MEANING-MAKING SCENARIOS IN MEDIA DISCOURSE: A COGNITIVE AND MULTIMODAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

This paper addresses multimodal scenarios for the contruction of the meaning of the russia-Ukraine war (hereinafter the war) in the English and Ukrainian segments of Telegram. Theoretically, this analysis is underpinned by the cognitive-pragmatic, cognitive-semiotic, and multimodal approaches in media linguistics. The multimodal political discourse of the Telegram messenger uses equipollent semiotic meaning-making systems – graphic, audio, cinematographic, hypertext. In meaning-making of the WAR, semiotic resources combine into multimodal scenarios where the typical one is an image (photo/video) + title + text + link. Emoji reactions have pragmatic and cognitive functions: they contribute to the construction of meaning, testify to its influence on the reader, form the mental space of the war, and serve as information rating. In Telegram posts, the ways of stretching information include accentuation, elaboration, extending, combining, and questioning. In 2022-2023, news channels The NYT and TRUHA form and change the reader's world construal; their posts give a negative assessment to the mental space of the WAR and refute the imperial mental stereotypes of Russian narratives – the political and psychological basis of their aggression against independent Ukraine. In Telegram posts, meaning-making of the WAR is built on conceptual extensions: Ukraine, Ukraine's allies, russia and corresponding cognitive schemes: "Ukraine has a reliable leader", "Ukraine has a well-developed economy", "Ukraine has a great history and culture", as well as "russia is a murderer", "russia violates international law", "russia has criminal leaders", etc. The work proves the hypothesis about the interdependence of semiotic means of meaning-making and the meanings they construct, as a result of which these means transform the world construal and indirectly influence the society.