VERBALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT “OWN” / “ALIEN” IN CONTEMPORARY UKRAINIAN POETRY ABOUT THE WAR

Liudmyla YULDASHEVA,
Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor,
Doctoral Candidate, Department of Ukrainian Linguistics and Applied Linguistics,
Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University of Cherkasy;
81 Shevchenko Boulevard, Cherkasy 18031, Ukraine;
e-mail: 1alimduyl@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6561-8827

Heading: WORD IN ART WORK
Language: Ukrainian

Abstract
The article conducts a linguistic analysis of the verbalization of the conceptual opposition “own” / “alien” in contemporary Ukrainian war poetry. It demonstrates that in the conditions of wartime discourse, this dichotomy shifts from a background cognitive model to the status of a semantic and axiological center of the text, determining the principles of imagery organization, subject identification, and linguistic evaluation. The “own” / “alien” opposition is considered a universal mechanism for categorizing social experience, which, in war-period poetic language, gains particular interpretive and text-forming activity. The key lexical-semantic strategies for representing the “own” and “alien” are analyzed: identification nominations, spatial-geographical markers, axiologically loaded vocabulary, sacralization of the image of the defender, and demonization of the image of the enemy, zoomorphic and apocalyptic metaphors, dehumanization models, and symbolic elevation. Particular attention is paid to the dynamic nature of the boundary between “own” and “alien”, which in contemporary poetry is defined not only by belonging but also by ethical stance, behavior, and forms of participation or withdrawal. It is shown that the linguistic means of realizing this opposition form a distinctly polarized picture of the world, in which poetic language performs the function of value-based structuring of wartime experience. The research material consisted of texts of contemporary poetic works about the war, collected from open digital sources – primarily from social media such as Instagram and Facebook, where modern wartime poetry is actively present. Methods of lexical-semantic, contextual-interpretative, and discourse analysis were applied.
Key words: war poetic discourse, “own” / “alien” opposition, verbalization, axiology, identity, lexical-semantic markers, sacralization, demonization.

REFERENCES
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LEGEND
СУМ-11 – Dictionary of the Ukrainian language: in 11 vols. (1970–1980). Vol. V. Kyiv: Naukova dumka.
СУМ-20 – Dictionary of the Ukrainian language: in 20 vols. (2010–2026). Scientific director of the project V.A.Shyrokov; NAS of Ukraine, Ukrainian Language and Information Fund. Kyiv: Naukova dumka. https://sum20ua.com/?page=2121&searchWord=орда&wordid=67143