ZELENSKY’S COMMUNICATIVE STRATEGIES AGAINST “TERROR”

Alcina Pereira de Sousa

University of Madeira, Funchal & ULICES, Lisbon, Portugal

Olga Baptista Gonçalves

University of Évora; CEL-UÉ, Évora, Portugal

Abstract

War is spreading in many parts of the world, regardless of the geopolitical situation. We, as glocal citizens, are, nevertheless, consciously, or unconsciously, cast into a daily maelstrom of news ranging from loathing to empathy signalled in diverse discursive exchanges across media indebted to communication in crisis. This has led to the analysis of, for example, President Zelensky's addresses to a wide variety of interlocutors, seeking support against the so-called Russian invader. Rather than a purely interpretive claim, underlying much research in several strands related to discourse and pragmatics, the current ongoing research, of exploratory and principled interdisciplinary kind, is intended to draw on a pragmalinguistic and discursive theoretical framework supported by a lexico-metric approach to identify lexico-grammatical salient items of some of Zelensky’s communicative strategies against “terror”, in his own words. Therefore, this case study is meant to analyse a selection of 21 of his initial direct addresses (Feb. 2022 — March 2023), retrieved from the official site in its English version, to offer a quantitative basis for subsequent qualitative interpretation of Zelensky’s rhetorical endeavour allegedly to save Ukraine’s face. In this context, findings reveal that Zelensky, firmly speaking on behalf of the Ukrainians, does not offer extensive use of offensive words against the nation’s enemy, which may translate his effort to create ingroup relations to disempower the perpetrator.

Keywords: Discourse; Lexico-metric and pragmalinguistic approach; Facework; Zelensky; Communication in crisis

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How to cite this article: Sousa, A. P., & Gonçalves, O. B. (2025). Zelensky’s communicative strategies against “terror”. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 18(2), 141–167. https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2025.18.2.8

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