Language consequences of modern psychological and information warfare in Russian mass-media: problem definition

Abstract

The paper deals with the urgent and topical issue of political linguistics - the influence of information and psychological warfare on the Russian language. The aim of the paper is to describe the most frequent novices in the modern Russian language and speech which occur due to the domestic information and psychological warfare. The research was carried out on the basis of the mass-media texts, the traditional linguistic research methods were used (analysis and description, contextual and axiological analysis, etc.). As the result of the analysis the authors singled out both new and traditional words and word combinations which simultaneously serve as the weapon and the result of information and psychological warfare. Two groups of language (speech) means were defined: specialized (which perform the relevant evaluative function - either positive or negative) and non-specialized (which change the function depending on the context, the semantic ambivalent words and word combinations). The specialized means include pejorative words and word combinations: political labels, invectives, terribilitisms (bogey-words), delusions (trap-words), negatively connotative words, and euphemisms. Ameliorative means are not characteristic of information and psychological warfare, though words and word combinations are widely used which denote national concepts being the subject of information rivalry. Neutral language means in information and psychological warfare in the Russian language include terms and terminoids, naming various types of rivalries and technologies constituting them. The results obtained contribute to the development of the information and psychological warfare linguistics. Research perspectives encompass the refinement of some points and the analysis of information and psychological warfare language consequences in the light of linguistic ecology.

Anatoly P. Chudinov, Edward V. Budaev & Olga A. Solopova. 2023. Political Metaphorology: Cognitive and Discursive Studies 政治隐喻学 认知-话语研究. Peking University Press

“…The part that focuses on the portrayal of the image of the USSR in World War II media discourses is of special importance, as nowadays many political actors are trying to revise the outcomes of historical events in the context of information and psychological war, which has not only social and political but also language consequences (Kopnina et al 2021). The authors further explore metaphorical images of Russia's future, with a special focus on frequent metaphors that represent it and the senses deduced from them in Russian, American, and British discourses, as well as both best-case and worst-case metaphor scenarios.…”