Structural and semantic analysis of the concept union in political media discourse (comparative study of the English, German and Russian languages)

Abstract

The article analyzes the semantic structure of the concept  union by comparing its semantic markers for different European languages within the media discourse. The purpose of the article is to determine the features of individual meanings expressed through semantic markers in the media discourse of these languages and reflecting the uniqueness of the implementation of the concept union in semantic terms. When considering the features of meaning, semantic markers associated with the central concept are established; patterns of their frequency of use in the languages under study and factors influencing the transformation of semantics are determined. The interrelation of situations of communicative interaction and its influence on the realization of the specific meaning of the concept union indicate the high relevance of the study.The choice of linguistic means of implementing the concept and the role of the communicative situation in this process has a significant impact on the negative or positive assessment of the phenomenon itself. The research methodology includes elements of system analysis, linguistic description method, discourse analysis, semantic and component analysis. The study uses statistical data extracted from the corpus corresponding to the declared languages by automatic sampling according to the specified parameters.The authors conclude that the semantic structure of the concept is realized depending on the communicative situation by various semantic markers, which, with the similarity of structures in the course of historical development and various social experiences, have a divergence of meaning, which may later serve as a space for various kinds of semantic manipulations in modern media discourse. The peculiarities of the use of the concept union in politically oriented texts of the studied languages are also of interest.