Semantic Study of Materials on Extremism-Related Crimes through Data from the National Corpus of the Russian Language (Case Study of Comments on the Social Network VKontakte)

Abstract

The article concentrates on the study of the well-known call-slogan Beet the Jews, save Russia, which was published as a comment to the text in the social network "VKontakte". In the course of a preliminary study, it was found that this statement contains linguistic signs of motivation in the form of a call for active action against a group of people. However, it is not possible to say unequivocally which group of people these actions should be aimed at, since in the analyzed context (text-stimulus + text-reaction) it is possible to have a double understanding of the noun жид ‘Jew, Kike, Yid’: a group of people in relation to their nationality or a group of people, with which the greedy deputy is associated. To answer the question of whether the noun жид could really be used by the author of the disputed text in the meaning of a 'greedy person', data from the Russian national corpus were analyzed in the period from 2002 (herein Law N 114-FZ "On Couneraction of Extimist Fctivities" was enacted) through 2021. Linguistic analysis of the controversial text, analysis of the comments of the author of the controversial text to other stimulus texts, data from the Russian national corpus led to the conclusion that in the analyzed commentary the noun жид is used in the meaning of ‘Jew’. Consequently, the controversial text contains linguistic signs of expressing several types of meaning: humiliation of a group of persons in relation to their nationality; an inherent threat that poses a danger not to the addressee, but to third parties (Jews); inducements in the form of a call for violent actions against a group of persons in relation to their nationality.