Linguistic Means of Introducing an Object into the Information Field Based on the Discourse of Military Media

Shuiskaya Yuliya Viktorovna ORCID: 0000-0002-6752-3063 Doctor of Philology Professor, Department of Theory and Practice of Journalism and Modern Media Communications, Institute of International Law and Economics named after A. S. Griboyedov  111024, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Shosse Entuziastov, 21, of. 322 shujskaya@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Tsitsinov Andrei Yur'evich Senior Lecturer, Department of Theory and Practice of Journalism, Modern Media Communications, Griboyedov Institute of International Law and Economics 111024, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Shosse Entuziastov, 21, of. 322 wanderer999@yandex.ru

The mass media in the modern world are constantly faced with the task of introducing new concepts into the information field and forming a complex of evaluation of these concepts in the minds of the audience. The information field is defined as "a kind of information space that has historical, geographical, political, economic, national and cultural boundaries, a set of subjects of the field fixed for each time period, who participate in the production, processing, storage and dissemination of mass information to numerically large and dispersed within these boundaries mass audiences" ^{[8, p. 8]}. The socio-political resource of the information field is mass information, and the subject is the mass media.

In modern realities, new phenomena regularly arise, regarding which it is necessary to orient the audience, to show whether this phenomenon is negative or positive. Of particular scientific and practical interest is the use of linguistic means of forming the image of a new event in the field of military journalism: traditionally associated with the interests of the state, military journalism, as a rule, uses the tools of introducing a new object into the information field from two angles: in peacetime and during combat operations. The conduct of hostilities implies coverage of the actions of the enemy and its troops, and in this case, as a rule, there is no task of introducing a fundamentally new object into the information field: the symbolic umbrella of coverage of a military conflict has not changed since the inception of the institute of war correspondents.

In the framework of this study, we will consider the linguistic means used in the discourse of military journalism in peacetime. As examples of the formation of a positive image of a fundamentally new phenomenon, let's consider two diverse objects: the army sports game "tank biathlon", which originated 9 years ago, and the main temple of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, built for the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War in 2020.

Tank biathlon has emerged in the information field of military and civilian journalism as an unusual, new sport. The first competitions in this sport with the participation of teams from other countries were held in 2013, and their media coverage initially emphasized the extraordinary nature of the event. Thus, I. Petrov's article on the RBC information portal, written on the days of the first competitions, is replete with implicit and explicit references to the atypical, unusual nature of the event being commented on. The title of the article, coupled with the lead "For those who are in the tank. Why Shoigu invented the "tank biathlon" and how to play it" refers to the traditional headlines of the Russian press, dating back to the Byzantine tradition of providing information ^[7]. A reference to a precedent phrase is used, while exposing the phenomenon in an ironically negative light: allegorically, "to be in a tank" means "not to understand something, not to know, not to be aware of". The title plays up the unknown, the novelty of the phenomenon under discussion: "in the tank" not only athletes participating in the games, but, first of all, readers of the material who learn about the existence of a new sport and a new competition.

Further in the text, the novelty and originality of the event is emphasized: "The Alabino training ground near Moscow was filled with T-72B battle tanks of unusually bright colors (red, blue, yellow). ... "Tank biathlon" is another of the ideas introduced into the previously unwieldy army car by Sergei Shoigu. ... According to the organizers, the unusual non-combat coloring is made for the convenience of the audience" ^[7]. The presupposition of the text contains the premise "this has never happened before", which is emphasized by repeated repetitions of the epithets "unusual", "unusual" and their synonyms.

The analysis of the first competitions in the magazine "Popular Mechanics" in September 2013 follows the same outline of the coverage of the event: the use of a precedent statement in the title and further emphasis on the unusual and extraordinary nature of what is happening: "Tank Biathlon: how it works. "The armor is strong, and our tanks are fast." So that no one doubts the relevance of these words from the song today, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation organized two demonstration events demonstrating the capabilities of modern Russian tanks and the training of combat crews" ^[4]. In the presupposition of this text, there is a phenomenon of riddles, mysteries, and the name "tank biathlon" is embedded in the semantic field "sports" with an emphasis on exoticism: "We all heard the phrase "tank biathlon" for the first time this summer. At first there was a feeling that there was something frivolous in this name, something in the spirit of paintball or equestrian polo. The concept of a new undertaking of the Russian military had to be solved right on the spot – at the training ground in Alabino near Moscow" ^[4]. Further in the text, as in the previous version, the epithets "unusual", "atypical" and the like are used: "The spectacle, frankly, struck with its unusual direction. It all started with the fact that the IL-76 flew twice in front of the surprised eyes of the guests, spraying a water suspension in the air, in which a rainbow immediately began to play. The continuation of this rainbow seemed to be two four tanks standing on the ground (main and reserve), painted in red, yellow, blue and salad colors. All this rainbow multicolour seemed clearly atypical for events involving servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces" ^[4].

Thus, the introduction of the concept of "tank biathlon" into the information field was marked by an accentuation of the unusual and at the same time linking the "new to the old": in the first two articles about the new sport, precedent statements were used that have the word "tank" in their composition. The strategy of making a text using precedent statements, which is typical for the Russian media, does not imply a direct connection between the statement used and the further content of the text. As R.Yu. Anisimov shows ^[1], such headings need to be explained in the lead – the first phrase of the text connects its further content with the general apperceptive base of the reader and the author.

In the future, tank biathlon competitions began to be held regularly, and specialized military media, in particular, Zvezda Holding, began to cover them. Convergent media has dedicated a separate section on the website to the new sport. It should be noted that on the pages of Zvezda, tank biathlon is already covered as a typical and familiar phenomenon: for 9 years, the Russian team has traditionally won the competition, in which there is no sensation in the victory. So, on September 4, 2021, on the day of the final of the competition, on the website tvzvezda.ru the following headings successively replaced each other ^[10]:

Russia won the final of the "Tank Biathlon"

The Russian military showed the best result in the "tank biathlon": victorious shots

The results of the Tank biathlon final have been announced

The mechanic-driver of the Russian team of "tank biathlon" revealed the secret of victory

Dmitry Bulgakov presented the cup to the winners of the Tank Biathlon

The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation presented the winners' Cup of the ArMI-2021 to the Russian national team

"China was on its heels": the Russian military shared their emotions after winning the Tank Biathlon

All headings are no longer a reference to a precedent, through which some fundamentally new information is introduced into the information field, but, on the contrary, an isosemic construction with a subject and predicate: "Russia won", "the military showed", "the mechanic revealed", "Dmitry Bulgakov handed over", etc.

In the latest material published on September 4, 2021, at 21-14, the emphasis is on the positive characteristics of the event: "There are a lot of emotions, feelings are good, you feel like a winner. We tried for a long time, we worked for a long time. Everything worked out for us, everything went according to plan. There were small incidents, but nothing, we also coped with them," said one of the participants" ^[10]. In the presupposition of the text, it is no longer a mystery or a riddle, but a well–known, understandable and largely predictable event. If we consider this statement in isolation from the context, it could refer to any type of activity: the participant's phrase does not contain any specific information. The coverage of the event, thus, moved from the introduction of the "new through the old", that is, through a reference to a precedent phenomenon, to neutral constructions with a predominance of positive epithets, action constructions.

An example of the coverage of an event, in relation to which jokes using precedent phenomena are inappropriate, is the introduction of the concept of the main temple of the armed forces into the information field. The temple was conceived in 2018, and the first official reports about it were characterized by the features that were revealed above in the coverage of tank biathlon as an already known phenomenon: the use of isosemic syntactic constructions, the presence of specific subjects of action. Thus, the first mention of the intention to build a temple contains a reference to the authority and semiotization of the conceived project in a positive way: "The Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Army General Sergei Shoigu, was the first to make a donation from personal funds for the construction of the main temple of the Armed Forces.

On September 4, during a conference call with the participation of the leadership of the Armed Forces, the head of the military department announced the decision taken with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to create the main temple of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in honor of the Ascension of Christ" ^[6].

In this text, there are constructions using a specific subject and verb in the active voice: "the minister introduced", "the head of the military department announced". In the future, the construction of the temple was covered with the mention of donations, concrete results: more and more money was collected, more and more parts of the temple were erected.

In both cases, the inspirer of new events – both competitions and the construction of the temple – is directly the Minister of Defense, a reference to whose decision is explicitly mentioned by journalists. If the target audience of the texts are, first of all, the military personnel themselves, then an appeal to the highest authority – the senior in rank, the Minister of Defense of the state – implies a reference to the current hierarchy of ranks. A new object is entered into the information field as part of an order, which it is customary not to discuss, but to execute.

At the same time, in the texts dedicated to the temple, there is a reference to precedents, expressed not in the form of a joke or a pun (as in the coverage of the tank biathlon), but as a tribute to the memory of those who died in the Great Patriotic War: the publications explain the symbolism of the temple design. "the central drum of the temple with a diameter of 19.45 meters repeats the year of the end of the Great Patriotic War. On the territory of the complex there will be a memory gallery with a length of 1,418 steps – according to the number of days and nights of the war, in which 33 million photographs of war participants will be placed using micrography technology.

It is also planned that the height of the belfry will be 75 meters – in honor of the anniversary of the Victory, by which the construction of the temple is planned, the height of the small domes will be 14 meters 18 centimeters" ^[5].

Semiotization through reference to the events of the Great Patriotic War indicates a peculiar filling of the historical gap. Priests took part in the fighting secretly, many of them continued their ministry contrary to the position of the state: "in those Soviet anti-religious times, priests and deacons often performed their church duties virtually illegally. Moreover, if by chance such a person turned out to be drafted into the ranks of the Armed Forces. Well, the leadership of the Red Army had no ideological reason to advertise the participation of clergy in the fight against the Nazis. As a result, we now have only very scattered information about the exploits performed at the front and in the occupied territory by persons of spiritual rank" ^[2]. In itself, the appearance of a military temple, a military priest is not something unprecedented: priests of various denominations served in the army of the Russian Empire, temporary mobile temples were erected on the battlefield ^[9].

Thus, the strategy of introducing a new object into the information field in the discourse of military journalism includes, firstly, an appeal to the general apperceptive base, to the knowledge fund that the reader possesses. In some cases, the appeal goes through the nearest known concept (a fundamentally new sport involving tank crews is introduced through a reference to precedent texts with the word "tank"), in some cases, the semiotization of the phenomenon is based on the sum of knowledge about the history of the state. Further, when the object becomes already known and begins to acquire stable characteristics in the information field, journalists turn to typical ways of building an assessment through positive epithets. Notable for the discourse of military journalism is the widespread use of active common constructions and the absence of metaphorization of the object. Studies devoted to the journalistic style ^[3] distinguish metaphor as the main way of forming an assessment of an object or phenomenon, however, the specifics of the communicative situation and the target audience predetermine the use of words in the direct meaning.