VERBALIZATION OF «BUCHA MASSACRE» CONCEPT IN THE ENGLISH NEWS DISCOURSE

Abstract

The research aims at comprehending verbalized Bucha massacre concept content and structure in the news discourse. To achieve the aim the following tasks are to be attained: 1) to single out conceptual features of Bucha massacre concept; 2) to analyze means of their verbalization in the English news discourse; 3) to specify content and structure peculiarities of Bucha massacre concept in the news discourse. The scientific novelty is that the article carries out a conceptual analysis of the content and structure of the newly emerged concept. Lexicographic and definitional analyses allow distinguishing context-independent conceptual features meanwhile quantitative corpus-based approach in complex with discourse analysis assist to identify salient constituents of the conceptual features, to broaden their content, to discern an additional context-dependent conceptual feature, to define the concept structure. The obtained results reveal Bucha massacre concept content and structure through its verbalized context-dependent and context-independent conceptual features. Verbal means used in the English (British and American) news discourse actualize and specify context-independent conceptual features: mass killing of Ukrainian civilians; defenseless victims; atrocity; Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity which is presented as a cluster of subfeatures crime → evidence of the crime → investigation of the crime; Russian war criminal; the place of the massacre, and generate context-dependent contextual feature genocide, thus, forming perception of Bucha massacre concept by the international community in general and English language community in particular as a symbol of aggression against Ukraine. All conceptual features are closely interwoven, as one and the same constituents simultaneously verbalize more than one conceptual feature, hence, constructing a diffuse chainlike concept structure.