What is it about?
Imagine you have a set of building blocks, each representing concepts and ideas of reality. Now, imagine using these blocks to build a model that helps you understand and explain the world around you. This is similar to what we all do when we try to make sense of things—we construct mental models. These models are shaped by our experiences, the information we receive, and our beliefs. In this paper, I reconstruct mental models from Vladimir Putin's "Crimean" speech held in 2014 and uncover the ways in which Putin uses certain ideas and references to influence the audience's understanding of reality. It is like he is suggesting a particular way to assemble those building blocks in the minds of his listeners. By doing this, Putin is not just spreading his viewpoint but is trying to reshape a shared social cognition among his audience using ideologically loaded references articulated in the speech.
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Why is it important?
This article employs cognitive mapping to analyze Vladimir Putin's Crimean speech, marking a distinctive approach within the field of political linguistic analysis. It constructs mental maps by identifying key lexemes and their interconnections, shedding light on the ideological messages Putin aimed to convey. Grounded in cognitive science, this method offers insights into how speeches aim to influence public perception and discourse. The study gains further relevance from its context, providing a nuanced understanding of the ideological strategies preceding Russia's attack on Ukraine and contributing to the exploration of political communication and ideological analysis.
Perspectives
The onset of a full-scale war in February 2022 led me to examine Vladimir Putin's Crimean speech, which aimed to justify the annexation of Crimea, assert claims over the South-East regions of Ukraine as historically Russian territories, label Ukrainian authorities as Nazis, and accuse Western partners of violating international law. Driven by the goal to decode and understand the representation of reality Putin has been promoting since 2014, I developed a method capable of dissecting Putin’s ideological concepts, with the potential for application in broader ideological analyses. The mental models Putin introduced in the Crimean speech have since been deeply embedded in Russian politics and media, ultimately contributing to the 2022 war in Ukraine.
Olga Mennecke
University of Hildesheim
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The groundwork of Putin’s war, Journal of Language and Politics, August 2023, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/jlp.22110.men.
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