Linguistic-Pragmatic Means of Fillingin Ontological Lacunas in Blog Texts of Post-Maidan Ukraine

Abstract

The article takes a linguistic-pragmatic approach using Proximization Theory (PT) to analyze threat deconstruction in a Ukrainian humorous blog. The aim is to show how threat deconstruction in a Ukrainian blogger’s texts runs parallel to the reconstruction of national identity. The blog was written at the time of the war in the East of Ukraine (2014-16) that caused consequential shifts in the Ukrainians’ self-perception and their perception of the Russian Federation. The notion of an ontological lacuna is introduced to account for these changes and transformations in national identity. Simultaneous processes in the deconstruction of threat and the construction of a new sense of threat under war-time conditions are analyzed as proximization operations. The purpose is to reveal how threat consolidates and motivates people for resistance. In both cases, the basic pragmatic strategy is the delegitimization of the threatening actor and the legitimization of the threatened one. The focus is on linguistic devices that change the perlocutionary effect, such as humor, semantic and dialect shifts, and obscene lexis. A set of characteristic axiological features emerged that show the shift in the construction of the Ukraine-Russia relationship from friend to foe.