The Language of Anti-Digital Resistance: Features of Protest Nomination Formation in Russian-Language Media Texts

Abstract

The specifics of the word formation reflecting the certain protest of a society part against the Digital Society concept implementation in the country are considered on the material of Russian-language media texts. The aim of the study is to determine the semantic dominants and pragmatic peculiarities of the new nominations as the interpretive language function realization. The analysis of the material is carried out in line with functional sociolinguistics using the methodology of establishing the cognitive conditionality of language processes. The research resulted in revealing the contents of nominations, which reflect the protest attitude towards the concept of Digital Society. According to the type of the referent the following groups of lexical units are identified: the nominations of digitalization members, of the process itself and its consequences, as well as the foreseen future. The word-building peculiarities of the protest nominations are noted, their role in the key term elements structure of the Digital Society language is emphasized. The ‘restriction of freedom’ has been revealed to be the common semantic dominant of the new nominations. The coining of the units under consideration is characterized by the use of label-words and word-building formants that are typical of protest nominations. The semantic modification of the Digital Society terms shifts towards the ideologisation of meaning. The language and rhetoric of the official Digital Society concept followers, using their own ideologemes and word markers, are opposed to the language of the anti-digital resistance. The research outlook is in the analysis of pseudo arranging Digital Society nominations, which disguise the actual state of affairs.

Keywords

• russian language of the digital society
• discourse of protest
• nomination process
• ideologeme
• key term elements
• semantic dominant