Discursively conditioned distortion of the semantic structure of the lexeme ‘victory’ in modern journalism

Statement of the problem. The article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of language manipulation in modern journalistic discourse. The authors consider the loss of the primary semantic meaning of the lexeme ‘Victory’ in a discursively conditioned context and its subsequent transition to the status of mythogenic words. The study analyzes the process of distortion of the semantic structure of this word. It also indicates potential semes in the further possible semantic evolution of the word ‘Victory’. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the distortion of the semantic content of the lexeme ‘Victory’ when it is actualized in a manipulative journalistic discourse, the author of which seeks to impose a non-existent picture of the world on the mass addressee. Methodology (materials and methods).The methodological body of the study consists of the method of continuous sampling of lexical units from the texts of information messages in the Internet publications; the method of semantic and pragmatic analysis, the method of logical analysis, the method of contextual analysis, and the comparative- contrastive method. The relevance of the article is determined by the inseparability of language and the phenomenon of manipulation. In their study, the authors rely on the works of S.G. Kara-Murza, A.D. Vasilyev, G.A. Kopnina and others devoted to this issue. Research results. The theoretical significance of the study is determined by its contribution to the development of the linguistic theory of manipulation. The results obtained during the analysis can be used when writing articles on similar topics, as well as when compiling practical manuals for studying linguistic manipulation and counteracting the phenomenon in question.