Lexical and Semantic Correspondence in Political Discourse on International Armed Conflicts

Discourse affects the semantics of lexical units. Discursively dependent semantics presents a challenge for intercultural communication. This study proposes a method for identifying the discursively dependent semantics of lexical units through an analysis of the discourse on the conflict in Syria, presented in the Russian and French press. The proposed methodology is based on the analysis of the structure of lexical-semantic fields (LSF) of lexical units included in the discourse, and allows us to achieve technological efficiency in the analysis and formalize the results. As a result of the comparative analysis of the cooccurrence of lexical units within the French- and Russian-language discourses, it was found that the lexical units forming the classes of conditional equivalence have significant differences at the level of the structure of lexical-semantic fields due to the peculiarities of media coverage of the Syrian conflict in Russia and France. The difference at the level of LSF of the same-named units significantly affects the semantics of lexical units and, thus, modifies its pragmatic effect. These data should be taken into account when translating.