Functional Features of Onomastic Units in the Military Discourse of the Donbass Conflict

Abstract

The article explores the modalities and features of onomastic units in the media coverage of the Eastern Ukraine military conflict in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Based on large empirical data of printed and online publications in Russian and Ukrainian media reporting on the hostilities in Donbass extensively for several years, the author has collected, classified, and analyzed the corpus of onomastic units of the military media discourse. These include place names, such as Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), Luganda, Donbabwe, Debaltsevo pocket, Ilovaysk pocket, ORDLO (“separate districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions”), Novorossiya, “Odessa Khatyn,” as well as the nicknames of field commanders that have become deeply associated with the conflict — Motorola, Bes, Givi. The study examines functional aspects of proper names usage in the media, and their role in shaping a general picture of the Donbass armed conflict for the readers. A special emphasis is made on the weight of onomastic units (militaronyms, toponyms, and anthroponyms) as constructive elements of the military discourse in Eastern Ukraine. In this regard, the presented analysis and its results can contribute to further studies of the media discourse related to armed conflicts of various etiologies and intensities.

Keywords

• war
• armed conflict
• journalism
• mass media
• military discourse
• militaronyms
• chrononyms
• place names
• personal names