An open lecture by Olga Solopova, Doctor of Sciences (Philology), Professor of the Department of Linguistics and Translation Studies of the Institute of Linguistics and International Communications was held at the Faculty of Roman and German Philology of South Ural State University (National Research University) on December 2nd. The lecture was devoted to the topic of “Russia in a Metaphorical Mirror: Traditions and Innovations” and was organised as part of scientific cooperation between South Ural State University, Kuban State University and Pyatigorsk State University.
In the course of the lecture, Olga Solopova summarized the results of her many years of work in the field of theory and practice of synchronic and diachronic analysis of political metaphorics. She presented the methodology for studying political metaphors, taking into account the achievements of the Ural School of Political Linguistics. The specifics of working with digital archives, types of discourse fragmentation, the use of corpus linguistics tools to form a research corpus of texts, as well as the procedure for selecting metaphors from the formed corpus of texts were examined.
She also discussed the parameters of quantitative and qualitative analysis, which allows to draw conclusions about the stability or variability of metaphorical systems within the discourse of one country, about the universalism and variability of metaphorical models in political discourses of different countries during comparative analysis, as well as to record diachronic patterns in the evolution of individual metaphors, metaphorical models and metaphorical systems both within one discourse and in a comparative perspective.
In order to illustrate her conclusions, Olga Solopova cited the data of the studies conducted on the material of the discourses of the BRICS countries. The research study had been conducted at the expense of the grant of the Russian Science Foundation No. 24-18-00049 (read more).
The lecture was of great interest to students and teachers, gathered big audience and received positive feedback from the participants.