The Principal Concepts of Modern British War Media Discourse (on the Materials of the Events in Syria)

Abstract

Research methodology. The research is based on the discourse analysis of British war media discourse. The following methods were applied: content-analysis – to define the borders of concept «war» functioning in British war media discourse and to distinguish the principal concepts of modern British war media discourse; conceptual analysis – to research the semantic meaning of the principal concepts and their role in the formation of recipients’ context models while decoding war events.

Results. The principal concepts of modern British war media discourse were researched as well as their role in the formation of recipients’ context models. In a modern world traditional forms of war have changed, which led to a significant enhancement of the semantic structure of the concept «war». A thesaurus gives at least four definitions of «war», all of which actualize understanding of war not only as an armed conflict but also as a state of hostility between the countries. Subconcepts included into the main concept of war media discourse – «war» – depend on the context of war message as well as on the certain situation in which the communicative event is being realized. It can be proved by analyzing the functioning of the concepts «protest», «unrest» and «conflict» in different surroundings: in Ukrainian events (2013–2014) and in Syrian events (2011). While in Ukrainian events the first concepts were «protest», «unrest», and a result – «conflict», in Syrian events the concept «conflict» caused the appearance of those concepts. It is clear that there are different causes of the the problem. However, this shows that the semantic meaning of a concept can change under the influence of geopolitical, and then – communicative situation.

Novelty. The author distinguishes the principal concepts of modern British war media discourse as follows: conflict, unrest, uprising, protest, revolution, crackdown, tension and crisis. It is proved that the semantic meaning of concepts and their functioning in war media discourse can change depending on aggravation of the situation, and due to this, the recipients` context models are formed: the concepts not only allow the recipients to decode the war events in a proper way but also to reconstruct a certain reality on the basis of this interpretation.

The practical significance. The research results can be used to define the principles of the formation of war context model and to work out the mechanisms of its proper decoding by the recipients.

Key words: war media discourse, war, concept, subconcept, context model.