Conceptualization of South Ossetia conflict by Russian bloggers
Abstract
The present study analyzes the narratives by Russian bloggers on the 2008 South-Ossetia conflict. This analysis of political discourse is underpinned by the principles of cognitive linguistics, developed on the basis of bodily experience of human beings. The combination of different approaches leads to a more comprehensive analysis and concise interpretation of events taking place in society. This cognitive-discursive perspective differs from traditional studies of mass media narratives which mostly base on Discourse Analysis (DA) and/or Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), i.e., language in use is studied from the perspective of meaning on/ above the level of sentences and through the relationship between language and society, as well as language and power. Methodologically, this study was conducted on the basis of integrative speech analysis, critical discourse analysis, and cognitive linguistics. From the cognitive point of view, bloggers’ discourse is based on concepts evaluated positively (BENEFIT, FAIRNESS/HONORABLE CASE), negatively (CONQUER, PROBLEM, VANDALISM, NEGOTIATED MATCH), and neutrally (DEMONSTRATION, TEST). From the linguistic point of view, in their discourse, bloggers extensively use metaphors, which belong to the most effective ways of expressing opinions and are widely used by the media to create vivid images of the events described. A qualitative generalization of the data of content analysis proves that the attitude of Russian bloggers to the conflict is quite diverse, there is no consensus about how the war was fought, about its results, about the current situation and future prospects for the region.
Downloads
References
Amer, M. (2017). Critical discourse analysis of war reporting in the international press: The case of the Gaza war of 2008-2009. Palgrave Communications, 3(13). DOI: 10.1057/s41599-017-0015-2
Blinova, O. A. (2017). Natsional’no-kul’turnye osobennosti politicheskogo diskursa angloyazychnoi pressy (na materiale stat’i jurnala “The Economist” [National-Cultural Features of Political Discourse of English Press (on Material of Article from “The Economist”)]. Nauchnyy dialog. – Scientific Dialog,, 3, 19-30. DOI: 10.24224/2227-1295- 2017-3-19-30. (In Russian)
Cap, P., Hart, C. (Eds.). (2014). Contemporary critical discourse studies. London & New York: Bloomsbury.
Dirven, R., Frank, R., & Putz M. (Eds.) (2003). Cognitive models in language and thought. Ideology, metaphors and meaning. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Fairclough, N. (1995; 2013). Critical discourse analysis. In J.P. Gee & M. Handford (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 9-20). New York, NY: Routledge.
Gallagher, S. (2017). The narrative sense of others. Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 7(2), 467-473.
Gee, G.P., & Handford, M. (2012). Introduction. In G.P. Gee, & M. Handford (Eds). The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp.1-6). New York: NY: Routledge.
Gibbs, J.P. (1989). Conceptualization of terrorism. American Sociological Review, 54(3), 329-340.
Hart, C. (2015). Discourse. In E. Dabrowska & D. Divjak (Eds.). Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 322-346). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
Hart, C., & Lukes, D. (Eds.). (2010). Cognitive linguistics in critical discourse analysis: Application and theory. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Holmgreen, L.-L. (2008). Biotech as ‘biothreat’?: Metaphorical constructions in discourse. Discourse and Society, 19, 99-119.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langacker, R.W. (1991). Foundations of cognitive grammar. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Marugina, N.I. (2009). Kontsept “sobaka” kak element russkoj jazykovoj kartiny mira [The concept of dog as an element of Russian language worldview]. Iazyk i kultura. – Languagee and Culture, 2(6), 11-30. (In Russian).
O’Keeffe, A. (2012). Media and discourse analysis. In G.P. Gee & M. Handford (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 441-454). Abington, USA & Canada: Routledge.
Shchipitsina, L. (2006). Metaphoric presentation of Russia in Russian and German mass media. In E. Vorobyeva & S. Strelkova (Eds). Heritage Island in the Ocean of Culture: Proceedings of the International Seminar on Intercultural Communication (pp. 34-49). Arkhangelsk: Pomor State University.
Simons, G. (2006, Fall). The use of rhetoric and the mass media in Russia’s war on terror. Demokratizatsiya, 14(4), 579. Retrieved from ProQuest database.
Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Van Dijk, T.A. (1988). News as discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Van Dijk, T.A. (1997). Cognitive context models and discourse. In M. Stamenow (Ed.). Language Structure, Discourse and the Access to Consciousness (pp. 189-226). Amsterdam, Benjamins.
Van Dijk, T.A. (1998). Opinions and ideologies in the press. In A. Bell & P. Garrett (Eds.). Approaches to Media Discourse (pp. 21-63). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.
Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA is about – a summary of its history, important concepts and its developments. In R. Wodak & M. Meyers (Eds.). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis
(pp. 1-13). London, UK: SAGE Publications.
Zhabotynska, S.A. (2016). Kontseptualnye metafory v publichnykh rechakh Baraka Obamy i Vladimira Putina (2014–2015gg.) [Conceptual metaphors in the public speeches of Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin (2014–2015)]. Cognition, Communication, Discourse, 13, 43-91. (In Russian).
Годовщина Юго-Осетинских событий. Godovschina Yugo-Osetinskikh sobytiy [The anniversary of South-Ossetia events]. (2009, August 6). Available from https://nytimesinmoscow.livejournal.com/?skip=40
Authors, who publish with this journal, accept the following conditions:
The authors reserve the copyright of their work and transfer to the magazine the right of the first publication of this work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Non-Derivs License (CC BY-NC-ND), which allows other persons to freely distribute a published work with mandatory reference to the authors of the original work and the first publication of the work in this journal.
Authors have the right to enter into separate additional agreements for the non-exclusive dissemination of the work in the form in which it was published by this journal (for example, to post the work in the electronic institutions' repository or to publish as part of a monograph), provided that the link to the first publication of the work in this journal is given.
The journal policy allows and encourages the authors to place the manuscripts on the Internet (for example, in the institutions' repositories or on personal websites), both before the presentation of this manuscript to the editorial board and during review procedure, as it contributes to the creation of productive scientific discussion and positively affects the efficiency and dynamics of citing the published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
