Lexico-Semantic Field of POST-TRUTH through the Prism of its Russian Correspondences Istina and Pravda

Abstract

This article is a review of the works by R. Keyes, F. I. Girenok, O. V. Khlebnikova, L. McIntyre on the issue of post-truth the author’s terminological comments. On their conceptual basis and lexical material, an attempt is made to identify the potential composition of the lexico-semantic field of this yet loosely-formed lexeme through its combinations with various nouns, indicators of its subject interpretation. English-language dictionaries define the lexeme only as an adjective, while in subject analytics it begins to be analyzed as a separate concept. With regard to its synonymic, antonymic and associative relationships, two areas of conceptual interpretation are revealed: broad and narrow. The former analyzes the discourse about post-truth from the standpoint of science and traditional ethics, developed under the influence of classical Christian texts. The narrow one, which is not considered in this review, focuses on shifts in goals, technologies, mechanisms, and, above all, the rhetoric of mass socio-political communication in the countries of the “collective West”, revealing changes in information channels both at the sender and recipient levels. The methodological specificity of the article lies in the fact that the semantic analysis of lexical units related to post-truth and its claim to novelty is carried out against the background of a historical dialogue of Anglo-American, French and Russian cultures on the issue of truth, vérité, pravda and istina, represented in the statements and quotes by writers, philosophers and scientists about these concepts. Much attention is paid, therefore, to identifying the correlation of the post-truth and truth semantics with its Russian correspondences pravda and istina not only in lexicographic sources but, first of all, in the translation of statements, made by the author.