Evaluative labels in public discourse: A political crisis from diverse perspectives

IF 1.3 2区文学 Q2 COMMUNICATION

Language & Communication Pub Date : 2025-07-19 DOI:10.1016/j.langcom.2025.07.002

Virginija Masiulionytė, Jurga Cibulskienė, Inesa Šeškauskienė

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This paper investigates evaluative labels used in public discourse to frame events and main actors during the Belarusian political crisis in 2021. The data includes opinion articles from US-American, German, Lithuanian, and Russian (pro-Kremlin) media. Each sub-corpus consists of roughly 30,000 words. The time period of the data is from May 23, 2021 to February 23, 2022. The research aims to identify the main targets of evaluative labels and to determine values and value systems encoded in evaluation. Discourse analysis has been employed to examine labels referring to a selected number of referents. Our findings reveal that the main dividing line runs between the USA, Germany, Lithuania, and Russia. The targets in the US-American, German, and Lithuanian public discourses include Lukashenko, his form of governance and his government's actions. In contrast, labels in the Russian public discourse primarily address the Belarusian opposition, including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. In the data, the prevalent type of evaluation is explicitly negative. The results contribute to the existing research on how language can shape different understanding of reality.

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公共话语中的评价标签：不同视角下的政治危机

本文研究了2021年白俄罗斯政治危机期间公共话语中用于框架事件和主要参与者的评估标签。这些数据包括来自美国、德国、立陶宛和俄罗斯（亲克里姆林宫）媒体的评论文章。每个子语料库由大约30,000个单词组成。数据时间段为2021年5月23日至2022年2月23日。本研究旨在确定评价标签的主要目标，并确定在评价中编码的价值和价值系统。语篇分析已被用来检查指涉特定数量的指称物的标签。我们的研究结果表明，主要的分界线在美国、德国、立陶宛和俄罗斯之间。美国、德国和立陶宛公共话语的目标包括卢卡申科、他的治理形式和政府的行动。相比之下，俄罗斯公共话语中的标签主要针对白俄罗斯反对派，包括Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya。在数据中，普遍的评价类型是明确否定的。这一结果有助于现有的关于语言如何塑造对现实的不同理解的研究。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Language & Communication Multiple-

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

6.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： This journal is unique in that it provides a forum devoted to the interdisciplinary study of language and communication. The investigation of language and its communicational functions is treated as a concern shared in common by those working in applied linguistics, child development, cultural studies, discourse analysis, intellectual history, legal studies, language evolution, linguistic anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, the politics of language, pragmatics, psychology, rhetoric, semiotics, and sociolinguistics. The journal invites contributions which explore the implications of current research for establishing common theoretical frameworks within which findings from different areas of study may be accommodated and interrelated. By focusing attention on the many ways in which language is integrated with other forms of communicational activity and interactional behaviour, it is intended to encourage approaches to the study of language and communication which are not restricted by existing disciplinary boundaries.