Вербальні засоби інформаційно-психологічної війни

Abstract

The article focuses on linguistic and cognitive peculiarities of the information and psychological warfare and its manifestation in the Ukrainian and Russian languages with the help of innovative verbal means. The paper analyses Russia’s information campaign against Ukraine, covering the period from the Euromaidan (2014) until 2020. It is stated that Russia’s information campaign is to be analysed in the context of the strategic narrative of the Russian government, reflected in pro-Russian mass media. It has been revealed that Russia’s information campaign was related to Russia’s military operations in Ukraine. Russia has demonstrated that in the current and continually evolving information environment, power and control can be easily gained by manipulating information to influence societal perceptions, attitudes and behaviours. The Russian narrative includes several dominant themes: promoting the Russian World which unites the Eastern Slavs, implies that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation, and recognizes the natural supremacy of Russia; portraying Ukrainians as a pseudo-nation who are unable to administer their own country and sustain their statehood, and labelling the Euromaidan protesters as nationalists, Nazis and fascists posing a threat to the ethnically Russian part of the Ukraine’s population. Narratives are supported by utilising so-called thematic communication frames. The thematic frames are a way of associating a particular impression or opinion with an object or a subject. The characteristics of thematic frames are their close relationships within a particular context and interpretation. Thematic framing can be applied to an individual, to a group of people (the inhabitants of Western Ukraine are followers of Bandera and neo-Nazis), or to a process, event or particular place in time and space. The creation of thematic frames is related to the human desire to simplify the outside world and to easily distinguish friends from foes. Thematic framing can be used to manipulate audiences. It has been proved that the means of verbalization of the information and psychological warfare reflect the perception of reality in the light of a certain ideology and mentality. The conceptualization of conflicting parties takes place in terms of such eternal values as the Good and the Evil which is here based on the dichotomy ONE’S OWN / ALIEN (Ukraine / Russia), reflecting the opposition between western and eastern civilizations. The paper determines ontological features of the dichotomy ONE’S OWN / ALIEN, introduces its model, exposes semantic structure of the key lexemes that denote ONE’S OWN / ALIEN. The investigation of neologisms allows revealing the ways and means of languages enrichment. It also exposes the semantic properties of innovations and highlights the phenomenon of the war of linguistic signs which includes the war of form and the war of meaning.