Online hate speech in Belarus: Highlighting the topical issues

Abstract

Summary Hate speech can be viewed as a form of socio-political conflict that might be considered an inevitable result of the shift of the historical paradigm in the former Soviet republics. In the meantime, the study of hate speech in Belarus demonstrates its relevance not only in the context of the current socio-political situation, but also because of the lack of the related research in the country. This study provides a general outline of hate speech in the Belarusian online discourse at the present time. At the beginning of the article, a brief literature review and the definition of the key terms are given. Afterwards, extralinguistic factors that influence hate speech functioning within the discourse community are described. Most attention is paid to the linguistic analysis of the legal documents of the Republic of Belarus as compared to those of other countries. Then, based on the analysis of the Internet users’ comments to online news, the most topical issues are determined and some observations on labeling as a move aimed at creating an image of a social group are provided.