Ethical assessments as a way of forming the image of Russia in the genre of Telegram messages (the case of Ukrainian Telegram channels)

Vollständiger Abstract

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The article deals with the analysis of linguistic and cognitive mechanisms for implementing ethical assessment in the genre of Telegram messages. The study is based on ethical assessments in messages of Ukrainian Telegram channels when constructing the image of Russia. The corpus included channels occupying leading positions in the TGStat rating by the number of subscribers and citations in the thematic groups “Media” and “Politics”. The methodology of the study is based on the postulates of cognitive-discursive analysis, which implies the reconstruction of assessment as a mental phenomenon actualized in an extralinguistic context. As the analysis revealed, the majority of ethical assessments are pejorative. The linguocognitive mechanisms for implementing ethical assessment include zoomorphic metaphors and metaphors of humanoid creatures, irony, the use of precedent statements, pejorative similarization, phonetic blending, disinformation and fake messages, the use of direct nominations with evaluative semantics. The features of the analyzed discourse include the authors’ desire to give an ethical assessment not to individuals, but to the Russian people as a whole. This practice, known as nationalistic attribution of traits, simplifies complicated social realities and leads to xenophobia, stereotyping and marginalization of public consciousness.