EUPHEMISTIC DESIGNATIONS OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE OLDER AGE SOCIAL GROUP IN MODERN JOURNALISTIC DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article discusses features of euphemistic designation of the elderly in the publications of modern media, including those of a political orientation, using the example of the lexeme veteran. The material for the study, conducted using the methods of semantic analysis, analysis of dictionary definitions, contextual analysis, the method of linguistic description, elements of the method of quantitative calculation, etc., was the media texts presented in the National Corpus of the Russian Language (non-fiction texts). It is noted that the lexeme veteran (most often in the combination veteran of labor), which has a positive connotation, is used as a euphemism to refer to the elderly and replaces the word pensioner which has a negative connotation in the texts of newspapers and magazines. Elderly, pensioners in modern journalistic and political discourse are increasingly called the veterans, which is especially clearly manifested in the functioning of the combination choir of veterans. The study has scientific novelty, since euphemisms denoting representatives of the older social group, in general, and the euphemism veteran, in particular, have not been sufficiently studied in modern linguistics. The conclusion is made about the demand for euphemisms based on age in modern journalistic and political discourse, which is associated with social factors, including an increase in the proportion of older people in society, the presence of age discrimination and the need to protect older people. The lexeme veteran as a euphemism is updated, in addition, due to the inevitable decrease in the number of officially recognized veterans and the expansion of the lexeme, which is a full-fledged component of the information space, of its meaning.