Evolution of the Verbal-Derivational Field of the Political Media Concept of «Maidan» in the Russian Media

Abstract

The proposed article demonstrates that the formation and development of a new political concept is accompanied by an increase in the number of units representing it, which also occurs due to active word-formation processes that lead to the emergence of a significant number of non-derivatives formed from the main representative of the concept. The hypothesis is verified by the example of the description of the verbal-derivational field of the “maidan” media concept.In the course of the research, the method of constructing a word-formation nest was used; to assess the frequency of use of new derivatives, the method of content analysis was used. The material for the study was texts related to media discourse for the period from 2004 to 2019. The article highlights two periods in the development of the concept of “Maidan” in the media discourse, associated with two major protests in Ukraine and their consequences, for each period new derivatives formed from the root of the Maidan are identified and described, the ways of forming new words are determined, their frequency is analyzed. which ultimately allows us to trace the evolution of the concept’s verbal-derivational field. It has been established that each of the periods under consideration is characterized by a significant increase in the number of derivatives of the “maidan” media concept, in particular, at the first stage, 17 new derivative words appeared, at the second stage, their number increases to 41 units, which is accompanied by an increase in the frequency of all non-derivatives. The bulk of the new words allows us to characterize 1) the typology of protests (avtomaydan, eromaydan, mikhomaidan, anti-maidan), 2) its participants (maidan, maidan, maidan, maidan, etc.) and 3) the process of protest and its phases (zamaydan, maidan, re-maidan , domaydanit, etc.). Thus, the results obtained confirm the thesis about the important role of derivational processes in the formation and development of concepts and indicate the increasing importance of the “Maidan” media concept for the national political concept sphere.