Two Images of Russia in the British Political Mass Media Discourse of 1991 – 1993 and 2013 – 2019: Pragmastylistic Aspect

Natalya B. Boeva-Omelechko 1, Ksenia P. Posternyak 1, Marina R. Zheltukhina 2 * , Elena B. Ponomarenko 3, Elena V. Talybina 3, Alexander K. Kalliopin 4, Maria N. Ovsyannikova 4
More Detail
1 Department Institute of Philology, Journalism and Cross-cultural Communication, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, RUSSIA
2 Institute of Foreign Languages, Volgograd State Socio-Pedagogical University, Volgograd, RUSSIA
3 Faculty of Philology, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, RUSSIA
4 Institute of Foreign Languages, Moscow Aviation Institute, Moscow, RUSSIA
* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 9, Issue 4, Article No: e201926. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/5952
OPEN ACCESS   2372 Views   1784 Downloads   Published online: 07 Oct 2019
Download Full Text (PDF)

ABSTRACT

The paper considers political mass media discourse as a persuasive dialogue in which a journalist makes his interlocutors accept a certain point of view. The desired mental reaction on the part of interlocutors can only be achieved through careful choice of ways of persuasion and especially linguistic means often influencing effectively the emotional sphere. The persuasion can be subject to ideological aims thus representing a definite object as positive or negative. The paper claims that such object as the image of state can have opposite assessment in different periods of time and focuses on linguistic means of persuasion aimed at the creation of two contrasting images of Russia in the British mass media discourse of 1991 – 1993 and 2013 – 2019.
Keywords: dialogue, political mass media discourse, positive persuasion, negative persuasion, image of state, contrast, linguistic means

CITATION

Boeva-Omelechko, N. B., Posternyak, K. P., Zheltukhina, M. R., Ponomarenko, E. B., Talybina, E. V., Kalliopin, A. K., & Ovsyannikova, M. N. (2019). Two Images of Russia in the British Political Mass Media Discourse of 1991 – 1993 and 2013 – 2019: Pragmastylistic Aspect. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 9(4), e201926. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/5952

REFERENCES

  • Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. The William James Lectures. Delivered at Harvard University in 1955. London: Oxford University Press.
  • Basulto, D. (2016, July 10). Russophobia and the Dark Art of Making an Anti-Russian Magazine Cover. Retrieved from www.medium.com
  • Bayers, R. (1992, January 3). Yeltsin Applies Shock Therapy to Revive Mother Russia. The Times, № 64219.
  • Beaumont, P. (2018, September 11). Russia’s Scramble for Influence in Africa Catches Western Officials Off-guard. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/sep/11/russias-scramble-for-influence-in-africa-catches-western-officials-off-guard
  • Bierwisch, M. (1971). Modern Linguistics. Its Development, Methods and Problems. Paris: Mouton.
  • Binton, M. (1992, January 17). The City Helps Russia Get Out of the Red. The Times, № 64231, 11.
  • Boeva-Omelechko, N. B. (2001). Grammaticheskaya Antonimiya V Sovremennom Angliyskom Yazyke (PhD Thesis). Moscow: Moscow State Pedagogical University.
  • Boeva-Omelechko, N. B., Zheltukhina, M. R., Ryabko, O. P., Matveeva, G. G., Murugova, E. V., & Zyubina, I. A. (2018). Unusual Antonyms: Inter-Part-Of-Speech Interaction in English Fictional Discourse. Space and Culture, India, 6(4), 112-121. https://doi.org/10.20896/saci.v6i4.387
  • Bolton, L. (1991, August 19). Yeltsin Plays On. The Financial Times. № 31534, 2.
  • Boulding, K. E. (1956). The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6607
  • Boulding, K. E. (1959). National Images and International Systems. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 3(2), 120-131. https://doi.org/10.1177/002200275900300204
  • Brenton, T. (2016, July 24). The Doping Scandal Shows Russia Is a Rotten State – But We Must Not Seek a Pointless Confrontation. The Daily Telegraph.
  • Brinker, K. (1997). Linguistische Textanalyse. Eine Einfuehrung in Grundbegriffe und Methoden. Berlin: Erich Schmidt.
  • Brzezinski, Z. (2013, December 10). Russia, Like Ukraine, Will Become a Real Democracy. The Financial Times. № 38432, 14.
  • Cadwalladr, C. (2018, September 15). Russia is Mocking Us. First the Salisbury Attack, Then Information Warfare. Time to Wake Up. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/1-5/russia-is-mocking-us-first-the-salisbury-attack-then-information-warfare-time-to-act
  • Coates, S. (2018, November 20). Russia Offered Thaw in Relations If It Stops Attacks on West. The Times. Retrieved from https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russia-offered-thaw-in-relations-if-it-stops-attacks-on-west-f6dcxjgkl
  • Crystal, D. (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444302776
  • Davies, N. (1991, August 22). Democracy or the Soviet Union – But Not Both. The Daily Telegraph. № 42351, 16.
  • Dejevsky, M. (1991, December 23). The SU Is No More. The Times. № 64210, 12.
  • Dunn, T. N. (2018, October 8). Russia Sends Troops and Missiles into Libya in Bid to Enforce Stranglehold on the West. In: The Sun. Retrieved from https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7448072/russia-missiles-libya-warlord
  • Durkin, E. (2019, February 28). US in Virtual Tie with Russia on Global Confidence, Poll Finds. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/28/global-confidence-us-russia-gallup-poll-report-tie
  • Fallon, M. (2017, February 2). Coping with Russia. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/coping-with-russia
  • Finnegan, E. G. 1989. New Webster’ Dictionary of the English Language. Delhi: Surjeet Publications.
  • Firth, J. R. (1957). Papers on Linguistic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Fishlock, T. (1991, August 20). Brezhnev’s Ghostly Sniggers Echo Bloody Walls of the Kremlin. The Daily Telegraph. № 42349, 2.
  • Frankland, M. (1991a, January 13). The Captain Gets Lost in a Russian Fog. The Observer. № 10396, 17.
  • Frankland, M. (1991b, December 22). Lonely Victim of Imperial Delusions. The Observer. № 10445, 16.
  • Frankland, M. (1992a, April 12). Yeltsin Wants Russians to Be More Revolving. The Observer. № 10461, 2.
  • Frankland, M. (1992b, December 15). The Fault Is in Yeltsin Not in His Enemies. The Observer. № 10497, 3.
  • Grierson, J., & Wintour, P. (2018, March 17). Sergei Skripal: Russia Expels 23 UK Diplomats as Row Deepens. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/17/sergei-skripal-russia-expels-23-british-diplomats
  • Gumperz, J. J. (1982). Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611834
  • Harris, Z. S. (1952). Discourse Analysis. Language, 28(1), 1-30. https://doi.org/10.2307/409987
  • Hastings, M. (1991a, August 27). A Dangerous Ruin. The Daily Telegraph. № 42356, 12.
  • Hastings, M. (1991b, August 22). The End of Communism – By Order of the People. The Daily Telegraph. № 42351, 16.
  • Hastings, M. (1991c, August 21). The West for Yeltsin. The Daily Telegraph. № 42350, 14.
  • Hastings, M. (1992, January 14). Faith in the Russians. The Daily Telegraph. № 42463, 14.
  • Hastings, M. (2017, January 18). Without America Britain Must Lead Standing Tsar Putin New Imperial. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/18/without-america-britain-must-lead-standing-tsar-putins-new-imperial/
  • Hundsnurscher, F. (1992). Does a Dialogic View of Language Amount to a Paradigm Change in Linguistics: Language As Dialogue. Tuebingen: Niemeyer. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111332024-002
  • Jenkins, S. (1991, August 19). Yeltsin’s Heroic Day. The Times. № 64082, 1.
  • Johnson, B. (2018, February 22). Four Years since the Illegal Annexation of Crimea. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/four-years-since-the-illegal-annexation-of-crimea-article-by-boris-johnson
  • June, S. T. (2016, June 23). The Trap of “Countering Russia”. Retrieved from https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/trap-of-countering-russia
  • Kariakina, A. (2019, March 6). Five Years on from ‘Maidan’, Ukraine’s Small Successes are Its Real Revolution. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/06/five-years-ukraine-maidan-revolution-2014
  • Koppersmith, E. (1973). Allgemeine Rhetorik, Einfuehrung in die Theorie der persuasiven Kommunikation. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.
  • Kortunov, A., & Chalmers, M. (2018, April 17). Like It or Not, Russia and The UK Need Each Other – And Will Have to Talk. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/17/ru-ssia-uk-skripal-syria
  • Lakoff, G. N., & Johnsen, M. (2003). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226470993.001.0001
  • Lakoff, R. (1982). Persuasive Discourse and Ordinary Conversation, with Examples from Advertising. In: D. Tannen (Ed.), Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk (pp. 25-42). Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
  • Lambert, R. (1991, June 12). The Importance of Mr. Yeltsin. In: The Financial Times. № 10464, 1.
  • Lawson, D. (1992, April 16). Our White Knight Meets a Russian King. In: The Observer. 3.
  • Leech, G. N. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP. XVI. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813313
  • Lloyd, J. (1991, August 22). Fading of the Grey Man’s Fantasy. The Financial Times. № 31537, 2.
  • Lloyd, J. (1993a, October 5). Victory for All the President’s Men. The Financial Times. № 32183, 1.
  • Lloyd, J. (1993b, August 31). After a Long Sleep, Russia Awakes. The Financial Times. № 31554, 6.
  • Lloyd, J., & Freeland, C. (1993, January 1). Fear of Sharing a Bed with the ‘Russian Elephant’. The Financial Times. № 31976, 2.
  • Lynn, M. (2019, March 4). Free Trade Revolution in Brazil, Russia and China: This Could Be the Year Emerging Markets Take Off. The Daily Telegraph.
  • May, T. (2018, March 14). A Statement to the House of Commons by Prime Minister Theresa May Following the Salisbury Incident. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-commons-statement-on-salisbury-incident-response-14-march-2018
  • Mcelvoy, A. (1993, December 29). Is Tyranny Rooted in Russian Psyche? The Times. 12.
  • Mendras, M. (2018, July 25). Vladimir Putin’s Russia Is a Creaking Ship. Don’t Fall for the Propaganda. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/25/propaganda-putin-russia-elections
  • Millinship, W. (1991a, July 14). Welcome to the Man with Gifts from Moscow. The Observer. № 10423, 18.
  • Millinship, W. (1991b, December 8). What’s Left for Gorbachev. The Observer. № 10443, 10.
  • Minakova, N. A., Ponomarenko E. B., & Talibina E. V. (2018). About three groups of loanwords of mass media language (on the material of Moscow newspapers). Scientific and practical journal. Modern science: actual problems of theory and practice, The Humanities series. M., OOO KOPI-PRINT, (4), 139-143.
  • Moran, L. (2019, January 10). I Asked Theresa May If She Sides with Putin or the People And Tell Us If Brexit Is Real. The Independent. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-theresa-May-vladimir-putin-second-referendum-leave-eu-boris-johnson-a8721011.html
  • Mujanović, J. (2014). Moscow’s Man in Banja Luka. Retrieved from https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/moscows-man-in-banja-luka/
  • Nicholls, D. (2018, September 20). Gavin Williamson Commits Extra British Troops in Ukraine to Stop Russia ‘Reversing Cold War Outcome. The Telegraph. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/20/gavin-williamson-commits-extra-british-troops-ukraine-stop-russia/
  • NougayrèdE, N. (2019, March 1). Assad Can Still Be Brought to Justice – And Europe’s Role Is Crucial. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/01/assad-europe-lawyers-syrian-war-criminals
  • Parker, I. (1999). Introduction: Varieties of Discourse and Analysis. In: I. Parker (Ed.) Critical Textwork: an Introduction to Varieties of Discourse and Analysis, Bolton Discourse Network, Buckingham: Open University Press, pp. 1-12.
  • Perelman, C. (1979). The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning. Chaim Perelman, with an introduction by Harold Zyskind. The New Rhetoric and the Humanities. Essays on Rhetoric and Its Application. London: D. Riedel Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9482-9_1
  • Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The New Rhetoric. A Treatise on Argumentation. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.
  • Pipes, R. (1991, August 24/25). The End of 1917. The Financial Times. № 31539, 23.
  • Ponsett, R. (1991, June 17). Two Sides of Case for Coexistence. The Times. № 64044, 14.
  • Posternyak, K. P., & Boeva-Omelechko, N. B. (2018). The formation of the image of Russia in the British political mass media discourse. Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture, 40(2), e41086. https://doi.org/10.4025/actascilangcult.v40i2.41086
  • Pragglejaz Group. (2007). MIP: a Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926480709336752
  • Preston, P. (1992, December 11). Yeltsin Asks the People to Decide. The Guardian. № 45489, 13.
  • Preston, P. (1993a, March 22). A Coup In the Name Of Freedom. The Guardian. 3.
  • Preston, P. (1993b, October 5). Can the Tanks Bring Freedom? In: The Guardian. 3.
  • Preston, P. (1993c, January 1). No Turning Back In Russia. The Guardian. 14.
  • Privalova, I. V., Shaidullina, A. R., Zheltukhina, M. R., Grinberg, T. E., & Garcia Caselles, C. (2019). Coerced loss of national colorings – linguistic issues of virtual team communication. XLinguae, 12(1), 151-164. https://doi.org/10.18355/XL.2019.12.01.12
  • Rachman, G. (2018, March 19). Vladimir Putin is not as scary as he looks. The FT. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/c9d6f278-2931-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0
  • Repina, E. A., Zheltukhina, M. R., Kovaleva, N. A., Popova, T. G., & Garcia Caselles, C. (2018). International media image of Russia: trends and patterns of perception. XLinguae, 11(2), 557-565. https://doi.org/10.18355/XL.2018.11.02.45
  • Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Searle, J. R. (1983). Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173438
  • Stevens, T. (2018, October 5). At a Time of Permanent Cyberwar, the UK Must Stand Firm against Russia. The Guardian. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173452
  • Stothard, P. (1993, May 5). October Dawn. The Times. № 64766, 19.
  • Tameryan, T. Yu., Zheltukhina, M. R., Sidorova, I. G., & Shishkina, E. V. (2019). Stereotype Component in the Structure of Ethnocultural Archetype (On Internet-Blogs). The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences, 200, 1716-1722. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2019.03.02.200
  • Tameryan, T. Yu., Zheltukhina, M. R., Slyshkin, G. G., Abakumova, O. B., Volskaya, N. N., & Nikolaeva, A. V. (2018a). Metaphor in Political Media Discourse: Mental Political Leader Portrait. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 8(4), 377-384. https://doi.org/10.12973/ojcmt/3958
  • Tameryan, T. Yu., Zheltukhina, M. R., Slyshkin, G. G., Shevchenko, A. V., Katermina, V. V., & Sausheva, Ye. V. (2018b). New Country’s Political Discourse: Formation of Speech Technologies. Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 8(7), 151-160.
  • Thomas, J. A. (19950. Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman.
  • Till, P. (1992, October 10). Russian Medicine That Turned Sour. In: The Guardian. 5.
  • Tisdall, S. (2014, November 19). The New Cold War: Are We Going Back to the Bad Old Days? The Guardian.
  • Traynor, I. (1993, March 23). Constitutional Right on Side of Congress. The Guardian.
  • Trenin, D. (2017, March 27). Russia Is the House That Vladimir Putin Built –Abandon It. And He’ll Never Abandon. The Guardian.
  • Van Dijk, T. A. (1981). Studies in the Pragmatics of Discourse. Hague: Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110826142
  • Van Dijk, T. A. (1989). Structures of Discourse and Structures of Power (pp. 18-59). Newbury Park: Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-07299-3_2
  • Van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. Discourse and Society, 4(2), 249-283. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926593004002006
  • Van Dijk, T. A. (1995). Aims of Critical Discourse Analysis. Japanese Discourse, 1(1), 17-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926594005004001
  • Viner, K. (2018, July 15). The Guardian View on the Trump-Putin Meeting: Good for Vladimir, But Not for the Rest of Us. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/15/the-guardian-view-on-the-trump-putin-meeting-good-for-vladimir-but-not-for-the-rest-of-us
  • Volskaya, N. N., Tameryan, T. Yu., Zheltukhina, M. R., Boeva-Omelechko, N. B., Komleva, L. A., & Knyazeva, Ye. G. (2018). Literary Translation as Сognitive Overlap between Foreign and Native Languages. Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 8(7), 161-172.
  • Warren, M. (1991, October 24). A Merry Dance of Revolution. The Daily Telegraph. № 42353, 1.
  • Weaver, M. (1991, August 21). So, What Will Happen Next? The Daily Telegraph. № 42350, 15.
  • Weigand, E. (2009). Language as Dialogue. From Rules to Principles of Probability. Amsterdam: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.5
  • Weigand, E. (2010). Dialogue: The Mixed Game. Philadelphia: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.10
  • Weigand, E. (2015). Dialogue in the Stream of Life. In: Language and Dialogue, 5(2), 197-223. https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.5.2.01wei
  • Weigand, E. (2016). How to Verify a Theory of Dialogue. Language and Dialogue, 6, 349-369. https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.6.3.01wei
  • Weigand, E. (2017). Iada History. The Unity of the Dialogue and its Multiple Faces. Language and Dialogue, 7(1), 63-79. https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.7.1.05wei
  • Weigand, E. (2018). Dialogue: The Key to Pragmatics. From Pragmatics to Dialogue. Philadelphia: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.31
  • While, D. (1991, August 28). Russia Likely to Become New Nuclear Superpower. In: The Financial Times. № 315541. 2.
  • Zheltukhina, M. R., Bondareva, N. V., Zelenskaya, L. L., Anikeeva, I. G., Malygina, L. E. & Chistyakov, A. V. (2019). Media Promotion Role of Economic Vocabulary: Specific Features and Functions in Presentation and Advertisement. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 9(2), e201907. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/5733
  • Zheltukhina, M. R., Krasavsky, N. A., Ponomarenko, E. B., Aleshchanova, I. V., & Pavlov, P. V. (2016a). Political Facebook Posts Using Ideological Symbols for Media Image Designing of Russia as Enemy. International Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 11(18), 12005-12013.
  • Zheltukhina, M. R., Slyshkin, G. G., Ponomarenko, E. B., Busygina, M. V., & Omelchenko, A. V. (2016b). Role of Media Rumors in the Modern Society. International Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 11(17), 10581-10589.