The language of the value component of the black lives matter concept

In recent years, racial issues have increasingly attracted attention in the American society. A vivid illustration of that is the emergence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) social movement in 2013 as a hashtag in social networks, coming to the forefront in 2014-2015 in Ferguson, and gaining skyrocketing worldwide popularity in 2020 after George Floyd’s murder by a white officer. The role of racial issues in the modern American system of values cannot but be reflected in the language, due to the fact that the race is perceived as a special axiological concept in the Anglophone worldview. The investigated BLM concept can be defined as a certain kind of a value-based concept related to the national, ethnic characteristics. The structure of the BLM value-based concept is analyzed in the research through the analysis of characteristic features of the BLM social and political movement reflected in its semantics, taking into consideration the participants of this movement, their ideas, objectives and activities. Lexico-semantic analysis of the BLM concept structure made it possible to conclude that the activity of the participants has the ultimate target of implementing certain changes in the existing social structure aimed at protecting and promoting certain values. The research identifies a list of value-based subconcepts within the structure of the BLM concept and analyzes their linguistic representation. These include concepts such as life, justice, equality, nonviolence, most frequently referred to and forming the core of the BLM concept. Moreover, the article analyzes anti-values, which represent in the language the social problems the BLM movement is fighting against. The research makes a conclusion about the complex and multi-level nature of the investigated BLM concept as a unit that shapes the value component of the American linguistic culture worldview.