LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PROTEST DISCOURSE AS A COMPONENT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC DISCOURSE
The article is written in line with the research of the discourse on the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of the work - to characterize the language of protest as a component of this discourse - is relevant due to the unprecedented situation and the little knowledge of the issue. The cognitive framework for the perception of restrictive measures taken by the state among the protesters is a “violation of basic values and freedoms of the individual”. The analysis of media texts from English-language Internet sites allows the authors to identify reactions to introducing a mask regime, vaccination, and lockdowns. A striking characteristic of the material is its negative evaluativity realized in imperative and emphatic constructions, neologisms, and metaphors. There is no dominant metaphor in the language of protest. Traditional metaphors are actively used, and new ones arise, with source domains united by the concept of “violence against a person, infringement of their rights and freedoms” or the reduction of a Human to the level of an animal; the lexeme acquires a new meaning due to a semantic shift. The extreme case of politicization of the situation of the spreading disease is the traditional and frequent appeal to the sphere of fascism. Today it can be argued about the active interaction of the protest discourse with the pandemic discourse and the formation of a protest component in the latter.