Author’s name:
Maria A. Vasilyeva – Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Abstract:
This paper examines various ways of expressing verbal aggression in modern Russian- and English-language print media. The relevance of the topic is underscored by the need to study the linguistic mechanisms underlying the explication of verbal aggression in the context of an ongoing information and psychological war associated with the major political event of recent years: the special military operation. Understanding the basic patterns of aggression expressed through linguistic means in the media, as well as their national and cultural characteristics, helps identify potential threats to the country’s linguistic security and formulate appropriate responses. The material for the analysis consists of a corpus of news articles on the topic of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict published by the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda and the British newspaper The Independent. The study employs the continuous sampling method, the comparative method, and content analysis, which made it possible to select potentially aggressive news items, identify the main objects of aggression and typical models of its verbal expression, determine the frequency of use of specific linguistic markers of aggression, and elucidate their national and cultural specificities. The conclusion addresses the primary means of conveying a negative attitude toward the object of aggression and discrediting it in the Russian-language newspaper: the use of negatively evaluative, colloquial, invective, and obscene vocabulary, as well as word-forming neologisms and precedent phenomena. The purpose of verbal aggression in this newspaper is to form the concept of “otherness” (alienness) in the reader’s mind, wherein the Russian side of the conflict is presented as dominant over an enemy rendered weaker by disorganization and corruption. The British newspaper exhibits a high percentage of aggressively marked publications characterized by the use of implicit aggression. The means of implementing this type of aggression include lexical repetitions that create negative evaluative concepts, the embedding of proper nouns denoting the Russian side within negative contexts, and the manipulation of readers’ historical memory to construct a bipolar black-and-white worldview featuring a global evil — Russia. A distinctive feature of the British newspaper’s media discourse is auto-aggression: journalists invoke the concept of Russian “hybrid attacks” to manipulate readers’ sense of security.
| Section | LANGUAGE AND CULTURE |
| DOI: | 10.47388/2072-3490/lunn2026-73-1-9-28 |
| Downloads | 42 |
| Key words | speech aggression; Russian-language media; English-language media; media language; media discourse |