Helden oder Staatsverräter? Zur sprachlichen Konstruktion vom Bild der ukrainischen Maidan-Aktivisten im deutschen, polnischen und russischen Mediendiskurs – eine kognitive Studie

Abstract

Cognitive linguistics pays particular attention to the interrelations between language, subjective conceptualisations and intersubjective manifestations of knowledge, providing descriptive tools for the analysis of how the choice of linguistic means is determined by individual, as well as by culture-specific conceptual patterns. In this paper we analyse the linguistic construal of Ukrainian Maidan activists in six German, Polish and Russian daily newspapers. The analysis focuses on culture-specific differences between the linguistic strategies used in the Western and Middle European media discourse in the EU member states, as well as the Eastern European discourse in Russia. The research is based on two theoretical frameworks: cognitive ethnolinguistics and cognitive grammar.