSIA), PARTNER COUNTRIES – PARTICIPANTS OF WAR, CAUSE OF WAR (subdomain PUTIN), PURPOSE OF WAR (subdomains PURPOSE OF UKRAINE :: PURPOSE OF RUSSIA), WAR RESULT, AXIOLOGY OF WAR. I also claim that the scope of domains in the matrix is stable while their contents differs up to the contrary in pro- and anti-Ukrainian world construals. The concept of WAR is mostly verbalized by lexemes war or conflict, crisis depending upon the ideological values of the two ideologically opposite discourses. In Chinese media discourse, the conceptual metaphor of WAR is WAR IS A GAME; and in British prime minister’s discourse, there are conceptual metaphtonymies (synechdoche combined with metaphor), which activate the subdomain CAUSE OF WAR / PUTIN, among them PUTIN IS A GAMBLER, PUTIN AS AN ARSONIST, PUTIN IS A MODERN MOLOCH. Theoretically, this present study serves to develop the information warfare theory and, in particular, the methodology of domain matrix modeling in political cognitive linguistics; while its empirical results deepen the insight into the informational war that accompanies all military operations of the russia-Ukraine war. |
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| ISSN: | 0320-2372 2078-2373 |