LINGUAL PRAGMATICS OF THE POLITICAL MYTH AS A GENRE OF INFORMATIONAL DISTORTION OF THE REALITIES OF THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR

Lesya FEDORENKO,
Postgraduate student,
National Academy of the Security Service of Ukraine;
22 M. Maksymovycha St., Kyiv 03066, Ukraine;
e-mail: lesyafedorenko@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3082-3939

Heading: LANGUAGE OF THE MEDIA
Language: Ukrainian

Abstract
The article characterizes the nature and effectiveness of myth as a form of cognitive weaponry and as an instrument of linguo-mental influence on the collective consciousness of society, which is actively employed by the aggressor state to distort information about the causes and events of the Russian-Ukrainian war. It is demonstrated that the media use of myths typical of hostile propaganda constitutes a powerful psycholingual technology for activating certain layers of historical memory in the collective consciousness while mentally “suppressing” others. This process is carried out through the manipulative use of a purposefully constructed lexicon (words, expressions, precedent units) and through the construction of texts that serve as manifestations of a distorted reality of war, whereby an imagined reality is produced and patterns of behavior desired by the aggressor are stimulated.
The article analyzes one of the key political myths – the myth of the “revival of Nazism and fascist ideology in Ukraine,” which Russian propaganda employs to justify aggression. The lingual pragmatics of lexical components, lexico-syntactic structures, and figurative means of mythologizing the discourse of the contemporary Russian-Ukrainian war are traced. It is emphasized that the study of the linguopragmatics of political-myth texts should become part of a demythologization strategy as a means of countering the hostile propaganda of the aggressor in the implementation of information-psychological operations against Ukraine.
Key words: myth, political myth, lingual consciousness, lingual pragmatics, lingual manipulation, metaphor, image.

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