DISCOURSE OF SOCIAL CRISIS AS AN OBJECT OF STUDY IN MODERN LINGUISTICS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17721/folia.philologica/2025/9/8Keywords:
social crisis discourse, linguosynergetics, cognitive-semiotic processes, crisis communication, social transformations, pragmalinguistics, critical discourse analysis, multimodality, transmedialityAbstract
The article aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the discourse of social crisis within the framework of the linguosynergetic paradigm of modern linguistics. The research seeks to identify the functional, cognitive, and semiotic mechanisms through which crisis discourse not only reflects social upheavals but also actively shapes collective narratives and models of social behavior. The methodological framework combines sociolinguistic, pragmalinguistic, and cognitivediscursive approaches with the tools of critical discourse analysis. This integrative approach enables a multidimensional interpretation of communicative processes in a crisis environment, tracing the mechanisms of self-organization of discursive structures, the legitimation of ideological narratives, and the formation of the semantics of disruption. The material of the study is English-language media discourse, which reflects the cascading changes of the communicative space during periods of social upheaval. The study offers, for the first time, a holistic analysis of the discourse of social crisis as a multimodal and transmedial phenomenon characterized by fluctuation, attractor dynamics, multivariance, emergence, fractality, heterogeneity, coherence, and interdiscursivity. It proposes to conceptualize crisis discourse in terms of linguosynergetics as a dynamic, self-organizing system capable of adapting to changes in the social environment and generating new meanings. Special attention is given to cognitive-semiotic scenarios of mass behavior emerging during social upheavals and to linguistic strategies that can either stabilize or intensify crisis phenomena. Conclusions. The findings confirm the constitutive role of social crisis discourse in shaping public consciousness, collective memory, and communicative models of overcoming crisis states. The discourse of social crisis functions as a powerful mechanism of semiotic organization of the social space, which not only records but also shapes the transformational processes of society. The linguosynergetic perspective opens new avenues for understanding the dynamics of crisis communication and for developing effective strategies of anti-crisis interaction.
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