Pragmatic and Semantic Analysis of Anti-War Protest Utterances (on the Data of Public Opinion Discourse in the Spring of 2022 in Russia)

Introduction. The main objective of article is analysis the personal anti-war utterances on protest posters to determine their pragmatic functions in the discourse of public opinion. The theoretical and practical significance of article is identification, description and classification types of personal speech tactics of anti-war protest discourse based on material of verbalized statements at solitary pickets in the spring of 2022 in Russia. Methodology and sources. A content analysis, pragmatic and semantic analysis of 455 utterances are carried out, utterances are obtained by continuous sampling method in the Telegram channel “OVD-Info” in the period from 02.24.2022 to 05.31.2022 and from the opened media sources indicated in the open database “Illustrative Material”. Results and discussion. Anti-war discourse as thematic variety of political discourse is formed in the process of public expression of criticism or disagreement in relation to military actions as way of resolving a geopolitical conflict and /or in relation to a specific military event, as well as in relation to political decisions leading to military actions. Anti-war discourse contains a specific semiotic code, which includes concepts “peace” and “war” as an obligatory component. And anti-war discourse is realized in a certain social and historical extralinguistic context. We checked up the important role of speech tactics which significantly transform the text of anti-war utterance, such as graphic euphemization, semiotic euphemization, abbreviation, neutralization. They implement a complex spectrum of speaker's intentions, masking and revealing it the same time. Conclusion. We have found not only differences in “direct” and “hidden” messages, but their similarities, consisting in the fact that for a part of the audience in the spring of 2022 in Russia the difference was leveled by the conditions of social communication: any statement in the public space was assessed as "anti-war” regardless of its form and content.

Authors: Oksana V. Dreifeld

Direction: Linguistics

Keywords: political discourse, concept war, euphemization, paralipsis, self-censorship, speech tactics, anti-war protest slogan

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