Images of Slavs in Discourse-World of Brexit

Abstract

The paper focuses on the media image construal of the Slavs against the backdrop of the Brexit procedure. The objective of the author is to examine the cognitive-discursive mechanisms of representing the West, East, and South Slav national groups in the British media in the context of Britain’s withdrawal. The author employed the cognitive-discursive analysis, integrating advances of European and Russian linguistics. The term “discourse-world of Brexit” is considered to be a conceptually complex discourse-level structure, serving as a background against which the national images stand out. It is argued that images of the Slavs are organized by frames that enable media managers to negatively or neutrally evaluate members and non-members of the European Union. The media frames structuring the national images are systematized. Examples from the news on the web corpus are used to prove that images of the Slavs are discursively constrained and biased. The results might present interest for further investigation of prejudices in the media