“Diplomatic” and “undiplomatic” in the genres of diplomatic discourse: based on metaphors of Russian foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov used during press conferences and interviews on the special military operation in Ukraine

The article presents the analysis of metaphors which go beyond the “diplomatic” speech used by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov in the genres of interviews and press conferences after the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. The relevance of the topic is determined by the fact that it is such transfers which accurately and vividly reflect the specific nature of Russia’s relations with the world community, primarily with the collective West, during this period. The aim of the work is to identify the linguocognitive and functional aspects of metaphorical transfers used by S. V. Lavrov in the texts under study. The research is based on 25 transcripts published from 24.02.22 to 16.06.22 on the official website mid.ru/ru/press_service/minister_speeches, press conferences (speeches and answers to questions) and interviews with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov. Basing on the complex methodology of semantic, discursive and linguocognitive analysis, the author proves that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, along with institutional transfers, actively uses metaphors which border on or go beyond the ”diplomatic”. With their help, S. V. Lavrov focuses on the negative assessment (official and personal – from ironic to angry) of the aggressive and provocative nature of such policy. This semantic and pragmatic dominant is reflected in the system of conceptual metaphors, where ”undiplomatic” transfers can be concentrated in one of the sections of the general linguistic cognitive matrix, occupy a dominant position in the implementation of the model, and also become a cognitive core involving transfers from different language models into its orbit.

genres of interviews, press conferences of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, expressive and evaluative conceptual metaphors