Semantic and Evaluative Transformation of the Adjective “Patriotichny” (“Patriotc”) in Domestic Media Speech: Communicative-Pragmatic Aspect

The article examines the semantic and connotative-evaluative transformations of the adjective “patriotichny” (“patriotic”) in Russian media discourse through the lens of a communicative-pragmatic approach to corpus data analysis. The relevance of this study lies in the scientific, educational, and cultural significance of a comprehensive linguistic description of key concepts in the Russian language picture of the world and the dynamics of their development at the present stage. The object of the study is to analyze the semantic expansion of speech uses of the adjective “patriotichny” in modern media texts and to identify the communicative conditions and pragmatic reflexes underlying these uses to express the specific intentions of media text authors, their value positions, or speech-behavioral attitudes. The methodological basis of the study is the conception of “semantic auras (prosodies)” identified by analyzing the immediate contextual environment of a word using a large set of corpus data. A corpus-discourse analysis method was used. For the contexts of use of the adjective “patriotichny”, we describe linguopragmatic mechanisms for inducing positive and negative evaluative connotations not present in dictionary definitions of the lexeme. We identify and interpret patterns of non-usual expansion of the adjective's collocations, embodying the specific communicative intentions of media text authors. Conclusions are drawn about the significant semantic enrichment of the adjective “patriotichny” in its discursive implementation, as well as its significant evaluative potential. The newness of the study consists of its introduction to scholarly discourse of a new subject: semantic and connotative-evaluative innovations in the contexts of use of words embodying the concept PATRIOTISM in contemporary Russian media speech. The practical significance of this study lies in the potential for its use in university courses in cultural linguistics, linguoconceptology, linguistic pragmatics, and communication studies.