PRAGMATIC ASPECTS OF FUNCTIONING OF THE CONCEPT “WAR” IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Abstract

The article explores the pragmatic aspects of the concept WAR in the Ukrainian online media discourse, particularly within the news genre. The main objective is to identify the linguistic means used to represent this concept and to analyze their pragmatic impact on the mass audience. The theoretical framework is based on a dyadic model of conceptual structure, which consists of the core of the concept and its cognitive periphery. The empirical basis comprises authentic texts from the UkrTenTen2022 corpus, collected between 2014 and 2022. The methodology includes content analysis, contextual analysis, and pragmatic analysis. The study reveals that the lexeme “war” holds a dominant position in the socio-political media space and is most frequently employed in representative speech acts. Units such as “aggression” and “combat operations” form the near periphery, while “invasion”, “occupation”, and similar terms represent the distant periphery. The findings provide deeper insight into how the concept WAR functions as a tool of influence within public narratives in digital environments. Contextual analysis of 100 texts indicates that the concept is most commonly used for factual reporting and emotional expression. This study opens new possibilities for further research, including comparative analysis with post-2022 media texts or cross-linguistic media discourse.