Pragmatic aspects of street protests discourse (on the example of protests in Belarus in 2020)

Abstract

The author analyzes the pragmatic properties of protest discourse, taking into account poster slogans used during mass anti-government protests in Belarus in 2020. The theoretical basis of the research is the concept of discourse, based on four categories: intention, representation, performance and context. The author distinguishes among three types of contexts: cognitive, social and event-related (functional). In accordance with the global function of the protest discourse, three types of constitutive language activities are distinguished: modal-evaluative, modal-disapproving and speech acts of ultimatum. The author analyzes these types of speech acts in detail and provides numerous linguistic examples.